Exploded Assemblies in Modeling

[cherry]

Does anyone use OSD Modeling to create exploded assemblies as may be used to create service manual drawings? Are there any built in functions to do this in OSD Modeling 11.60 or add on modules?

Thanks,
Pete Cherry

[tim heeney]

Pete,
I am new to OSD still running v11.0.
Investigate 'forum jump/enhancements for CoCreate( about 5th item down):'modeling:add formations to UI'
This will help. Sorry i have no practical experiance to offer.
Tim.

[May Kung]

If you're referring to a command that will "autoexplode" the assembly for you, no, I do not believe OSD Modeler has this capability. At least, release 9 doesn't have it, and I haven't heard that 11.X does.

What we do when we need an exploded view is we use the Formations command (it's supported, but it is not in any of the standard menus, so you'll have to load it; online help should explain how to do this).

The general sequence is as follows:

1. Select New in the Formations menu.
2. Define a name and owner (this should be the owning assembly).
3. Do not close the windows that open and start moving parts until they are in the right location. Using Dynamic positioning or Co-Pilot makes it easier.
4. Once all the parts are where you want them, click Accept.
5. You will be asked if you want a Relative vs. Absolute. The only difference I've found is Relative lets you adjust the relative distances separating your parts later.
6. Save the formation.
7. Save your PKG or solid to preserve the formation.
8. In Annotation, you have to use the Exploded goodie (similar to Formations). This allows you to create an exploded view. You have to specify which Formation to use.

The above works in SD9; I don't think the sequence has changed in OSD 11.X.

[jkramer]

Maybe I misunderstand the question, but we use an unsuppored lisp-tool, that you can find in
<osd_homedirectory\help\Common\documentation\integration_kit\examples\explode_lsp.html

It's a straightforward tool that lets you explode an assembly. I use it together with the formations tool.

[bart4java]

Hello,

please see also

* Use Exploded Views in SD Annotation

.../help/Common/documentation/goodies/Readme-0026.html#section-26

and

* Use Formations

.../help/Common/documentation/goodies/Readme-0025.html#section-25

May they are of any help.

[rhankey]

Anotation assemblies generate huge files that are problematic for users without hi-end workstations to view or print out.
We use PowerPoint to generate assembly drawings that are used for part identification by test, marketing, service and assembly groups. The images are screen dumps in TIFF format, inserted as pictures in PPT, edited and labeled. The resulting file is about 4% of the size of an equivalent Annotation drawing file. The PPT file is available for any pc to view or print out without the need for an OSD viewer. The colored images also seem to help differentiate parts better than line drawings.

[fabrizio]

Hi Cherry. Here at my company we have developed an add-on module for OSDM which helps the user to generate explosions of 3d models and to create the corresponding 2d table. This program has lot of functionality: automatic explosions, semi-automatic explosions, manual explosions, part state (impl/expl) highlighting, explosion report generation and much more... If you are interested, I can send you the program and a license to evaluate it for a while. Since I am a programmer and not a sales man, I don't know the cost for each license, but for the moment you can just try it to see if it meets your needs.

Regards
Fabrizio

[dszostak]

In the 2006 release of CoCreate OneSpace Modeling, new 3D Configurations were implemented for exploded and configuration states.

"First, the new "configurations" tool is fantastic. This does away with the old "formations" and "explode" goodies. This tool is very intuitive, and very powerful. Making exploded views is going to easily take 1/2 the time it previously did. Not only is the tool much easier to use, but there is an "explode" button that automatically explodes the assembly (including sub-components, if you desire) by whatever scale you want. Invariably you will need to tweak your exploded view, but this does 90% of the work with a single button click." Read more (http://www.cocreateusers.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5856).

[dtyegian]

My question concerns exploding shared copies. I have a top assembly containing several shared assemblies underneath it. For an assembly drawing, I'd like to explode just one of the shared assemblies. Is this possible? How? Thanks for the forum.

[dszostak]

To accomplish this task, you'll want to create a selective instance the specific shared assembly that you want to individual position and explode.

What is a selective instance?
When you create a shared assembly, shares are also created of the parts and subassemblies owned by the source assembly. However, assembly components belong to the contents information of the assembly, not to each individual instance of it; therefore the components of shared assemblies are not represented by multiple instances. For this reason, a change in instance information (such as position or part color) of a component of a shared assembly is reflected in all representations of the component in the other assembly shares.

For example, a simple piston and cylinder model. Each cylinder, piston, and pair of piston rings comprise an assembly; the model consists of two of these assemblies shared. When one of the pistons is moved within the housing, both pistons move. This is because the piston belongs to the contents of its owning assembly, which exists only once. Although the piston is in two representations (denoting the two instances of the shared assembly), there is really only one instance of the piston itself.

FYI - More information can be found if you search on "selective instances" in CoCreate OneSpace Modeling Help.

[dtyegian]

Thanks for the help David (and for the nice webcasts). The selective instance allows me to position one of my shared assemblies (A1) in a different location, however if I reposition a part (P1) within that SI assembly (A1), it still changes the positions of that part (P1) within all the assemblies (A1, A2, A3, ...) . It seems that I need to unshare the assembly (for one level) and then reposition the parts (in the unshared assembly) for use in the exploded configuration (of the overall top assembly). This way the parts continue to be shared but I have one assembly (A1) whose shared parts (P1, P2, ...) are location independent from the other shared assemblies (A2, A3, ...). Does that make sense? Might there be an easier way using nested configurations?

[waynef]

Actually, to get this to work you need to selectively unshare each component in the shared assembly that you want to explode. I'm using Modeling v14.00B. There may have been a defect in previous versions that didn't allow this. You can send an email to me and I will send you an example package file. Uploading an attachment is currently not working for me.

The way I think about this is that if you want to explode a shared subassembly, then the components of that assembly need to be selectively unshared in the context of that assembly so that their position can be unique in that one shared subassembly.

[dtyegian]

Thanks for that explanation.