Need to Suppress Constrains/Mates of Suppressed Parts or Sub assembly in Top Assembly
Hi @vdcrocks7. What you are asking for definitely sounds possible to do with an iLogic rule. Try the code example below for that task. I tested it on one of my own assemblies, and it seemed to work the way you seem to want it to. It essentially iterates through all of the top level assembly components, finds just the ones that are suppressed, then gets the collection of assembly constraints associated with that component, then iterates through those. If they are not already suppressed, it will suppress them.
Sub Main
Dim oADoc As AssemblyDocument = TryCast(ThisDoc.Document, Inventor.AssemblyDocument)
If oADoc Is Nothing Then Logger.Debug(iLogicVb.RuleName & " exited (no AssemblyDocument obtained)") : Return
Dim oADef As AssemblyComponentDefinition = oADoc.ComponentDefinition
Dim oConsts As AssemblyConstraints = oADef.Constraints
Dim oOccs As ComponentOccurrences = oADef.Occurrences
For Each oOcc As ComponentOccurrence In oOccs
If oOcc.Suppressed Then
Dim oOccConsts As AssemblyConstraintsEnumerator = oOcc.Constraints
If oOccConsts.Count > 0 Then
For Each oOccConst As AssemblyConstraint In oOccConsts
If Not oOccConst.Suppressed Then
Try
oOccConst.Suppressed = True
Catch
Logger.Error("Error Suppressing AssemblyConstraint named '" & oOccConst.Name & "' on" & _
vbCrLf & "component named '" & oOcc.Name)
End Try
End If
Next oOccConst
End If
End If
Next oOcc
oADoc.Update2(True)
End Sub
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
Hi @vdcrocks7. Yes, I believe it may be possible to make a code like this effect all levels of the assembly. The code would need to get a lot more complex though, because we would have to incorporate a separate, 'recursive' Sub routine into the overall code, which can run itself as a way of stepping down another level deeper every time it finds sub components under a component. Also, even though I know you want it to be able to effect all components at all levels, one small detail is still not clear. We can create constraints between top level components and lower level components, and since those constraints were created / defined within the 'context' of the main assembly, they exist within the main assembly, not within lower level sub assemblies. So, do you want this code to only effect the constraints that are defined within the main (highest level) assembly, even if they may effect lower level components, or do you want this code to also effect the constraints that were defined down within all levels of sub assemblies themselves? If it will only be working with the constraints that were defined within the main assembly, then the code can simply iterate through that one collection of constraints, and check all components that each one effects, to see if one of the components is suppressed, and if one is suppressed, suppress that constraint. However, if this code needs to look into all constraints within all levels of sub assemblies, then that will be more complex and will require more code.
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
Hi @vdcrocks7. This may be partially possible, however, when the assembly component representing a sub assembly is suppressed, we will not be able to access any of the sub components within that sub assembly by code. We may be able to check that one assembly component for constraints directly associated with it, within its parent assembly, but we will not be able to dig any deeper into the sub assembly that it references. When an assembly component is suppressed, we can not do much with it by code without it throwing errors. But, if accessing the constraints within referenced sub assemblies that are suppressed is not an issue, we should be OK, because the code will be able to access any other sub assemblies that are not suppressed.
See the attached text file, which contains the code for an iLogic rule you can try out for this recursive process. It is broken up into 3 parts, but all will be within the same iLogic rule. One part is the 'Main' routine, which gets the main assembly and its components, then calls the recursive routine to run on them. Then one routine is just to support the recursive functionality of stepping down into all levels of the assembly components. Then the third routine is focused on the main task that we want to run on each assembly component...namely suppressing all assembly constraints associated with it, if it is suppressed.
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
Hi @cmcewanE2U82. Attached is a text file containing an updated version of my previous code. In this version, the suppression status of each occurrence is first captured to a Boolean type variable, then that variable is used to dictate the suppression status of each of its constraints. I have not tested this new version yet myself, because I simply have too many other things going on right now, so let me know if it works OK for you.
I'm not saying that I would recommend this but...
When your 'active' document is an assembly, you can go to the Manage tab, iLogic panel, and click on the Event Triggers button to open that dialog. Then, on the 'This Document' tab, you will see a list of event names on the right, one of which is "Component Suppression Change". You could drag this iLogic rule from the list on the left over and put it under that event name, to cause that rule to run automatically whenever that event happens. However, if you do a lot of component suppression changes, then setting things up this way may significantly slow Inventor down, due to all the processing going on. It would likely be better (more efficient) to just run the rule manually after you have completed all necessary component suppression changes. And if you need to regularly switch component suppression status on and off, I would recommend creating some ModelStates to record those suppression states, so that you can simply switch between the ModelStates to achieve the same effect. Just some things to think about.
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
