Compare assemblies with VBA

[Anonymous]

Hi!

I use Inventor + Vault 2018.3

I would like to automatically compare 2 assemblies with 2 different versions that are stored in Vault (basically I want to know what has been modified inside "ASMtest.iam" version 6 and 9 by my other colleagues).
What I manually do today inside Inventor is:
- get from Vault ASMtest version 6 (I do not open it inside Inventor)
- open a new part
- "derive" the ASMtest.iam, option "derive style = single solid body merging out seams between planar faces"
- break the link
- get from Vault ASMtest version 9 (I do not open it inside Inventor)
- "derive" the ASMtest.iam, option "derive style = single solid body merging out seams between planar faces"
--> at this step I get 2 solids, each represents a version of my ASMtest

And this is what shows me what was removed or added, for each I look which material is still there and I check the body weight/volume:
- "combine", option "cut", for base I select the 1st body and for toolbody I select the 2nd body
- "combine", option "cut", for base I select the 2nd body and for toolbody I select the 1st body

So, if I want to automate this comparison:
- Is there already an easiest way to do that ?
- should I do it with macro/VBA (I never used it inside Inventor, but I already use VBA inside Excel, and I found how to derive)
- should I do it with VB.net (I only know how to get the 2 versions of ASMtest.iam and parts which are inside, but I don't know how to create a new part and derive, combine, ...) --> I fear this will cost me a lot of time
- (I also can launch a VB.NET software to download the files, and then launch manually a macro to derive and combine, it can be sufficient for me)

It would be great if you can help me regarding the commands to use 🙂

Thanks a lot !

[JelteDeJong]

Hi,

sometime a go i wrote a blog post about comparing 2 parts. Maybe its a start for you. check my post "Compare Part Geometry with iLogic"

[Anonymous]

Hi!

That sounds very interesting :), thank you!

But when  run it for a test (without modifying anything) I get an error "Paramètre incorrect. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070057 (E_INVALIDARG))".

It appears inside "createDiff", when the following line is run:

doc.ComponentDefinition.Features.SplitFeatures.TrimSolid(splitTool, body, True)

For my test I tried to compare 2 solid parts.

Any idea of what happens?