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Re: Top down modeling best practices
It's hard to give a good answer without seeing your model, but I have a few questions that may help.
1. Why are you starting with surfaces instead of solid bodies?
2. It sounds like you're inserting this part into a new part once for each body, then deleting unwanted bodies, so if the part has 6 bodies you're repeating this process 6 times. Instead of this workflow, you would probably have better luck saving each body of the part as a seperate part, then re-combining them in an assembly (if needed). (Right-click on a body, choose "Insert into new part" from the drop-down.)
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Thanks for the reply
1. Probably could be done using solids from the start however I am used to doing this type of model in 100% surfaces.
2. Had not tried this exactly as you mentioned. I had tried the Insert > Featrures > Save Bodies, however this crashed everytime I used it unless I ran se SW.exe as a admin so I gave up on it. The solution you offered acctually works without crashing! The only Issue I have with this is I don't get any of my reference planes, axis etc. Not needed for all parts but definatelly usefull sometimes.
If I don't need the axis and planes I'll use the "Insert into new part" as you suggested.
Thanks
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Terry
Using "Insert into new part", you do risk losing the reference if you make extensive changes to the master model. Yes, having to edit the delete body feature is a pain, but at least you can recover. .
Dwight
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Thanks, good info.
SolidWorks take note on this issue. Pro-E is MUCH more powerfull in this arena. I feel like I am working with my hands tied and it doesnt sound like I'm alone
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Terry Thom wrote:
SolidWorks take note on this issue. Pro-E is MUCH more powerfull in this arena. I feel like I am working with my hands tied and it doesnt sound like I'm alone
I don't know that Pro-E is more powerful, you just might need to consider a different workflow. If you'll give the procedure I mentioned above a chance I think you'll see that it works pretty well. I use multi-body parts all the time with no problems. And while I rarely need to save the bodies out as seperate parts, when I have done so I haven't had any issues with it.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Terry,
I typically use the Save Bodies and don't have many problems with it. I do all of the work in the master that requires any interaction with the other bodies in the master so that I don't have to worry about transfering planes or axes. I've never had a problem with crashes. I've never had to check the "Run as administrator" button. If checking that allows it to work for you, then I would be inclined to check it.
Jerry S.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Terry,
Please see the link below. Mauricio has posted several other threads that describe his process for Top-Down modeling that are extremely helpful. Try giving a few of his threads a look.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
I'm not sure what your parts look like but you could also try starting with an assembly. Then to make your parts you could do an insert>Component>New Part... This would allow you to have independently editable parts instead of creating them from existing bodies.
Without knowing exactly what you are doing I'm not sure if this is a reasonable alternative for you or not.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Could be done this way, but it gets tricky when you are offsetting surfaces, plus it is to easy to create circular refereces.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Is it essential that you have a separate part file for each part? An easy solution would be to make configurations of your master model and in each config delete all but one body. You might still get the problem with the body delete feature when you update the model but you might not.
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Re: Top down modeling best practices
Terry,
I suspect that the problem you are having with Delete Body failing is that the body names are changing and SolidWorks is getting confused. The workaround for this is to rename the body immdediately after the feature that creates the body. If you do that, before any other feature is created or operation done, then the name will stick.
Jerry S.