Levels of Detail (LOD)... Is it just me, or does anyone else....

[chris]

Is it just me, or does anyone else love Levels of Detail (LOD) views.... until you have to use them?

What I mean by this is, Rep views are great, they help you prepare for your drawings and get stuff out of the way to see what is going on.

The "problem" I run into with LOD views is that while they are great for setting things up, they are horrible for anything that happens "AFTER" they have been created!

Here's the example:

I currently have a project that is a complicated control panel, flexible hose, hard tubing, electrical harnesses, internal and external parts, doors that open and close, etc. So I have created a few dozen LOD's. the project has been released, but is now up for a revision change. Of course, like many revisions, parts have been replaced, removed, added. this is easy enough, but it completely changes each LOD for anything added! which as you most likely already know, requires you to go into each LOD and suppress the added or changed parts.

Unless I am missing something, the way the LOD's should work is like this:

Once a LOD is created, Inventor should be smart enough to know they exist, that anytime a part is added/replaced a window should open that contains a checkbox layout showing each LOD and asking the user to choose if the new/replaced part is to be included in the list of LOD's, this way a user, in this case (me), won't have to add one part today, then spend 5-6 hours editing each LOD and fixing drawings views, only to have to repeat that work the following day when something else is added.

I like the LOD's, but they only seem to work if no changes are made to them... (again, unless I'm missing something)!!

[cbenner]

@chris

You are not "missing" anything.  This is in fact the way LOD's work.  It does create work, but I, for one, would prefer NOT to have Inventor make any assumption for me.  It would be nice maybe to have that as an option.

[chris]

well this wouldn't be an issue if I only had (1) LOD but I have (42)... so just adding one part, requires me to go in to 42 LODs and suppress that part, HUGE amount of work, just to add a part. IV wouldn't be making any assumptions if you had to choose whether a part was suppressed or un-suppressed in each LOD. all IV needs to do is "list" the LOD's and give two options (Suppressed) / (Un-Suppressed), in my case, I would choose Suppressed with the exception of the few LOD' I want to see the part in, and for those I would simply check Un-Suppressed, would save me "HOURS" of work!

This can't be that hard to add-in, come one Autodesk... you guys actually use LOD's correct..??? so I assume you deal with the same frustrations... correct?

[mcgyvr]

I believe there are a few "ideastation" requests for this functionality... Very similar to what you describe from what I remember (I haven't gone looking for them but I know they are there)

LOD is also lacking the "lock" option that design views have..

[mcgyvr]

Here is the first one I found.. its also got some "ilogic" to help with it too..

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/please-give-option-to-pick-user-defined-lod-participat...

Note very few kudos... I'm sure there are more about that..

And probably quite a few ideas too wanting the same/similar for view reps and not specifically stating LOD..

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/modify-multiple-view-reps-at-once/idi-p/6905333

[chris]

yep.. need a lock option, good call !

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! LOD is memory management tool designed to overcome the 3GB RAM limit back in 32-bit Windows days. Without LOD, a lot of large assemblies cannot be created at that time. LOD allows users to suppress and unsuppress components. Behind the scene, the component documents are unloaded or loaded to reduce memory footprint. As a result, any design intent altering operation is not affected by LOD except mass prop compute (you can exclude suppressed component mass from the top level assembly mass).

However, Some people use it as a configuration tool, which can lead to confusion. First, PartList does not react to change in LOD. Component geometry and position is cannot be changed between two LODs. So do appearance and material.

If you want to have one assembly represents multiple configurations, you will need to use Design View Representation or iAssembly.

Many thanks!

[jtylerbc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What I mean by this is, Rep views are great, they help you prepare for your drawings and get stuff out of the way to see what is going on.

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If that is all that you are using the LOD's for, then you probably shouldn't be using them at all.  LOD's and Suppression are primarily intended as memory management tools, used to remove portions of the assembly that you don't care about right now from your computer's memory in order to improve performance (especially back in 32 bit operating systems).  Their effects on component visibility are a bonus or side-effect.  They are often misused by those who discovered "Suppress" before noticing "Visibility", and didn't understand the difference.

What you probably should be using instead is Visibility and View Representations.  While they do have some of the problems you are describing with LOD's, they don't give you the same problems with having multiple files open that reference different LOD's, and as @mcgyvr mentioned, they have a Lock feature which would help alleviate the issue you were asking about.

[mcgyvr]

Johnsons like a scripted "Otto" (forum help bot) now.. 

"I understand you are asking about LOD"... 

[chris]

okay, however, I am not the only "user" who used LOD's in the manner that I do. creating an LOD to control what can and can not be seen in a drawing view is far easier than creating and iassembly. Perhaps Autodesk  can take a look at the LOD and start to adapt it to also include the framework as mentioned above. IMO, the frame work to use it in the manner that other (users) are using it, myself included, is 90% there. Obviously it works (for the most part), it just needs to include a list. regardless of what LOD was designed for, it will still encounter the same limitations as mentioned above if new parts are added after LOD's are created.

All that is being suggested/asked, is for an update to be included to LOD's to allow a "pick system" upon import/replace of parts/assemblies are LOD creation. How a "user" uses a tool should not be a deciding factor in whether or not a tool can be updated or made better... in this case, the LOD workflow, or as I call it, "a tool".

I hope Autodesk will consider this in later updates, this is very much/badly needed.... for the "users".

[mcgyvr]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

Johnsons like a scripted "Otto" (forum help bot) now.. 

"I understand you are asking about LOD"... 

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Dang.. I stand corrected sort of... His response was far more useful than Otto has ever been.. Johnsons scripted "LOD definition" brought out the fact that Chris IS using LOD's as an alternative to iassemblies.. 

I assumed that he was just using them to unload the tube/pipe/elec harnesses,etc... so he could work faster in the assemblies not as a multiple version product configuration tool.. 

[chris]

mcgyvr,

have you used this code, (the one from HermJan.Otterman), i just ran the code and it suppressed the selected parts, but only from the active LOD..??

the post says it should suppress from "all" LOD's?

[jtylerbc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

okay, however, I am not the only "user" who used LOD's in the manner that I do.

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You are definitely not the only one.  This is one of the most commonly misunderstood features in the entire program.  I had a severe misunderstanding of it myself when I first started using Inventor.  I try to steer people away from making the same kind of messes I did back then.

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@Anonymous wrote:

creating an LOD to control what can and can not be seen in a drawing view is far easier than creating and iassembly.

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If that is all you are doing, iAssemblies are not the preferable alternative.  View Representations (as described by my earlier post and also in @johnsonshiue's) are your better option.  The process for managing them is very similar to LOD's, except you are only controlling Visibility and not anything to do with memory management (Suppression). 

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@Anonymous wrote:

IMO, the frame work to use it in the manner that other (users) are using it, myself included, is 90% there.

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It's more like 95% there if you use View Representations.  You are using the incorrect tool for your purpose and making it unnecessarily harder on yourself by doing so.    Yes, LOD's could be improved (and View Representations have a portion of the same issues).  But making a hammer better doesn't turn it into a screwdriver.  If you use the correct tool, some (admittedly, not all) of your problems will go away.

[chris]

okay,

so if I am using the LOD's in a wrong manner, what other options exist within IV to handle what I am asking for? to the best of my knowledge, you would have to spend all your time selecting parts in the browser window of a drawing view assembly, which as you know is a "manual" process, and if there are multiple views on a sheet, then you are manually repeating this task, and it still runs into the same limitations as I mentioned i n my original post.

If I use view rep's as opposed to LOD's than fine, okay, they still suffer from the same limitations as listed in the original post. 

You mentioned iassemblies, okay, I can sort of see the logic in that, but, again, upon placement of anything new, it would require the user to go back into the iassembly editor and manually adjust each iassembly variant.

each of these methods are usable, but they all suffer from the same limitation... that is being able to have a simple editor upon placement after a minimum of (1) representation is created, whether it be a view rep or a LOD. 

[mcgyvr]

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@Anonymous wrote:

okay,

so if I am using the LOD's in a wrong manner, what other options exist within IV to handle what I am asking for? to the best of my knowledge, you would have to spend all your time selecting parts in the browser window of a drawing view assembly, which as you know is a "manual" process, and if there are multiple views on a sheet, then you are manually repeating this task, and it still runs into the same limitations as I mentioned i n my original post.

If I use view rep's as opposed to LOD's than fine, okay, they still suffer from the same limitations as listed in the original post. 

You mentioned iassemblies, okay, I can sort of see the logic in that, but, again, upon placement of anything new, it would require the user to go back into the iassembly editor and manually adjust each iassembly variant.

each of these methods are usable, but they all suffer from the same limitation... that is being able to have a simple editor upon placement after a minimum of (1) representation is created, whether it be a view rep or a LOD. 

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You still haven't really defined exactly what you are doing in enough detail for me to comfortably answer your question..

iassemblies are 100% the intended out of the box solution in Inventor for a series or family of "like" products..

And depending on the change you certainly do not need to go into each and everyone with each and every modification.

You work in the "factory scope" to make a global change or in the "member scope" to make a change to a single member (single part number version)..

I'd suggest you hit up youtube and watch a few videos and try to make a small sample yourself and see how it works and what it can/cannot do.. 

