TubeCAD's 3-D BLOCKUP Feature

Quickly turn your layouts into 3-D gauges with TubeCAD Blockup Labels.

(This page describes the capabilities of TubeCAD 5.8 Revision Q2 and higher.)

How does TubeCAD BLOCKUP help tube fabricators?

TubeCAD uses the the BLOCKUP feature to allow users to build quick 3-D gauges from a TubeCAD layout.

BLOCKUP LABELS mark locations along a tube shape where height gauges or blocks can be placed to create a quick 3-D gauge.

Review the following images to get a better understanding of this powerful TubeCAD feature.  

SIMPLE BLOCKUP LAYOUT

This is a simple TubeCAD Blockup example. There is one BLOCKUP LABEL per straight along any view in TubeCAD. Each label's position defaults to the center of the straight.

Note that the blockup DISTANCES on the straights that are not true are set to nominal values. TubeCAD allows you to do this very easily by sliding the BLOCKUP LABELS along the 3-D bottom edge of the tube by adjusting the BLOCKUP OFFSET values.

EACH VIEW HAS INDEPENDENT BLOCKUP CONTROL

BLOCKUP LABELS are controlled independently in each view. In this layout, only two views show blockup labels, each with their own base plane and blockup offset values (See the previous image to read about blockup offset values).

TUBECAD BLOCKUP IN AUTOCAD

This shows BLOCKUP LABELS in a 3-D AutoCAD drawing. This is the PLAN view.

NON-PLAN VIEW POINT OF A BLOCKUP LAYOUT

BLOCKUP LABELS are true 3-D entities in a TubeCAD layout. As you can see in this image, the blockup labels follow the bottom of the OD in 3-D space.

Blockup labels include a scribe line and a point entity in the middle of the line. These 3-D entities can be directly referenced or "snapped to" by other entities inside general CAD packages like AutoCAD.

ADJUSTING BLOCKUPS WITH NON-NOMINAL HEIGHT VALUES

The image below shows BLOCKUP LABELS with their default position along the straights. The default position of the labels usually result in non-nominal blockup distances.

For example, blockup label B7 has a value of 94.765.

In order to make the blockup feature useful for tube fabrication, it is important to allow the adjustment of the blockup labels to places where they will show specific distances to the base plane. Often fabricators will use height blocks that are preset to nominal values. This allows a TubeCAD layout to conform to those preset heights.

TUBECAD CALCULATES THE ADJUSTMENT TO NOMINAL HEIGHT VALUES

The image below represents blockup labels with new positions along the straights that show nominal height values.

Compare the image below to the previous image. You will see that B7 is now 95.000 - a nominal distance to the base plane.

Using this powerful feature, the user never has to guess where the blockup label is moved to in order to find a specific nominal height. TubeCAD calculates the blockup offset location, then slides the blockup label to the new location automatically.

SAMPLE TUBECAD LAYOUT IMAGES WITH BLOCKUP LABELS