Assembly Mass Supression in Virtual Components

[will.astill]

I'm not sure if this is intended behaviour or a bug in the software.

I'm using 2025.2.1

If I:

 - have a virtual component in an assembly file,

 - assign that component a mass (manually overriding using iProperties),

 - supress the component

The assembly mass still includes the mass of the virtual component.

Am I doing something wrong? Is this expected behaviour? Is there a way around it?

It's really annoying as I was hoping to use a virtual component to get around a BoM structure issue I'm having for some of my customers when I have multiple model states.

Assemblies attached.

[MKE_Howard]

Hi, I tried and have the same result. A workaround would be to try with Ilogic something like this : 

Dim asm As AssemblyDocument = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
Dim suppressedVirtualMass As Double = 0

For Each occ As ComponentOccurrence In asm.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences
    If TypeOf occ.Definition Is VirtualComponentDefinition Then
        Dim virtCompDef As VirtualComponentDefinition = CType(occ.Definition, VirtualComponentDefinition)
        If occ.Suppressed Then
            suppressedVirtualMass += occ.MassProperties.Mass
        End If
    End If
Next

Dim suppressedVirtualMassLbs As Double = suppressedVirtualMass * 2.20462
Dim totalMass As Double = asm.ComponentDefinition.MassProperties.Mass
totalMass -= suppressedVirtualMassLbs / 2.20462
asm.ComponentDefinition.MassProperties.Mass = totalMass

I made it with Chatgpt so no big hope with that hahaha 

[will.astill]

Thanks Howard.

I don't really want to go down the route of an iLogic solution - besides, I need to store the mass of the various components somewhere and if I manually set them to zero when suppressed I'd need to find some other method for storing the data in the file without it affecting the assembly mass - a sticking plaster on a bodge! I'd rather just get the Inventor team to fix the issue, although I'm having difficulty finding out if it's expected behaviour or a bug.

It seems to me like there is something in the inventor code that isn't looking at the suppression state of a virtual component when doing the mass calculation (presumably most people use it for "massless" items like paints etc).

If I can get this fixed though it would be such a massive improvement for me in the way a lot of the customers in my industry like their BoMs to be structured.

@johnsonshiue - is this expected behaviour for the virtual components?  No one from the Inventor official team seems to be replying to my questions on this and it's really annoying me!

TLDR for the rest of the posts, the "mass" calculation seems to include the (manually set) mass of a virtual component regardless of whether that component is suppressed or not.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Will,

I am sorry I must have missed this posting. I have verified the behavior. It seems to carry over the legacy LOD behavior. But it is inconsistent with how Model State should work. I will work with the project team to understand it better.

Many thanks!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Will,

The issue has been confirmed as a defect by the project team (INVGEN-84503). Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.

Many thanks!

[will.astill]

Hurrah! That's brilliant news.

Thank you for sorting it out and I look forward to making my life easier once it's working! I knew you'd sort it for me!

Fingers crossed it's a quick and easy fix!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Will,

Many thanks for your kind words! I am very sorry for my omission. I should have replied earlier. Regarding the solution, it is unclear to me how costly it would be. But the behavior is very easy to understand and reproduce. The likelihood of a fix is proportional to that too.

Thanks again!

[will.astill]

Hi @johnsonshiue

I just tried to have a look at this again while I was on the forum but couldn't find INVGEN-84503 in any search results except for this.

Is INVGEN-84503 an internal reference or is there a place that I can look to see the list of open issues?

[CGBenner]

@will.astill 

Hi, the INVGEN number that @johnsonshiue shared is an internal report for the project team to track these issues.  I'll leave it to Johnson to give any updates if they are available.  Thank you!

[will.astill]

Thanks Chris.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Will,

I just check the latest status of INVGEN-84503. Unfortunately, it has not been resolved. Please feel free to contact Autodesk Product Support and escalate it.

Many thanks!

[will.astill]

Thanks @johnsonshiue - I'm happy to keep waiting, it's just something that will be a good fix rather than something that's a daily pain.

Thank you for checking for me though.