But if you are making a series of control panels (and don't want to get into ilogic/icopy,etc..) then iassemblies would be the direction I would suggest..

Its the out of the box non-coding way to go..

[jtylerbc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

so if I am using the LOD's in a wrong manner, what other options exist within IV to handle what I am asking for?

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View Representations, and setting the drawing views to be Associative to them similar to how you are currently using LOD's.

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@Anonymous wrote:

If I use view rep's as opposed to LOD's than fine, okay, they still suffer from the same limitations as listed in the original post. 

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Not all of them.  View Representations can be Locked, which prevents newly added components from showing up in them.  LOD's do not have this feature.  It isn't quite the full power of what you are asking for, but it does get you part of it.

Please understand, no one here is saying the management functionality you are asking for is a bad idea.  I would love to have it myself.  What we're saying is that you are making it even harder on yourself by trying to use LOD's for a different purpose than they were intended.

The iAssembly solution doesn't really fit what you are trying to do.  @johnsonshiue mentioned that because some people try to use LOD's as a configuration tool for different variations of a product.  Since the parts list doesn't obey LOD's at all, LOD's are even worse at that task than they are for the visual filtering you are using them for.  This method was brought up in the thread before it was clear exactly what you were using the LOD's for.  It doesn't really apply to your situation, so you should probably just not worry about iAssemblies as an option.

Your choice is really between:

1. Level of Detail:  Not perfect, and also not really designed for your task in the first place.
2. View Representations:  Also not perfect, but at least is intended for what you are doing and has at least some of the functionality you are looking for.

[jtylerbc]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

You still haven't really defined exactly what you are doing in enough detail for me to comfortably answer your question..

iassemblies are 100% the intended out of the box solution in Inventor for a series or family of "like" products..

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I don't think that is what he is doing.  He has mentioned a couple of times that he is using the LOD's as a way to remove components from drawing views, because he has a lot of stuff (tubing, electrical harnesses, etc.) in the space.  @johnsonshiue mentioned configurations of a product family - I don't think that is what @chris is actually using the LOD's for.   

@chris, if I'm misunderstanding that, please say so.  It would change the advice I just gave and point back toward iAssemblies as a solution.

[mcgyvr]

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@jtylerbc wrote:

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@mcgyvr wrote:

You still haven't really defined exactly what you are doing in enough detail for me to comfortably answer your question..

iassemblies are 100% the intended out of the box solution in Inventor for a series or family of "like" products..

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I don't think that is what he is doing.  He has mentioned a couple of times that he is using the LOD's as a way to remove components from drawing views,

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I haven't seen that from them anywhere.. He stated he used view reps for that.. Not LODs..

Lets both wait for confirmation before assuming anymore.. 

[chris]

I can not show the assembly, NDA and all.

as mentioned earlier, the client commissioned a drawing package for their work. Included in the package would be work instructions and "order of build". To help manage all of the views and sheets that would only show certain aspects or parts of the top level assembly I chose to use LOD's. 

I started out using View Rep's, but because of the size of the assembly and the amount of sheets (68) with multiple views on each sheet, I chose to switch over to the LOD's... to help with file size.

Also, there are tubing and harness aspects to the assembly, many of which are only showing 1-6 wires per sheet, when showing the install of a specific component. 

I can show a few "random" pics, but I have not gotten permission to show the full inside. (had to remove any component/wire names)

this is for the most part a "flat" BOM, the client has requested a top level assembly with no sub-assemblies... so what would normally be handled with multiple drawings and sub-assembly drawings, has been requested to be included in one drawing package, with one BOM.

so in the include drawing you will see that only certain components are shown from the assembly in any given view, view meaning (Top Level Assembly), these are created to control the views that will be associated with a sheet view or work instruction.

My choice to employ the LOD's workflow was to save on the entire Top Level Assembly being loaded every time on every sheet, as you guys say, memory management..

I also at times need to show only the wires/hoses themselves in one view, but the wires/hoses themselves connected to their component(s) in another view... I have been handling these is LOD's (which I might add work GREAT for creating/managing these view)... where they fall short is once the view is created, something being added/replaced... then the LOD's, view rep's or manual drawing view browser management falls short.

This is why I suggested adding a component placement dialog, (if Inventor detects any LOD or View Rep other than "Master" or "Default")

[chris]

i will again experiment with the view reps, but keep in mind, I'm adding in the entire top level every time I place a view, view rep's only turn viability off, they don't suppress un-seen components. 

I still believe I chose the correct workflow, (concerning file size), I just wish LOD's had the lock feature you mentioned in View Rep's, that would pretty much solve my whole problem

Chris