Need thoughts on a constraint workflow.

[CadUser46]

Right, been meaning to post this for a while to see what everyone else does.

Assuming everyone works with their origin planes set to off in the templates.  I very often want to constrain origin plane to origin plane for different components in assemblies.  These are quite often multiple instances of the same component to other multiple instances of other components so the filenames appear multiple times in the model browser.  Assuming these are items i cannot pattern.

Without finding the two parts first in the grphics window, expanding open the desired components in the browser then executing the constrain tool and hovering over the planes, is there an easier way to just constrain the origin planes together?

I often wish i could just start the constraint tool and hover over the part i want in the graphics window until it finds the origin plane so i could bypass the model browser steps altogether.  It doesnt even find it when i use the select other tool.  I wish autodesk could improve the constraint workflow.

Am i missing something obvious?

Cheers

[mflayler2]

You are not really missing anything.  That is the normal way to do it, since not everyone does this (more people should) there is an addin on Kent Keller's site for this.

http://kwikmcad.com/icode/32bit/32BitAddins.aspx

He has some other similar tools there too you might want to try.  The 32 bit addins are free the 64 bit ones will cost you a little cash (very little).

[karthur1]

Y not use the ground and root at origin tool.maybe a bonus tool in 2010... Don't remember.

[CadUser46]

Sorry I see now re-reading my post I forgot to clarify one thing. I only mean to constrain 2out of the 3 origin planes leaving the third constraint to,for example mate two blocks together. Another example would be plating in the end of a piece of box section where the box section template is itself centred across it's own origin axes.
Is Kent's tool not already part of the subscription add-in in 2010? I'm not looking to attach them at origin merely a slicker way to align two axes.

[karthur1]

Kents tool is an addin. Not part of the subscription. The ground and root at origin tool will work like u want. You will just have to unground and suppress whichever plane u want to move. It just uses mate constraints on the origin planes.