Greetings All,
I'm trying to define a sketched symbol to use in IDWs of piping plans that would serve as a "Line Number Tag". The Assembly being represented on the drawings consists of an overall assembly containing many "sub" piping assemblies. It's easy enough to populate an iProperties field of the entire pipe assembly (for example- Title or Subject under the Summary tab) with a value that represents the line number of that piping assembly (4"-PG-230-D) for example. Then, it's also easy to define a symbol with text that is designated to retrieve any Model Property such as Title or Subject and populate the symbol text with that value, but HERE"S WHERE THE PROBLEM COMES IN... While in the IDW, when I attempt to tag one of the many individual piping assemblies, I can't make it recognize the entire assembly, it "by default" will tag whatever INDIVIDUAL PART of the assembly I happen to click, therefore populating the tag with info extracted from an ELBOW or a FLANGE, and not the entire pipe run assembly. Any suggestions? We DO NOT use the Auto-Route tools for rigid pipe. Each piping assembly is built with bare-bone out of the box constraints. Using Professional 2011. Many thanks!!
Hi! I may not follow the workflow correctly. But, I am able to insert a sketch symbol pointing to an assembly by doing the following.
Pre-select the view contain the assembly.
Insert the sketch symbol.
I am using a very simple assembly with two parts. By doing the above workflow, I am able to insert a sketch symbol with the assembly's part number.
Thanks!
Hi Johnson,
I think what kbenoit10 is looking for and me too, is what I have shown in attached picture.
I want to pull the property from the IAM, not the IPT inside the IAM.
If you are able to do this, it must be a new capability of 2012
I'm still on 2010.
Mike
Mike,
Do you mind posting the Inventor files here or sending them to me? I want to double-check if I follow the workflow correctly. Like you said it is possible it is something new to R2012 or I am talking about something different.
Thanks!
Johnson - Thanks for the reply. I think you have a drawing view with only one assembly in it. I have a drawing view with many assemblies in it. Also, I can pre-select the view before inserting symbol, but as soon as I go to Symbols button in Drawing Annotation Panel, the view is no longer selected. Therefore, I still cannot make it work. Thanks anyway.
Thanks Mike - Yes that is what I want to do, pull a property (by way of a custom symbol) from an assembly, not a part within the assembly. Thanks for helping me clarify that! I even tried messing around with the Select options such as part priority, feature priority, etc. to force it to recognize the WHOLE assembly when placing the symbol on it - but to no avail. On large process facilities, I may have 200-300 plus individual piping runs (assemblies) on a drawing, and for now I have to hover the mouse in the browser bar until I see the pipe run highlight, read the name of the pipe run, then manually type it into the tag - TAKES FOREVER!!!!
I was able to reproduce Johnson's method, although it's not what I was trying to do.
It pulls the properties from the assembly that contains the parts or other sub-assemblies without a leader.
As soon as you attach the leader to something, it pulls the properties from the part, not the sub-assy.
I saw a couple examples of VBA code in the Help file, but it'll be a while before I can make sense out of them and put something together, if at all.
Mike
I have come up with somewhat of a workaround,
I created a new balloon style and set the properrties to match the properties in my sketch symbol.
I inserted a balloon and changed it to use the new custom style in the balloon dropdown list.
I edited the balloon and selected Override Shape and selected my sketch symbol.
Unfortunately, if you have expanded your BOM it works just like any other balloon it drills down to the next component.
Mike
Hi
This functionality does not come standard with Inventor.
You will need to write some code to get what your after.