topic Re: Drawing not linked to original design file in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Drawing not linked to original design file

jmsalmeron1 — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 10:23:46 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have a drawing file tied to an old version of a design file. I'd like to know how to relink it so any further changes to the design file are reflected on the drawing.

Some days ago I created a drawing from a design. Then I kept working on the design file, did some changes to it, changed the exploded view component positions on the animation tab and changed the name to the animation stories among other things.

Now all these changes are not reflected on the drawing file. On the choose version menu on the top of the screen I cannot choose any further version after the one creating the original drawing... It is like it is linked to an old design file version...

I tried renaming the stories on the animation panel back to the names they originally had, in case that fixed it, but I had no luck.

Does anyone know how to fix this so I don't have to start all the drawing sheets fro scratch?

Thanks.

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

Drewpan — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 03:47:03 GMT

Hi,

This is one of the perils of breaking a link and the reason links exist in the first place.

Do you have a previous saved version with the link still in place? You might be able to load that version and do a

refresh on the linked file. It may mean you will have to re-create everything after that version point but it would

reinstate the link.

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

jmsalmeron1 — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:24:30 GMT

Thanks for answering.

What sequence exactly breaks that link or reference you mentioned?
Because my assumption was that every file has unique ID and the name you give it to it is nothing but an alias. So changing the name would not affect such references.
If that's not the case, maybe having a message to warn you about existing references tied to drawings would be a good idea to avoid this from happening.

About your suggestion, unfortunately it'd take lonker to redo the design changes than to redo the drawings from scratch. Just annoying to have to do them again.

Regards,
Juan

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

carl.j.barker — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:39:57 GMT

You are correct that changing the Design name does not break any links.

I have noticed when saving a design and then quickly updating a drawing can fail. Seems the update tries to do it stuff before the save is complete, Usually resaving the design, waiting a min and then update the drawing will fix this.

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

Drewpan — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 11:04:00 GMT

Hi,

Did you do a refresh after you did all of these design changes? Fusion should update the drawings automagically

when you change the design. If you did animations it should also have updated them. I was talking about files

you had imported into your design from elsewhere but that does not seem to be the case. An explanation of what

happens with external files is below.

If you imported a part or assembly from another file, yours or someone else's, you will see a little icon that looks

like a chain. It isn't IN your file, it is linked to the original file. Any changes made to the original file will be transferred

to your file when you do a refresh. This is useful when designing something complex with different designers or

teams. The example I often use is an aircraft. There is some Standard for the actual joint between say the fuselage

and the wings, as long as your fuselage team maintains that standard and the wing team maintains that standard

then the two will always fit together. Your fuselage team does not care what the wing actually looks like, only that

it fits your design and because your team designs fuselages and not wings, the team imports the wing as a linked

file. Every time you load the full design, the wing file is refreshed to the latest version the wing team has. The actual

wing may look different today than it did yesterday because the wing team changed it due to new test data. This works

fine but there may be a reason that you need to unlink the wing design so you "break the link" and so you will no

longer get updates from the wing team. Your design will now use the wing that was current when you broke the link.

The only way you can "re-link" the file is to load an earlier version of your file when the linked file was still linked, or

you can import another copy of the linked file. The second way will leave the unlinked version in your file that often

clutters up the design and just wastes space and calculation resources. Fusion does heaps of calculations on the fly

and will sometimes recalculate everything including the now unused bit.

Cheers

Andrew

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

HughesTooling — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:23:38 GMT

All sounds a bit strange! Don't suppose you created a milestone? Also what happens if you right click the base view in the browser and select Open? Does it open an old version of the file you've edited? Don't suppose you used Save As to create a new version of the original design?

Is there a flag on the top toolbar meaning you're using a milestone?

Re: Drawing not linked to original design file

HughesTooling — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:28:04 GMT

Also in the data panel if you expand the details of the design can you open the drawing from there?