Assembly Component Replacement and Fixing Broken Constraints

[swalton]

I would like Inventor to have a Constraint Replacement tool that works like Creo's Edit Reference Table under the Replace command. 

That tool lets you select each constraint reference on Component A and pick a replacement constraint reference on Component B.  The nice part of this command is that you only have to pick a source and target reference once.  If my assembly has 5 constraints to the XY plane on Component A, I only have to say that Component A XY_plane = Component B XY_plane once.  Creo will update all constraints that use that XY plane when it replaces Component A with Component B.

See this discussion on the Inventor Forum: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/replace-all-error-tell-inventor-x-feat-in-...

[Kelly_Shuman]

I would like to replace a Part in an upper level assembly with an Assembly containing said Part, and have my constraints persist.  

The work flow: I insert a Part in an upper level assembly.  I later determine that I would like to add parts associated with said Part and create a phantom assembly.  I insert the Part into a new Assembly, add virtual parts, and save the new Assembly.  When I replace the Part in the upper level assembly with the Assembly containing the Part, all my constraints are dropped.  

I would imagine this would entail building intelligence into the Replace Command,

This feature would also assist with a workflow I would like to try out.  I would like to replace a Part in an upper-assembly with an Assembly containing just that Part.  I would like to utilize the substitute LOD or similar linked Level of Detail using this assembly. This would be another tool that would greatly improve top down simplification.

[jasonrecords]

I have ran into this same issue and has caused me great grief in needing to reconstrain.

[swalton]

Try using the demote command from your top-level assembly.  It will create a new sub-assembly with your existing part and keep the constraints between the part and the top level assembly.

See : http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2014/ENU/?guid=GUID-9C1118A3-7EEB-4479-AEF7-BCA37F9F907F

[Kelly_Shuman]

Demoting a part is a very good point, and I appreciate the consideration.  I frequently run into this when I have multiple instances of a model in place.  I don't think demote will work if there are more than one instance of the part.  

[Kelly_Shuman]

Also, you cue my mind to another feature that would be helpful.  If we could copy components out of a base assembly to a higher level assembly model.   The action would be CTRL+Promote.  The Demote and Promote functions could squeeze a little more utility out of them.  I will look to see if this idea has been noted already.

[mikeh4]

Agreed and if there's multiple team members on a project, 1 may do the demote and now the others need it.  Few release back seemed that it went to more geometry based constraints vs. file based constraints allowing for shuffling parts/sub iams up and down the model/BOM tree which is a beautiful feature. Seems to me there might be a switch in the code not allowing to swap ipt for iam?  Just my interpretation of how it works.  Has to be just that simple, right.

[mikeh4]

Assuming your up level you want to copy to contains the sub level that contain the parts you want to move.  Have you tried opening that up level and shift pick them and then in the browser tree dragging them up to where you want them?  Not phsyically cut/copy and paste just dragging in the tree?  Use this a lot when we demote a group of parts and relized we demoted too many.  We just pick what we didn't want demoted and drag it back up in the browser to where it needs to be or was.  Awesome feature.

[mcgyvr]

I'm not sure what "Creo's Edit Reference Table" is or how it functions exactly (sounds good)

but yes I would LOVE a simple way to quickly select what geometry of the new replacement part should be used to fix the broken constraints..

And yes if I replace 20 screws that were all constrained using the underside surface it should only take 1 selection on the new replacement part to fix all 20 broken constraints.. 

[Anonymous]

swalton,

Thanks for starting this "Idea"!

It seems like the most basic of program features, and it shocks me that it doesn't exist yet in Inventor! I thought it may have been a feature with a non-intuitive name and was therefore hard to locate. I'm still having a hard time believing this isn't possible...

In addition, it should be noted that this program feature shouldn't require similar geometry, names, feature tree, file names, etc. That's not the point. It would be a weak program feature if it required this. For example, if I want to replace a screw with a sphere I should be able to do so. (Screw A-Axis 1 = Sphere A-Axis Z & Screw A-Plane 1 = Sphere A-Plane XY)

Inventor,

Any plans to add this?

