Bug coping sketch between documents.

[HughesTooling]

I have a tips thread demonstrating how to copy sketches between documents, @I_B_Jones contacted me to say there's a problem if the sketch uses parameters as they're not copied with the sketch. 

Here's a screencast, first it shows the sketch problem, then a problem I've run into a few times, if you start a sketch and drag it into a component all seems ok until you copy the component to another document. The problem is the sketch references one of the document origin planes and when copied the reference is lost.

Mark

[Phil.E]

@HughesTooling

Thanks for posting.

To be clear, what is exactly the bug in your opinion? 

When pasting a sketch to a new document, the sketch will be necessarily missing a reference. That's why you can redefine a sketch reference plane. Do you consider it a bug that the sketch can't find the origin plane in the new document and attach to it?

Or is the bug that copied sketches lose the parameter references. I'm guessing it's this, but if you could clarify it would help.

Thanks,

[HughesTooling]

Sorry I shouldn't have put both problems in one post really.

The bigger problem is coping a sketch with user parameters, not sure what the best way of dealing with this would be. Treat it like a component and add the parameter with a number added so there's no conflict if a parameter with that name exists already or only create a new parameter if it's not in the document already. 

So the options are, 

Document A has a parameter Width and you copy to Document B, the sketch creates a parameter 1_Width or something that doesn't conflict with any parameters in Doc B.

Document A has a parameter Width and you copy to Document B, the sketch creates a parameter Width or if Doc B already has a parameter Width the sketch just uses Doc B's Width parameter.

You could argue that after copying a sketch with parameters it's up to you to create the parameters in the destination document but that wouldn't fun if you have a lot to copy over especially if you have equations to copy as well.

The problem with component I copied was that the sketch in the component used the source document's XY plane, it just seems that after the copy into the destination document it could pick up that document's XY plane.

Mark

[innovatenate · Accepted solution]

Hey Mark,

There are two issues, but as I believe both are working as expected. It's possible I'm wrong here, but I don't believe these are bugs.

1. Custom User parameters are not copied with a sketch between designs: I believe this is a known limitation. I don't believe the expectation is that the user parameters will copy over with the sketch. If you create the user parameters (manually) before copying and pasting, the sketch will sync up with existing parameters in the new design. That's what happened in my testing anyways. That could be the usable work-around.

2. If you use the root origin work planes as a base plane for a sketch in another component. The copy and paste the component into a new design, the base plane reference is lost. It must be repaired by right clicking on the sketch and using the redefine sketch plane command. This is also working as expected in my understanding. The base plane between the designs are not the same reference. Really anything referenced outside of the component is fair game to to losing the reference during a copy and paste and in particular when pasting into a new design. 

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions/concerns. 

[Phil.E]

@innovatenate Thanks for clarifying.

@HughesTooling

I have logged two bugs and one improvement for this. Thanks for the clear explanation and video.

• Bug 1: Copied parameters should be honored in destination document (internal reference FUS-31666)
• Bug 2: After picking explicit reference (the plane and origin) in destination document, the sketch should not show an error later. You have told it where to live explicitly. (internal reference FUS-31667)
• Improvement: Improving the copy/paste workflow for sketches in general. The current workflow is a bit narrow and could be improved to allow user to select all or some of a sketch, and be prompted to pick references upon pasting in the destination document. (internal reference FUS-31668)