×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

(OP)
Does anybody know of a macro that wil insert all Assy's and Parts that reside in a folder into a new assembly and position them side by side so they are not on top of each other?

I have something like this for AutoCad, In our company all geometry is blocked for each component or assembly detail. So we developed a lisp routine that will insert all blocks in the current drawing automatically and position them side by side in an array

Thanks, Tom

Tom Malinski
http://www.okayind.com/
Dell Prec 670, Xeon 3.8,2GB Ram, Nvidia Quadra FX 3450/4000 SDI
SWorks Pro & PDMWorks 2007 SP3.0

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

I don't see why you couldn't do this.  Are you asking for help about how to get started with such a macro?  I usually cringe to say this, but in your case, it might be a good way to start:  Use macro recorder.  Do the functions manually with macro recorder to see what is recorded for you.  Let's us know what happens. :)

Matt
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
sw.fcsuper.com
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

Not a macro but a simple mwthod is to open or insert all the files en masse into a tempororay new assy and then use the explode function to separate them.

cheers

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

(OP)
fcsuper
I recorded a simple macro and it works well for that job, but I need a macro that would be generic to any job.

Here is a rough specification

User would start a new assembly and set normal to the top plane
User would run the macro
Macro would utilize the current folder path
Macro would ignore all files except parts and assemblies. With an option to select one or the other or both
Macro would determine the x & y extents of each part or assembly to insert and then insert them all on the top plane side by side with a space between them. No mates are necessary
 


I was hoping somebody would have seen a generic macro like this somewhere

Tom Malinski
http://www.okayind.com/
Dell Prec 670, Xeon 3.8,2GB Ram, Nvidia Quadra FX 3450/4000 SDI
SWorks Pro & PDMWorks 2007 SP3.0

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

(OP)
CBL, Exploded view falls short because not all components are in assemblies.

CBL, How do I insert all files "en masse" ? or is that just a simple way of saying insert them all one at a time graduate

Tom Malinski
http://www.okayind.com/
Dell Prec 670, Xeon 3.8,2GB Ram, Nvidia Quadra FX 3450/4000 SDI
SWorks Pro & PDMWorks 2007 SP3.0

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

Tom ...

By "en masse" I mean all at once. Just drag and drop a bunch of files from a Windows folder into an open assy. The components will be inserted with component origin to assy origin placement.

I tried the exploded view "trick" before responding here and it worked perfectly. Just window select all components and make sure the Select sub-assy's parts option is NOT selected.

cheers

RE: Macro to insert all Assy's and Parts into a new assembly

(OP)
Thanks CBL
you may have given me a simple work around without a macro. I wasn't even thinking about drag and drop.
A star for you...
Tom

Tom Malinski
http://www.okayind.com/
Dell Prec 670, Xeon 3.8,2GB Ram, Nvidia Quadra FX 3450/4000 SDI
SWorks Pro & PDMWorks 2007 SP3.0

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources