Assigning material to faces at the assembly level

[kwilson_design]

I would love for the day that ADSK allows users to assign materials to faces and surfaces at the assembly level. I know this can be done at the part level but this practice has it's flaws when trying to have an accurate BOM and Parts List as well as other "issues" when using that method.

Take a plated part for example. At my company our structure of a plated part would look something like this:

raw material - machined part - plated part. I'm sure it;s the same at many other manufacturing companies.

Typically we will have a material spec sheet for the raw material. We will have an IPT and INV dwg of the machined part file. We then place the machine part (IPT) into an IAM to become the plated part. We do this workflow because if we chance any geometry to the child (machined part) it will update and reflect a tthe parent IAM  level (plated part). This also keeps out parts list and BOM structure in-line with our MRP system. So this workflow works great for us.

However there is an issue doing it that way. Inventor doesn't allow to assign materials to faces at the assembly level which seems just wrong to me. I kind of understand why they did that but it sure would be nice to be able to assign materials to faces in IAM files. Yes I know I could acheive this by using Derived Component but then my parts list and BOM structure does not reflect the base part. It only reflects the Derived part in my Parts List. Is there a way I'm missing to alter or change the Parts List to pull info of title, part number, etc of the base part rather than the Derived?

Ideally I'd just love for one day INV to allow material assignment to faces and surfaces in the assembly level. It looks rather strange on our drawings where we do a section view of the top l;evel assembly and see parts that are technically made of brass but look to be made of chrome or zinc plating instead because of how we had to assign material to the entire body of the component at the assembly level.

Any rants, tiops or thoughts are welcome!

-Kenny

[swalton]

I don't see how to asign a material in an assembly that is not reflected in the part file.  IV2011.

I do see how to assign a color overide to a part or a set of faces of a part in an assembly.  Is that what you are talking about?

Why not put the plating spec on the part print?  Do your unplated and plated parts require different part numbers for inventory? Or do you have several plating options for each part?

I can see how the derived part workflow could hide the true BOM structure from IV.  We use BOMs generated from Vault that don't hide the parent of a derived part. 

[kwilson_design]

Keep in mind I'm talking about the color styles of materials, not physical material properties. IE: machined brass -> zinc plated brass. Not machined brass -> stainless steel. Hope that clears it up.

I don't want my plated finish at the assembly level to reflect down to the machined (base) part. If that was the case then I'd just make another IPT of the same geomtry of the machined part and just assign materials to those faces I want to be represented as plated or painted. However that would mean having to keep up with two files; if the geometry changes on the machined part then I'd have to make a mental reminder and go change that same geometry on the plated IPT. That is a disaster in the making doing it that way.

What I'm asking about (or really dreaming about) is that someday ADSK will allow users to assign materials to surfaces and faces, no matter if it's an assembly or ipt. The workflow we use is nothing out of the ordinary in real world manufacturing and BOM structure. It's just that INV won't allow me to mimick this because you can only assign color material properties to the entire component. This does not work well for painted or plated parts because of section views making your part look like it's something it's not.

Kenny

[swalton]

You can assign different colors to different faces in an ipt now.

You want to do the same thing in an iam.  I agree that you can't do that now. 

It seems like a bug if the idw section is grabbing the hatch props from the color overides in the iam, not the physical material setting in the ipt.  Is that what you are seeing?

[kwilson_design]

No I am not saying or asking about assigning different color materials to an ipt file. This I'm very much aware of. Inventor has always treated assembly color materials as "coloring" the entire solid model (inside and outside). Thankfully the improved the disconnect of associativity between parent/child models when applying color style materials with 2011. In the past the associativty would sometimes change even the child ipt file if you added a different color style material it at the assembly level., Inventor needs to allow the user to be able to assign different color style materials to faces and surfaces at the assembly level, not just the part level.

It is not so much the IDW but in general that if you do a section view (either in an IDW, DWG or IAM file) the file will not represent correctly to how the part would look in reality due to the limitation of not being able to assign materials to faces or surfaces at the assembly level.

In the manufacturing world a plating or painting process to a machined part gets a new part number, description (usually including plated or paint color in the name), etc. This would be structured in an MRP system in the Bill Of Materials as the plated, painted, etc part would be the parent of the machined part, which would be the child of course. Trying to do the same in Inventor is not possible IF you want your models to look correctly AND be structured correctly in the Parts List and BOM. At least not in a way that I can figure out. If anyone knows of a way please explain.

I'm also aware a Derived Component can acheive the same "look" I'm after but it doesn't seem to strutcure correctly in INV at the Parts List. Rather than the Derived Component reference the child ion the Parts List, it references itself instead. If anyone knows of a setting or something I'm missing in the BOM Editor or Parts List Editor to make a Derived Component reference its base component in the Parts List then please let me know. I'm not opposed to using a Derived Component as it acheives everything we're after in terms of looking correctly as well as being associative to geometry updates just like an iam file is. It's just the Parts List doesn't display the base component.

Please see attached for illustrative explanation.....

-Kenny 

[mcgyvr]

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@kwilson_design wrote:

In the manufacturing world a plating or painting process to a machined part gets a new part number, description (usually including plated or paint color in the name), etc.

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Not necessarily.. A plating/painting process may simply be another step in the routing of a part. Step 1-machine part, Step 2-plate part.

I would ONLY assign a new part number for the plating process if we were stocking the machined part and then applying multiple finishes like 50% of the parts get zinc plated, 50% tin plated.

Is there more to your problem other than the fact you just can't see the base metal when you do a shaded section view?

If not I'd just say you are a bit too ****

[kwilson_design]

Yes I'm aware that workflow doesn't apply to every manufacturing company out there. That should be a given. But I find it hard to imagine I'm standing out on a skinny limb and this not be somewhat annoying to other companies out there who work in similar workflow's with their respective manufacturing plant. We manufacture but do not plate in house. Therefore in order to track the parts and assemblies, things get new parts numbers as the sequence moves down the line if you will. I am sure this applies to many places out there.

It would be foolish IMHO to have several IPT's of the same geometry but different finishes and expect that workflow to be efficient, reliable and work with BOM's of MRP's and the PL of INV. But hey if that's what people prefer to do then more power to them. That's just a recipe of disaster waiting to unfold as I've experienced that workflow firsthand for several years. I refuse to go back down that road.

But back to the subject. Is there more to my problem? No....other than the fact that INV does not work correctly with it's own BOM I would say yes, that it should be an issue for ADSK to address. What you're trying to assume is that I'm overly **** (or whatever your censored word meant) when in reality what INV is forcing its users to do is IF they want CORRECT models (visually, BOM, structure, etc) is that they must "fudge" with redundant ipt models to represent finishes or base components. This does not sound anything like a company that prides itself as having a firm hand in the manufacturing industry for tools to model and design "virtual real-world" products. 

Hopefully ADSK will listen and apply this basic feature in future releases. Doing a Google search anyone can find this has been asked going back several years and has been on peoples' wish lists. I know its near the top of mine as it IS important to my company to have CORRECT parts, in ever sense of the word.

-Kenny

[harco]

Mikey & Greg in our office were at a dealer presentation of 2012.

They told us about various new features, one being the ability to set view reps at the part level.

So this may be a way to solve your problem.

Other than that you may need to derive a part to represent the material you add when plating (to be accurate this is what you are doing) to get the true representation then you can add the part and plating part to a new assembly and give it a new part number.

A long shot would be to make a weldment and cover the surface with weld/plating, I don't even know if this would work.

[mcgyvr]

harco,

His ONLY problem is that section views show the color that is assigned to the part through the whole section.

His wish is that when he does a section view it shows the color assigned to the parts base metal in the middle and then the color he assigned to the part at the assembly level to just be the outer skin color.

I think if I had this problem and it bugged me that much I would make my part, derive it to a surface, then thicken that surface and apply the plating color to the newly thickened surface. Then make an assembly of the part and the thickened surface. Now a section view will do what he wants.. But as he has already pointed out its too much work.. and i agree. But I also see NO need to ever use shaded views for machined parts so I don't have his problem.

[harco]

mcgyvr,

I agree with what you're saying because we do a fair bit of manufactured parts which are then plated and we just use one part number with a plating route.

It's all just zinc plate on steel so not to bothered what it looks like inside.

I was just trying to come up with ideas that may get Kenny what he seems to require for his purposes.

The best solution would probably be material description as text saying plated brass.

Drawings tend to be better used to how to assemble and in which position rather than what it's made of.

Your surface and assembly idea was what I was pointing to also and if done properly should be fully parametric with easy updates if required.

Also give 3 part numbers if needed raw -machined-plated.

[kwilson_design]

Bumping my old thread to the top to see if anyone else has a better suggestion a year later.

I'm not concerned with whether its acceptable to have shaded machined part drawings. That's irrelevant IMO and really highlights 'dumbing down' our drawings just so that it wouldn't show a shaded view. Seems it is shorting what inventor has to offer but that's really for another topic entirely.

I have tried using the View Rep method at the part file. What I've found is that I can set up my part file to have several view reps of different paint combinations. The interior feature is assigned the raw material color. In this case we'll say a pressure vessel or cylinder where the outside is painted red and the inside is not to have any paint (raw steel material). When creating a new assembly file and then place in the part file with the view reps it will color the ENTIRE model (inside and out) of that view rep (red, blue, etc). So this really is no different than what Inventor was limited to before when "painting" parts at the assembly level.

