Variations of a cabinet model approach?

[maruska]

I'm helping a friend layout his kitchen in Fusion.

We've created a base cabinet component that is variable driven. Height, width, material thickness etc.

We'd like to be able to duplicate that component and modify certain variables to create the variations needed to fill the kitchen. Some cabinets are wider, some narrower, some taller, drawers, doors, etc.

Copying and pasting the base cabinet, just makes an instance that is forever the same as the original.

Copying and pasting the bodies, leaves us using the Push-Pull tool to manually tweak each cabinet.

Importing a linked version of the base model doesn't allow editing.

Importing the base model, breaking the link and editing, creates a ton of duplicate variables that aren't really well identified in the parameters panel.

Modifying the base model and saving versions (tall, wide, etc) is as close as we got, but you can't maintain multiple versions of the same file in the top level assembly. When you pick Choose Version, they all update to the same version, rather than just the one cabinet we want.

What would be the best method for doing this?

Cheers,

J.

[daniel_lyall]

save as new

[daniel_lyall]

use save as and just give it a new name 

[maruska]

Yeah - we did that too. The problem with that is that each model has it's own parameter table. I think we were looking for a way to start a "seed" model that has all the parameters and then duplicate that and anjust change the parameters that are unique to that particular cabinet. Forinstance - they all share the same materialThickness variable, but each might have it's cabinetWidth variation.

[HughesTooling]

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@maruska wrote:

. Forinstance - they all share the same materialThickness variable, but each might have it's cabinetWidth variation.

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For that you could have one parameter that drives the MaterialThinkness parameter in each copy. Something like DocumentMaterialThinkness and use that to drive MaterialThinkness in each cabinet.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Did you try Copy of a component then Paste New in the browser tree?  It's a little picky, and I recently posted about a few bugs with this, but for the most part works well in creating a new independant component (rather than a clone).  The parameter names will be such that if the original parameter was d12, the corresponding new one in the new component will be d12_1, making it easy to just change it back to d12 so the two are driven together as one parameter if desired, such as for material thickness.

Jesse

[daniel_lyall]

there is alsorts of ways to do what you wont having driven demention's is the easiest way to do it, you can do most of it from one sketch what would give you the sides, top bottom, shelves and the back, the door you could just do it in it's own file or you drive it from the sides, top and bottom where you demention from the top/bottom and sides to the out side of the door what makes it change with the cabinets, it's how I do it and it works.

then if all that works all you need to do is set the cabinets size use save as, save the file as cabinet say 400 x 600 then you just repeat for each size cabinet then you only have one base file to make all the cabinets from, if you need to add a shelf you do it in the model using the parameters you have already set if you have the shelf gap as height / how many spaces it will give you then when you add the shelf you do it in the base drawing you just draw it into the gap where it will go you set it spacing the same as the other shelves then they will move to there new position together, and if you use rabbits for where the shelves are you have the self's set to the same thing - timber thickness, the dado's demention is timber thickness x 1/2 timber thickness then the shelf is width - timber thickness x timber thickness x depth.

[Anonymous]

Hey Daniel, that sounds like a good way to do it.  The only little bit of pain I was thinking of is if say you want to change the material thickness.  Wouldn't you need to manually update the thickness parameter in each of the files?  That's probably not a big deal, unless I guess you wanted to be able to quickly change several different parameters throughout all the files.

Jesse

[daniel_lyall]

if the paramaters are working it take 10 seconds to do change thickness save done

[Anonymous]

Just to be clear you have to do that process for each file individually right?

Jesse

[maruska]

That's what we found with the import-and break link method. Each file brings in it's own parameters and there is no way to intelligently rewire them. So if there are a lot of variables, it's a lot of work.

The other thing we found was that if you import a file and then delete it, it's variables stay. So even sorting out what variables go with what version becomes a mess. This post was originally going to ask if the was a namespaces feature (like Maya) to keep track of variables from outside sources.

[Anonymous]

Hi, when you say "rewire" the variables, from my understanding there isn't just an intelligible way to do that, there is absolutely no way to do that once link is broken, am I right?  In other words, there is no way for a parameter change in one file to affect a parameter in another file? (barring an inserted linked model of course). 

