Tips for Large Assembly Management

[innovatenate]

There are a few techniques that you can use to manage larger assemblies. Thanks to @Phil.E for the content of this tip!

VIEW

Section view analysis

Use a section view analysis to provide visual access with one click to an interior view.

Named views

Set named views to return to an area of focus with one click.

 

SELECTION

Selection sets

Create a selection set, this will be used to toggle visibility of many parts at once

When needed, pick the selection set.

Then right click in space to use Show/Hide

Results

Selection filter

Use this to help with window selections. Filter for Components, for instance.

Select Through

Use the Select Through setting to ensure that window selections can pick the hidden components.

BROWSER

Sub-Assemblies

Create logical subassemblies. The visibility can be toggled more easily.

Use in conjunction with Rigid Group. (see below)

Activate Component

Create all sketches, bodies, and components inside the subcomponent, rather than moving them there later.

The timeline will only show the items for the active component.

Isolate

Use Isolate to turn off visibility of all other components.

GROUP

Rigid Group

For imported subassemblies that are static. This will “glue” together sub-assemblies that have no motion required.

Include all child components.

You can now Move the parent component and the child components will go with it.

Timeline Group

Group timeline items into logical, and collapsible nodes

Enjoy!

Thanks,

[TrippyLighting]

Very helpful post!

I can see I've violated some best practices already when creating  the assembly for this lamp.

All my sketches are on the top level and you mention it is better to activate a component before modifying it as sketches then will be created in/under that component.

As I cannot do that anymore, how do I move a sketch from the top level into a component in a subassembly ?

I tried simply dragging it onto the component but nothing happened that did not work.

[O.Tan]

I don't think you'll be able to move a sketch into a subassembly at the moment.

[TrippyLighting]

Nope, you cannot move any referenced sketch into a component. I've added this weeks ago into the Idea Station. When X-Refs come out in April this would be nice to have. If you forgot to activate the component before you added another sketch it'll be lost on exporting the component as an external part.

With no other alternative than having to redesign the part.

[O.Tan]

Aaah, now I know why a part I inserted cannot be "edited" because there's no sketch. This is in parametric mode. If I change to direct, I'll just need to use the move face command 🙂