Thanks

[yannick3]

Yes

Like another SoftWare but more friendly user

[JoeBarnes4076]

I would like to see this feature implemented in Inventor as a native feature

It would be useful.

[swalton]

@JoeBarnes4076: Very Nice Mockup. 

[DRoam]

This is a great idea. There are kind of two parts to it, and the second part has two sides to it. Here's what I mean:

Part 1: Replacing instances of a component with another component (Inventor can already do this)

Part 2: Repairing/replacing constraints

- Side A: Repairing/replacing constraint references on the selection-side (Inventor can't do this. This is what this Idea is requesting.)

- Side B: Repairing/replacing constraint references opposite the selection-side (Inventor also can't do this. This Idea doesn't specifically request this, but it's just as necessary)

Basically, Part 2 Side A addresses the situation where you have several identical components selected and need to replace constraint references to the selected components themselves. And Part 2 Side B addresses the situation where you have several (possibly unique) components selected and want to replace constraint references to what the selected components are constrained to.

Part 2 Side A comes into play when you're replacing parts with non-identical parts (as mentioned in this Idea), or when a feature on a Part has been lost and you want to repair several references to it at once. Both sides of Part 2 would come into play when you simply want to change the assembly design intent for several components at once.

[Anonymous]

The demote feature is great during the initial design of something, however if that part exists in multiple higher level assemblies, the demote only helps in one of them.  Once you've created the sub-assembly with the part, then you still run into the problem of needing to re-do all the constraints in the remaining higher level assemblies when you do a component replace.

Kelly_Shuman this is a very good suggestion, and I am surprised that there are not more votes on this!

[krystianwiatr]

Improvement would be for smart component replacement in assembly to significantly reduce time for this process.

For example: I have an assembly in which I want to replace a part similar in geometry, but from a different source (purchased part downloaded from internet). All constraints for all the instances will fail, and now I have to edit each constraint and point to equivalent edge or face, original part was constrained to in order to recover. The problem is I have to do it for every single instance of the new part, which may be very time consuming. I would assume it should be possible to automate that process and once you point to a new reference, it would apply it to all the other instances.

[DRoam]

Please vote for this related idea as well to help get this need recognized: Assembly Component Replacement and Fixing Broken Constraints.

@krystianwiatr, you idea is essentially the same as what I described in "Part 2 Side A" on that idea: After replacing your old part with a new part, you want to replace all constraint references to any geometry on the old part with the proper geometry on the new part. (i.e. Single part, multiple geometry replacements on that same part).

[Walt_Jaquith]

I was shown Creo's tool yesterday. It places the replaced and replacing parts side by side, in a utility window, highlights the features on the replaced part which have relationships associated with them (color coded), and allows the user to pick corresponding features on the replacing part. It had analytical tools, meaning it could find similar surfaces between the two parts on it's own. It was insanely cool, and we need this badly. Even better would be the ability to use this tool proactively as well: Call up two parts--an old one and a new one--with similar geometry, and be able to associate geometry features, changing the new one to match the old. Obviously, you'd only want to do this with a part that hadn't yet been used in an assembly, because renaming the surfaces and edges would break any existing constraints. Still, this would be really useful in many cases.

[dan_szymanski]

Idea added to backlog for future consideration [14711]. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for your input.

No answer so I'll have to go through all 12 assemblies and fix the problems one by one.

We'll see what the future brings. It would be a nice tool to have.

I still think Inventor's a fantastic tool though.

Jim

[MistakenEngineer]

The newest release of inventor allows the user to name faces

So the obvious next step that I see is that Autodesk needs to look for these labels when replacing components and swap out the geometry for what is labeled. That would make it waaaaay more robust. You would be able to import CAD formats and all you would have to do is label a few faces and then you could easily switch out components.