About Alignment Manager
RevWorks supports the creation of part coordinate systems to align your part within SOLIDWORKS with a utility called Alignment Manager™. With Alignment Manager you can:
Align you part to the SOLIDWORKS origin and either of the Front, Top, and Right planes
Create multiple, reproducible part alignments
Create alignments using a variety of techniques
Add, modify, and delete alignments
Switch between multiple alignments during a digitizing session, even while actively digitizing
Create Leap Sets that allow you to maintain a single alignment coordinate system while moving your digitizer to various stations around a larger part
Alignment manager is supported for all digitizing devices to which RevWorks interfaces. Once an alignment is created for a part, the data you collect is transformed from device coordinates into SOLIDWORKS model coordinates such that the chosen part origin aligns with the SOLIDWORKS origin and the chosen primary plane. Raw data and the features derived from it are automatically positioned within the CAD model in the desired orientation.
Once created, alignments may be turned on and off as needed. You can switch between multiple alignments, even when actively digitizing. This option provides great flexibility for combining feature data from multiple parts into one composite model. When alignments are off, collected data is added to SOLIDWORKS in device coordinates.
Alignment Manager provides several options for creating datums that use data collected from the subject part or jig used to position the part that describe a unique alignment. There are three types of datums that provide varying degrees of flexibility for created alignments. 3-Point and 3-Sphere datums provide a quick means for defining alignments using a simple set, but have limitations for setting a specific part origin. Custom datums provide many options for combining part features to create a datum with a specific origin, but require more data to be collected.
When working with parts that are larger than the working area of you digitizer, datums also allow you to reposition the part or digitizer and recreate the part alignment by re-measuring the datum as long as you can reach and re-measure the features originally used to define the datum. When working with even larger parts where one set of datum features cannot be reached from all positions where you want to measure the part, Alignment Manager provides the ability to create Leap Sets that allow you to define multiple digitizer Stations and create measured relationships between them. This option allows you to create part alignments that allow you to measure much larger parts with the limitation that accuracy decreases with the number of leaps made.
To better familiarize yourself with Alignment Manager, read the following topics: