Hello everyone,
May I ask for your help to create an iLogic rule? Something like this:
Hi @rafael.barata. Generally speaking, assemblies do not have a 'material' or an 'appearance' of their own. They just represent the 'components' that we place into them. Because of this, the main iProperty named "Appearance" for an assembly document will not be meaningful. In regular (not weldment) assemblies, there is only one thing that we can control the material of, and that is 'virtual' components, which have no visual representation anyways, and are just for adding custom rows into our BOM. Then, when we have a weldment type assembly, we can additionally set the 'material' to use for the weld beads. And yes, it does allow us set an override appearance for those weld beads, other than the weld bead material's own appearance. But setting that is not the same as the main material or appearance for the overall assembly document though, just for the welds that get created within the assembly, if any. There is actually a standard iProperty named "Weld Material" in the PropertySet named "Design Tracking Properties", which is the third PropertySet, and that property is item # 38 of its properties. It has a String type value, but for most other types of documents, it will not have a value. There is no iProperty for weld appearance though. So, I'm not sure if what you are attempting to do is possible.
Those controls in the quick access toolbar for material and appearance drop-downs generally only show something meaningful when we have something within the assembly selected, as a convenience. I do know how to set the material and appearance of weld beads within a weldment type assembly, but doubt that it would make any difference to anything within the BOM of a parent assembly.
Edit: Attached is a text file containing code that can be used for an example iLogic rule. That rule is designed to be ran while the 'main' (highest level) assembly is the 'active' document and/or the rule is saved within that assembly, then it will iterate through all of the documents being referenced at all levels within that assembly, find the ones that are weldment assemblies, and attempt to set the appearance of their weld beads to the one shown in your screen captured image. Again, I am not sure if that will actually accomplish what you were hoping it would accomplish, but it is at least somewhere to start exploring / testing.
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
OK, well if he says it is possible, I will have to take his word for it, but the online help documentation says otherwise. What I mean is, each of the first 4 PropertySets in every Document, and a special PropertySet only present in 'Content Center' stuff, has an 'Enum' for them. There are online help pages for each of those Enums. I will post those links below, for reference:
PropertiesForSummaryInformationEnum
PropertiesForDocSummaryInformationEnum
PropertiesForDesignTrackingPropertiesEnum
PropertiesForUserDefinedPropertiesEnum
PropertiesForContentLibraryEnum
The standard Property named 'Appearance' is at the Index position of 53 in the third PropertySet, the one named "Design Tracking Properties". When we look at the Enum for that PropertySet, and look at the line item for the Property named 'Appearance' (first one shown, due to alphabetical order), it says that it is ReadOnly, and says that it there is no user interface access to it. That online help documentation may simply be outdated, and needs to be updated (hint @johnsonshiue). When I use a line of code to set the value of that iProperty, I do not get an error, but that also does not really set the Appearance of that Document, in the traditional sense. I believe that Property's value gets set automatically by Inventor when we set the 'real' appearance (an Asset object) of a Document, so its value gets driven by that action, not the other way around. But if setting the value of that iProperty is all that is needed in your case, then that would certainly simplify things greatly.
Below is an updated code example using that process, but doing it the Inventor API way, instead of the iLogic API way, to help clarify document specification when dealing with referenced documents in the background. This can be used directly on a weldment type assembly, or used from a parent level assembly containing some weldment type sub components.
Dim oADoc As AssemblyDocument = TryCast(ThisDoc.Document, Inventor.AssemblyDocument)
If oADoc Is Nothing Then Return
If TypeOf oADoc.ComponentDefinition Is WeldmentComponentDefinition Then
oADoc.PropertySets.Item(3).Item(53).Value = "Decapage"
End If
For Each oRefDoc As Inventor.Document In oADoc.AllReferencedDocuments
If Not TypeOf oRefDoc Is Inventor.AssemblyDocument Then Continue For
Dim oRefADoc As AssemblyDocument = oRefDoc
If Not TypeOf oRefADoc.ComponentDefinition Is WeldmentComponentDefinition Then Continue For
oRefADoc.PropertySets.Item(3).Item(53).Value = "Decapage"
Next
oADoc.Update2(True)
Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
Sure. Here you go. I broke this one down into two parts again, to simplify it even further, and make it slightly more dynamic/efficient.
Sub Main
Dim oDoc As Inventor.Document = ThisDoc.Document
SetWeldAppearanceAsDocAppearance(oDoc)
For Each oRefDoc As Inventor.Document In oDoc.AllReferencedDocuments
SetWeldAppearanceAsDocAppearance(oRefDoc)
Next
oDoc.Update2(True)
End Sub
Sub SetWeldAppearanceAsDocAppearance(doc As Inventor.Document)
If Not TypeOf doc Is Inventor.AssemblyDocument Then Return
Dim oADoc As AssemblyDocument = doc
If Not TypeOf oADoc.ComponentDefinition Is WeldmentComponentDefinition Then Return
Dim oWDef As WeldmentComponentDefinition = oADoc.ComponentDefinition
oADoc.PropertySets.Item(3).Item(53).Value = oWDef.WeldBeadAppearance.DisplayName
End SubIf this solved your problem, or answered your question, please click ACCEPT SOLUTION .
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Wesley Crihfield
(Not an Autodesk Employee)
