Welding Design > Welding Design > Changing Welding Features > Converting > About Converting Welding Geometry Types
About Converting Welding Geometry Types
Weld features and edge preparation features maintain all the necessary definitions and parameters, regardless of the geometry used to represent them. Therefore you can convert between light and solid edge preparations, or light, surface, and solid welds, for design and manufacturing purposes. Use one of these methods:
On the Welding tab, click Convert to open the Convert Welds dialog box. Select and convert multiple weld and edge preparation features, along with any dependent features (children), to a different geometry representation.
Right-click an edge preparation or weld feature in the Model Tree and choose Convert to from the shortcut menu.
In the Edge Preparation dialog box, under Element, select Geom Type and change the geometry representation of the selected feature.
On any Welding feature tab, click the Options tab, and under Weld geometry type select a different geometry representation.
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If a weld feature references edge preparation geometry, then the weld feature could lose its references when you convert the edge preparation, and the weld feature will fail.
To prevent failure of the weld feature, create welds using the user-defined lightweight weld trajectory option and not the automatic calculated lightweight weld trajectory option.
Guidelines for Converting Solid and Light Edge Preparations
When converting solid and light edge preparations, the guidelines in the following table are helpful:
Use Case
Guideline
Explanation
Solid edge preparation without children
Convert the edge preparation to light.
Use when converting to the light edge preparation. If you convert back to the solid geometry, all solid references are maintained.
Solid edge preparation with a surface weld
Convert the edge preparation to light and either freeze the weld or also convert it to light.
If you reference a surface weld to a solid edge preparation, and subsequently convert the solid edge preparation to a light edge preparation, you should also convert the surface weld to a light weld.
Solid edge preparation with a light weld
Convert the edge preparation to light and keep the light weld.
The light weld can stay the same, as it inherits the references of the new light edge preparation.
Light edge preparation without children
Convert the edge preparation to solid.
When converting to solid geometry, the stored parameters for the solid automatically create the geometry in your design. If you convert to the light geometry, all solid references are maintained.
Light edge preparation with a light weld
Convert the edge preparation to solid, and either freeze the weld or also convert it to solid.
With a solid edge preparation, the light weld should be converted and its references changed to solid geometry.
Light edge preparation with a surface weld
Convert the edge preparation to solid and keep the surface weld.
When light edge preparation is converted to solid edge preparation, the appropriate (alternate) references are provided, and any children of the feature are frozen.