I have an assembly with many parts (over 200). Throughout the tree I have the same parts (gaskets, etc) and they are randomly distributed depending on how I created my assembly model. Id like to have an easy to way to sort or group common parts. Is there a way to do this? I am using Solidworks 2012.
Thanks,
-Nick
If by easy you mean a way to automatically group all like parts in the tree, then no. You can click on components and drag them up or down to suit you, then put them into a folder if you want, but as far as I know that's as easy as it gets.
If you want to sort/filter the components you can use Tools > Assembly Visualization, though this won't permanently sort your tree. You can group stuff together by adding components to a folder. Ctrl+Select a few components in the tree then right-click and select Add to New Folder. You can then rename the folders. A lot of our assemblies have upwards of a couple hundred components so I use the folders regularly. Hope this helps.
Nick,
A couple of tools will help you out.
First off, you can hold down the Alt key and click and drag components to a new location in the feature tree. You can also Ctrl-Select multiple components then use the Alt-Drag method.
You can create folders to group components.
To help speed up working with your 200+ components, use the filter at the top of the assembly tree. Type in gasket and only components containing gasket will be shown. You can then Ctrl-Select / Alt-drag these into the gasket folder.
Daen
Thank you everyone. I decided to go with the folder option but didnt realize that I could use the filter in combination with the folder method and that works well for me. Thanks again!
-Nick
You should consider using sub-assemblies as well. 200+ components in one assembly makes for a slow, prone-to-explode assembly
Nick,
A couple of tools will help you out.
First off, you can hold down the Alt key and click and drag components to a new location in the feature tree. You can also Ctrl-Select multiple components then use the Alt-Drag method.
You can create folders to group components.
To help speed up working with your 200+ components, use the filter at the top of the assembly tree. Type in gasket and only components containing gasket will be shown. You can then Ctrl-Select / Alt-drag these into the gasket folder.
Daen