I have an assembly with probably 100 or so components and have realized that it is "upside down" (i.e. pressing ctrl + 7 yields an isometric view that is upside down). I assume this is all due to assembing the first component upside down, but can't figure out which component I assembled first (they have since been reordered into various folders). Is there an easy way to find the offending component?
Aaron
Many times a rule of thumb is the first component inserted gets fixed and everything is mated around it. That would be a good starting point.
Another way would be to look at the mates group folder. Those are added first come. If they are out of order, right click on one and select Properties. This will give you the Date Created. Process of elimination maybe?
If you can't find a fixed part, then look in the mates folder for something mated to the system planes. On my assy's they are called Front, Top, Right. Unfortunately they are not searchable that I can find, but a quick scan down through the mates folder, concentrating on looking for ,Front or ,Top may be fairly quick.
WT
This is one of the problems of "bottom-up" and of the practice of mating one part to another...
Since each part have his own coordinate system (3 planes and one origin) why part are not mate to planes and origin (or reference points) at the sub-assembly level? this way you will never get into the problem of looking for the "first part", since ther will not be any "first part".
Aslo, when you mate parts to parts, and then you need to suppress or to delete a part, you can get into a real big problem...
I work with CAD applications since 1983 and I never mate one part to another... maybe I am missing something... By the way you can also do mechanism that move without usign part to part mates.
Fist check I would do: Which component is fixed (f)?
BTW, why is the orientation so important to you? You can just re-orient the assembly, right (update standard views)?