I'm creating an addin that will manage thousands of parts, all similar, but different in size, orientation and properties. Something similar to the curtain panels in a Revit curved curtain wall, as shown here. It is not going to be the typical assembly you work on for months and ends up with thousands of parts. Each user will create two or three of these assemblies every week.
The parts will be constrained with geometric constraints to a skeleton (similar to the panels in the curtain wall above), and the addin will tag elements as top, bottom, right, internal, large, small, etc.
Other addin tools will allow the user to override the default tagging and attributes.
I am thinking of using one the following 3 solutions. I like the third one, and I would like your opinion about which one is more usable.
1) Create one part per panel / mullion (keeping the Revit terminology).
I end up with thousands of files, and I don't think it's a good idea (in fact the above mentioned Revit example doesn't create thousands of files)
2) Create one sketch and one solid body per panel / mullion.
I end up with one part with thousands of body parts. I think it's better than option 1 (it's similar to what Revit does), but I never dealt with parts with thousands of solids, and I don't know if it's feasible.
3) Create one flexible panel subassembly.
I end up with one assembly with a few skeleton parts and thousands of occurrences of the same subassembly. The assembly will have thousands of matings.
With this solution the size and shape of the body parts wouldn't change. I don't like, but I can live with that.
What is the opinion of the experts out there?
Thanks,
Stefano