Did you guys happen to try the Past New function for components yet?

Jesse

[daniel_lyall]

yer if it chained to another file you cant change any demention they have to be individual files, the stock size you use for MDF is set in stone you can get it here being metric is 3, 4.2, 6, 9, 12, 18 mm thick, and width or length in 400, 600, 900, 1200, 1800, 2400 or 3000mm

so if it's a simple one shelf cabinet the whole cabinet can be 12mm the back will be 3mm if it's on a french cleat or if screwed to the wall the whole thing will be 12mm, 2 or 3 shelf cabinets can be the same if it's under 600mm wide, if it's more than 600mm x 200mm  you go up to the next size.

there is a standard size for cabinet making, you can do custom sizes but you still fall back to stand sizeing of material. its all standardized now days 

[daniel_lyall]

not yet, as far as I know it can be done with a import paramaters function, I dont think anyone has done it yet, I have not found one yet. what you can do is have a base sketch what has all the paramaters in it for the whole cabint, then what you do is just save as then you have another new sketch with the paramaters set allready, I keep a spread sheet of the paramater names and math funcution and put them in before I start drawing with the mesurments then when doing the base drawing you just put in the paramaters same with press pull.

it's hard to get correct the first couple of times you have to have the demention's in the correct place and the constraints correct as well other wise it goes allsorts of wrong.

it would be easyer if there was a import/export paramater function, one that did not stuff it all up that is. there are one's for importing shapes jess did one but not straight out cabints

[maruska]

Heh - yeah, let's not over index on the material thickness. It'll probably just be 3/4" plywood.

But the question remains - what's the best way to set-up a file such that you have a fairly elastic master model from which you can derive a variety of configurations?

I would love to be able to use the versioning system for this, but it doesn't work as I expected. Having a bunch of individual files that have been "saved as" from the master just seems messy and broken.

[Anonymous]

Paste New!  😉  Perhaps it's a little unusual from what you're used to, but it works.  Right click on your master component and choose Copy, then right click on the root/top level component, and select Paste New.  Then remove the _1s as desired from parameters.

Jesse

[daniel_lyall]

as far as I have found it is the only way it can be done at this time is to use the save as cabint say 400 x 600, you can do a master file that's what I have a master file for cabints, shelfs, book cases, door's and kikkers.

give me a few hours I will nock up a screen cast for ya showing how I do it, the base sketch and paramater's then doing the save as a new version and changeing stuff 

[daniel_lyall]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Paste New!  😉  Perhaps it's a little unusual from what you're used to, but it works.  Right click on your master component and choose Copy, then right click on the root/top level component, and select Paste New.  Then remove the _1s as desired from parameters.

Jesse

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can you do a quick screen cast on this jesse I have never done it that way.

[Anonymous]

Sure give me a sec.

[Anonymous]

Gee, when waiting it sure seems like these vids take an inordinately long time to finish uploading.  Here it is.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/7b9be436-5415-455d-8e0a-267ba65d98f2

Here's a few notes on the presentation.

So I start the video showing my weird practice of keeping the root origin coordinate system always visible, since when 'active component visibility' is enabled, the root origin will be highly dimmed if I properly activated a new component, a good reminder system. The only caveat is for some obscure reasons that will normally not surface, it's good to insure when selecting an origin plane, to define a sketch etc., that select the current component origin, not the root origin, via clicking through and selecting the workplane that causes it to highlight.  (Note it's also good to turn on color cycling under Inspect for easier component differentiation). 

I also first showed how joining method Combine does not allow proper position update of the top body when the sides are parametrically updated.  This limitation also applies for Rigid group, or Rigid as built joint.  So I proceed to then show how creating a Rigid joint properly updates, in this case by utilizing the Joint offset value parametrically.  Alternatively I could have defined the joint to the top face of one of the sides.  

Also in the video I only created one variation component from the master component, but can make as many is desired (I just forgot). 

I also forgot to show how this is a perfect example of selecting the newly created component events in timeline (by using shift button) right clicking and selecting Group, so is very clear delineation in the timeline between the components (actually this is delineation/highlighting is done automatically when activating a component besides the root component). 

Hope that helps!

Jesse