Frame generator, frame .iam creation, which template is used?

[Eide.N]

Hi all,

When creating a new frame generator, a frame .iam is created, does anyone know which .iam template is used for that assembly? It is not the Standard.iam in the top level templates folder.

[kelly.young]

Hello @Eide.N there are two posts that should help:

How to control template used for frame reference model? Post#3

Frame Generator assembly Template idiosyncrasy Post#2

Please select the Accept Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Eide.N]

Thanks @kelly.young for the links. They are insightful, but I still have an issue.

I temporarily deleted all but my Standard(s), made a new frame gen file, but it didn't use my template. (My custom template is named "Standard.iam") Would it be using one from the sub-folders?

[Eide.N]

I temporarily deleted the "en-US" folder and then it used my template. So it was getting the Standard.iam from the "en-US" folder, until it was gone, then it used the one from the top level folder.

Is the "en-US" folder needed? Can I delete all of those extraneous folders/templates?

[kelly.young · Accepted solution]

@Eide.N You can move them outside the path to see what happens (instead of deleting them for future use), but it will either prompt you to select a template or use the default one on the system per the previous links.

Please select the Accept Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Eide.N]

LOL! I will try it and "see what happens"! 

I moved everything but my templates to a zip file. So far so good with a couple of FG assemblies silently using my custom Standard.iam

[cadman777]

I'm curious why you want to do this?
I never reference the FG assembly.

Instead, I use the main assembly and 'launder' all the files together in a PartsOnly parts list.

[jtylerbc]

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@cadman777 wrote:

I'm curious why you want to do this?
I never reference the FG assembly.

Instead, I use the main assembly and 'launder' all the files together in a PartsOnly parts list.

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Not sure why you even need to do that much.  The FG assembly defaults to being Phantom, so its parts promote up in the BOM to the main assembly anyway.

[cadman777]

Not in Inventor 2010...

[jtylerbc]

I didn't notice that you were using such an old version until now.  That was actually the version I learned FG on, and I don't remember the BOM behavior being different then.  I haven't used 2010 in at least 10 years though, so I could easily be forgetting something that changed along the way.

[cadman777]

No worries, as I can't even remember what I did yesterday!

[CGBenner]

@Eide.N @cadman777 @jtylerbc 

I was curious, so I asked the question regarding the template internally.  I am still waiting for confirmation, but the thought is that Frame Generator uses the template of the published profile part in the Content Center.  Since the Content Center families were built (many of them) long ago and may have been modeled and published from a variety of sources, that would mean that there may be slight variations in the templates that were used to model the original iParts that became Content Families.  If this is in fact true, then there would be no way to manage the template that is being used to generate Frame Members.  Stand by for updates.

[cadman777]

To solve that dilemma, I just created my own CC from scratch.

That involved iProperties and part geometry, primarily.

For example, in out-of-the-box Inventor, a CC part's I-beam profile sketch geometry would be mirrored. Who's the bureaucrat that decided to do that?! Mirrored geometry is very difficult to manage downstream in non Frame Generator applications. So, I REMADE ALL THE PROFILES SO NONE OF THEM HAD MIRRORED GEOMETRY IN THEM!

Then, I wanted to have all the iProperties the same throughout the entire CC, so the BOM would be easy to sort and the Parts Lists on drawings would be easy to format and edit if necessary. As a result, I spend very little time editing the BOM and Parts Lists, which formerly took HOURS PER PROJECT!

It took a few weeks to accomplish all of this reworking of the CC, but the savings in time, energy and ERRORS has been amazing over the years.

Too bad Autodesk didn't establish a GLOBAL STANDARD when they first created the CC!

Anyway, all one has to do is to work up an exhaustive list of possible iProperties that all standard CC parts could possibly have, and then standardize them across the board. For example, the pipes have PL for part length, but most of the structural shapes have G_L. So I just made the pipe length G_L too. That way, G_L MEANS LENGTH ANYWHERE IT OCCURS IN INVENTOR. Same with all the other iProperties. I follow the KISS principle: keep it simple stupid!

Then for all the other stupid defects that Autodesk refuses to fix in the CC I sought help in the Customizatuon forum for making iLogic rules to fix those errors as they occur. For example, one such error is a change in UNITS FORMAT  for dimensions in a CC part when a FG frame member is swapped out for another size or type. In a large model, that can wreak havoc on the BOM/Parts List as well as run up the costs in time and energy to fix. But a simple iLogic rule can change all that. I got one from @jtylerbc that I put in every CC part that fixes the length UNITS in the members that get broke. It 'fires' every time the part is saved. That particular problem really screwed me for many years until I began delving into iLogic. Some Inventor DEFECTS you just need to bite the bullet and use iLogic to solve.

Anyway, that's my view on uniformity in the CC for down-stream benefits all around.

[Eide.N]

The reason for wanting to control the template is so I can control things like decimal places. I use a file naming scheme that takes the G_L length in the part number. This can either be a 2 decimal or a 3 decimal - they will even be mixed and matched on a single assembly. 

I have created iLogic rules to dig down through the layers of an assembly and change these descrepancies, but it is neither clean nor automatic. 

[Eide.N]

Wow @cadman777 remaking all of your profiles could not have been fun! But I suppose at some point that's what I'll have to do.

We have just upgraded and now have Model States to contend with. How does FG play with Model States? Anything I need to look out for?

[cadman777]

Yeah, it was very frustrating and had a steep learning curve. But in the end it was good. I used old docs that various experts in here created in various forums or privately to learn how to do this. Also, some of the experts in here helped me do it in the forum by answering questions.

I can't answer your question b/c I'm using an old version of Inventor that doesn't have model states. Maybe someone else in here can share their experience?

[jtylerbc]

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@Eide.N wrote:

The reason for wanting to control the template is so I can control things like decimal places. I use a file naming scheme that takes the G_L length in the part number. This can either be a 2 decimal or a 3 decimal - they will even be mixed and matched on a single assembly. 

I have created iLogic rules to dig down through the layers of an assembly and change these descrepancies, but it is neither clean nor automatic. 

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Just editing the Family Template for that CC family should be enough for that.  However, at least in some versions of Inventor, the CC structural parts tend to lose the unit settings.  This only applies to Autodesk-supplied parameters - if you create your own parameters that aren't tied to the CC family, they will maintain the unit settings properly.  So my solution was to make my own parameters, which are set equal to the original Autodesk ones, and apply my unit settings to them.  

@cadman777 mentioned a rule I gave him that helps with this.  If this is the rule I think it is referring to, he is slightly mis-remembering what the rule actually does.  I believe that the rule itself is actually  solving issues with getting the lengths to update more consistently, and the unit settings are being fixed with duplicate parameters similar to how I fixed it in my own setup.

[Eide.N]

@jtylerbc  You're right that just editing the Family Template should be enough. But usually, when I am creating new shapes, it is a handful at a time, so having to go back to each one and edit the Family Template is, for lack of a better term, silly.

If I was able to know which template is used, I would be able to make all of the changes there, and not have to change the Family Templates.

Luckily I don't have to do this very often. FG has gotten better with the naming conventions, but it is still overall not enjoyable in a production environment, but I only know it with custom shapes.

I transitioned to using it for design and modeling preliminary designs only. Production is currently being done bottom up after a design is set.  There are so many nuances to FG that it is nearly impossible to teach newbies how to follow all of the special rules and tricks and workarounds. 

Thanks for the conversations around it though, I appreciate all of the comments and helpful advice.

[Frederick_Law]

You change lots of thing by copy a standard shape and rename it.

I made CSA structure from ANSI by copying and changing unit to mm.

You can edit the excel table and change the naming scheme.