Command to Identify All Grounded Components

[petestrycharske]

All,

Good afternoon!  I've been working with a couple different users lately who have had issues with components in assemblies NOT being able to move and one of the issues is that it is difficult to see when components are grounded.  One that was really perplexing was a pipe fitting, because the assembly browser icon didn't show the push pin on it.  Therefore, we had to move the cursor across a series of components before we discovered that one of them was grounded.  If the pipe fitting had been inside of a tank or enclosure, we probably would never have found it and determined it was grounded.  

What I would like to see is a tool to show all grounded components, perhaps something similar to the graphical glyph feedback of the "Show Sick Constraints" tool.  That way, instead of having to comb through many rows of the assembly browser, we could quickly identify grounded components.  I don't have time to knock out any graphics, but if anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Hope all is well and have a most blessed day!

Peace,

Pete

[leowarren34]

That would be good or a red border on grounded components so constraints wont fail when you realise you're try to constrain two grounded parts.

[Anonymous]

I run into this with tube assemblies as well. Having a bunch of parts organized across many folders makes it difficult to look through and find grounded components. I often ground something temporarily so the assembly doesn't explode and forget to unground it. I know this is my fault, but being able to search for grounded components would be a welcome addition.

[pumpkinboss]

I can't think of  more basic functionality than identifying components that are grounded with ease. Instead, with the release of 2022, grounded components are even harder to see.  Can we please have something that gives the user an easy way to fin grounded components?!

[nickada]

My assemblies tend to be very large. I also use constraints on almost every component. I often ground a component to prevent  it from moving while I constrain other components. This presents another problem, especially when I modify an older assembly to change it's size. Because of those three or four 'hidden' grounded components, my assembly can't change.

[moped4200dk]

I do also often waste a lot of time searching for grounded components..
so I would also very much appreciate a way to find them more quickly.

[pumpkinboss]

While we're on it, it would also be nice to be able to quickly identify modified constraints that might be used for things like positional reps.  As it is, I have to sometimes scroll through hundreds of constraints looking for one that has an override. The find functionality has no filter for such an animal. Sorry, I know a little off-topic, but kinda falls into the same category.

[nickada]

Another fix would be to have an option to 'unground' all components. Inventor should probably want the user to pick one 'master' component to remain grounded, but then the rest could be 'ungrounded'.

Another option would be to highlight a group of components and the 'unground' them.

[MBPedersen_DK]

I agree, there should most definitively be an easy/effective way to find those grounded components. My coworkers and I do also waste a lot of time searching for grounded things.

[Douglas.SmithWR4FV]

I agree even a icon that shows what is grounded this is available in Solidworks - why isn't it available in Inventor  ?

Autodesk you need to step your game up.

[Yijiang.Cai]

We provided the visual browser icon for the grounded fitting in Inventor 2023.2, and you can get the grounded fitting from the browser icon indication.

I suppose you prefer to have the selection & search command to get all the grounded components within an assembly, and then can consider to take the downstream workflow here. Does it make sense for you?

Many thanks!

[MBPedersen_DK]

Yes Yijiang.Cai,

I think, something like that, would be very nice, if I understand you right.
The visual  browser icon does help some, but even with that added in Inventor 2023.2, it can be difficult to find the grounded part, there makes it impossible to move things around in a big assembly with a lot of parts, as that small pin in the tree easily can be overlooked when scrolling through several pages of parts.

So it would be very nice, if we could just search for "Grounded" and it then would show all grounded parts, like it shows all parts there contains "45deg" in the attached picture, where I have searched for "45deg" 

It could also be a great help, if grounded parts could be shown more clearly, maybe something like the second grounded part in the picture:

[Yijiang.Cai]

@MBPedersen_DK many thanks for the quick feedback! If possible, can we only search the first level of components in the assembly? If we want to search all instances within assembly, it may cause the performance issue on searching. Anyway it has been tracked as [INVGEN-68740]. Thanks!

[RStancescu]

Hi @Yijiang.Cai 

Would be nice if we could have a selection option anywhere in the software that selects all grounded components. Then, while selected, we can un-select them very fast. 

Thank you

Radu

[kristjan_koppel]

[pumpkinboss]

I think everyone is aware of the icon, kristjan. The issue, I'm sure, is that it is hard to identify when scrolling through the model tree containing numerous other parts.  The little grey pin doesn't do a lot to stand out from everything else and it makes it difficult to identify those components. Also, there is no way to search for those components.

[matteo_bianchiniN827C]

I need this too please.

[cstarker6VCG4]

Please add this.

[sime_grbic433GC]

Please add this

[awadsworthAETW8]

Please add this.

The search UI already has a couple quick symbols to filter possibly problematic parts (out of date and unresolved files), see below. Just adding one that looks like the same ground pin you put on the model icon would be a life saver.