Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I have an assembly of a big tank with a ladder going up the side, and
handrails around the top. When I built it I knew the orientation of the
ladder would be changing...

<> this stuff is going yet. Just put it on somewhere, and we'll let him
redline the first draft....">

...so I modeled the whole thing skeletal, with one driving dimension to
control the position of the entire ladder assembly, and the opening in the
handrails at the top. I put it at 45 degrees just because. When the
markups came back, the orientation of the ladder was redlined to 300
degrees. No problem; I changed the one angle dim, and the whole shebang
swung around beautifully. Then I opened the drawing.

When you change the position of a part in a skeletal assembly, the part
totally redraws in the new position even if it doesn't really change its
geometry at all. It 'moves' in relation to its own origin geometry even
within the single part file. In this case the move (255 degrees around a
R76" arc) was considerable. In the detail views for the ladder, even though
they were pulled from the ladder sub assembly, the position and orientation
jump was too much for the annotations to follow, and the views imploded.

Moral: If you have a sub assembly that you're going to be detailing, and
you expect it may change position radically within the main assembly,
consider giving it its own master sketch.

Cheers,
Walt

[#2]

Walt,

Would it have kept the annotations, if you did small incremental changes
to get it where you wanted to?

Aaron

Walt Jaquith wrote:

> I have an assembly of a big tank with a ladder going up the side, and
> handrails around the top. When I built it I knew the orientation of the
> ladder would be changing...
>
> <> > this stuff is going yet. Just put it on somewhere, and we'll let him
> redline the first draft....">
>
> ...so I modeled the whole thing skeletal, with one driving dimension to
> control the position of the entire ladder assembly, and the opening in the
> handrails at the top. I put it at 45 degrees just because. When the
> markups came back, the orientation of the ladder was redlined to 300
> degrees. No problem; I changed the one angle dim, and the whole shebang
> swung around beautifully. Then I opened the drawing.
>
> When you change the position of a part in a skeletal assembly, the part
> totally redraws in the new position even if it doesn't really change its
> geometry at all. It 'moves' in relation to its own origin geometry even
> within the single part file. In this case the move (255 degrees around a
> R76" arc) was considerable. In the detail views for the ladder, even though
> they were pulled from the ladder sub assembly, the position and orientation
> jump was too much for the annotations to follow, and the views imploded.
>
> Moral: If you have a sub assembly that you're going to be detailing, and
> you expect it may change position radically within the main assembly,
> consider giving it its own master sketch.
>
> Cheers,
> Walt
>
>
>

[#3]

I'm not sure; they might have. The base view of that set was pulled off the
side face of the ladder rail. It's kind of odd what happened, because the
views themselves followed the assembly fine, and are still just as they
should be. The annotations have all gone off to la-la land. They're
perfectly positioned off in space, not orphaned, just attached to nothing.
That seems like a glitch to me, not just Inventor getting honestly confused
because Walt did something really weird.

I sent the files into my VAR; Autodesk should be getting them. We'll see
what happens.

WJ

"Aaron R. Friedman" wrote in message
news:3DF6232C.2080000@xprt.net...
> Walt,
>
> Would it have kept the annotations, if you did small incremental changes
> to get it where you wanted to?
>
> Aaron
>
> Walt Jaquith wrote:
>
> > I have an assembly of a big tank with a ladder going up the side, and
> > handrails around the top. When I built it I knew the orientation of the
> > ladder would be changing...
> >
> > <> of
> > this stuff is going yet. Just put it on somewhere, and we'll let him
> > redline the first draft....">
> >
> > ...so I modeled the whole thing skeletal, with one driving dimension to
> > control the position of the entire ladder assembly, and the opening in
the
> > handrails at the top. I put it at 45 degrees just because. When the
> > markups came back, the orientation of the ladder was redlined to 300
> > degrees. No problem; I changed the one angle dim, and the whole shebang
> > swung around beautifully. Then I opened the drawing.
> >
> > When you change the position of a part in a skeletal assembly, the part
> > totally redraws in the new position even if it doesn't really change its
> > geometry at all. It 'moves' in relation to its own origin geometry even
> > within the single part file. In this case the move (255 degrees around
a
> > R76" arc) was considerable. In the detail views for the ladder, even
though
> > they were pulled from the ladder sub assembly, the position and
orientation
> > jump was too much for the annotations to follow, and the views imploded.
> >
> > Moral: If you have a sub assembly that you're going to be detailing,
and
> > you expect it may change position radically within the main assembly,
> > consider giving it its own master sketch.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Walt
> >
> >
> >
>