When trying to use the derive part method that works.....except when it comes to using that derived part in an assembly and then creating a drawing of the 'assembly' (derived part acting as a assembly process wor-around). For whatever reason I can never get my Parts List on the drawing to reflect the BASE part. Instead it always references the new derived part which is what I don't need. Any ideas how I can change the Parts List to show the base part rather than the derived part?

Creating a new "skin" model from a thicken surface of the base part is no what I would consider a good method for my needs. I have zero interest in getting my part so accurate that I'm actually modeling in the paint or plating thickness, regardless if its associative or not. I wuold have tens of thousands of these "skinned" parts in my Vault and I would have to keep up with their properties and revisions. There has to be a better way.

It just seems logical that Autodesk would allow its users to "paint or plate" faces and surfaces at the assembly level. I see no reason why we have to be denied the ability to do so.

[Teamnoidea]

Have autodesk fixed this issue yet?

I never had this problem in Solid edge or Solid works.

I am looking at creating a lot of redundant unnecessary derived parts to show the paint and marking on the second sheet of a fabricated assembly.

[kwilson_design]

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@Teamnoidea wrote:

Have autodesk fixed this issue yet?

I never had this problem in Solid edge or Solid works.

I am looking at creating a lot of redundant unnecessary derived parts to show the paint and marking on the second sheet of a fabricated assembly.

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Nope they still only allow for Component Priority selection when "painting" parts in an assembly.

Autodesk, we would also like Face Priority selection on parts as a possibility when it comes to assigning appearances at the assembly level. Please add this capability. I'm not sure if I created an Idea Station post on this or if someone else has but I'll look into it and post one with screen shots explaining reasons why some people would like this feature.

Welcome to the forums BTW.

[kwilson_design]

Ok I've done some searching and there are a few posts on this in the Idea Station thankfully. This one seems to be the main one Autodesk has issued an "Accepted" status response. Please go here and give Kudos to get this feature added! http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/Need-ability-to-add-Color-texture-to-machined-sur...

Here is the response I posted in that thread. I think it sums it up.

I would also like to see this added. Not only for in the Machining Environment but across the entire assembly environment. We paint our sub-assemblies in-house and we plug our cylinders so that no paint gets inside of them. Obviously the way it is now section and isometric views look horrible and not accurate. Please add this simple yet highly effective functionality so that our assemblies can further match real-world workflows. There shouldn'ty be any reason I should have to create a derived "paint layer" and constrain that to my assembly just so my final product looks correct. Just allow us the ability to paint faces at the assembly level, we beg you!

When you select Component Priority Selection....

When you select Face Selection...

No Appearances available when using Face Selection..

This is all we're asking for at the Assembly level....

Because we could go from this...

To this....

[iMaJiNe_Designs]

I'm in the same boat; but I need to add a knurled face to a valve stem cap part in an assembly.  The knurling looks great at the part level; but it doesn't follow along at the assembly level after I apply a paint color.  Yet the thread map that Inventor uses to illustrate threads comes through just fine, so it should be possible for users to do the same at the face level in an assembly.

In my case, I'm illustrating a truck wheel and tire assembly.  The main parts of the wheel are steel, the valve stem is brass, and the tire is rubber.  Please see attachments.  These are image exports instead of renderings via Inventor Studio.  I chose image export as it illustrated the knurling the best.

Of course I could export my assembly to 3DS MAX and finish it there; but that's a royal PITA too, especially if changes are made.

I'm using Inventor 2015.

Maybe if Autodesk would quit screwing around changing the user interface every year they could add a useful function such as the one we are discussing.

[kwilson_design]

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@mjncad wrote:

I'm in the same boat; but I need to add a knurled face to a valve stem cap part in an assembly.  The knurling looks great at the part level; but it doesn't follow along at the assembly level after I apply a paint color.  Yet the thread map that Inventor uses to illustrate threads comes through just fine, so it should be possible for users to do the same at the face level in an assembly.

In my case, I'm illustrating a truck wheel and tire assembly.  The main parts of the wheel are steel, the valve stem is brass, and the tire is rubber.  Please see attachments.  These are image exports instead of renderings via Inventor Studio.  I chose image export as it illustrated the knurling the best.

Of course I could export my assembly to 3DS MAX and finish it there; but that's a royal PITA too, especially if changes are made.

I'm using Inventor 2015.

Maybe if Autodesk would quit screwing around changing the user interface every year they could add a useful function such as the one we are discussing.

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Hi mjncad,

Please help by giving kudos to this idea so that we can get more exposure to Autodesk http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/Need-ability-to-add-Color-texture-to-machined-sur.... I totally agree we should be able to paint surface and faces at the assembly level and not just the whole part.

[iMaJiNe_Designs]

I also just discovered that welds don't render in Inventor Studio.