Nx Hide/ SHOW, COLOR filter etc.

[mousepotato]

Hi,

Is there any way to assign filter parts based on their names, so that only they show up in the modeling window, and everything else is hidden, so that I can select all of them and assign a color? So forth for all components?
Also is it possible to control SHOW/HIDE components in the assembly from the ASSEMBLY NAVIGATOR spreadsheet?
Or is there an easier work-flow for doing this?

My situation:
-----------------
My customer gave me a large assembly and an EXCEL sheet with all the parts list / materials in the assembly.
Now he wants me to assign Individual colors to parts. (Ex. All CARBON STEEL parts in GREEN color, PLASTIC parts in BLUE color etc.)
I have 8 occurrences of part ABC, 2 occurrences of part DEF in the assembly and so on...
It is time consuming to assign colors individually to parts.
-----------------
Please note that saving the assembly is not possible as they are already in RELEASED condition.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in adv.
-----------------
Running Nx 8 / TCE 8 on Win 7

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you can't save the Assembly and I assume that this holds true for the Components as well, then how are you going to do all this without being forced to throw it all away at the end?

But back to your question, there is the ability to apply filters, or what is now called groups, based on certain criteria such as size, attributes, names, etc. but it requires an Advanced Assemblies license and besides, once you've defined these 'groups' you still have to save something or else it's all for naught.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KhimaniMohiki]

If you do have an advanced assemblies license you could define the groups and save them in a dummy part, then copy from the dummy part to your read only assembly to filter the components on and off. I do this where we have top level vehicle assemblies and I want to filter for my components but not have to re-define the groups everytime.

Khimani Mohiki
Design Engineer - Aston Martin
NX8.5

 

[mousepotato]

Thanks John,

But this is for just a report generation or whatever at the customer end. We are to assign colors to parts based on their materials, generate screenshots of sub-assemblies for the report, and then leave the assembly *unsaved*.

Yes, I get it that, we can do this by assigning different component groups. But still it is **time consuming**, as we have around 65 materials encompassing 600 different parts of varying quantities that fall under different sub-assemblies. Not to mention there are 9 humongous assemblies like this in the pipeline.

Spreadsheet (MS-Excel) can efficiently filter out components.
I am in search of work-flow which can assign colors to components in assembly, once I color them out in the corresponding filtered cells of "Assembly navigator WORKSHEET".

Any ideas?

Thanks in adv.

 

[MikeHyde]

There is an additional package for NX called Visual Reporting which should be able to give the results you require. It can change the displayed colours of components, does not require write access to the assembly and the report format can be saved for later reuse.

Mike Hyde

http://www.astonmartin.com

NX8.5 with TC9.1

 

[mousepotato]

@ MikeHyde

Oops! I found out that we do not have Visual Reporting license.

@KhimaniMohiki

Thats interesting! Worth a try.

Any scripting / programming would be nice.

Thx all.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If the components have been assigned the proper materials, then there will be an existing attribute which can be used by the HD3D Visual Reporting tool, as mentioned by Mike and as seen below:

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[mousepotato]

Thx John.

Time to fetch a VISUAL REPORTING license!
But I just found out the materials have not been properly assigned to parts I've been working on...

 

[mousepotato]

Hi..

Just a weird Idea... Is it possible to add CSV (comma-separated values) of plain text to Component grouping? See the attached image plz...

Thx in advance..

 

[Toost]

1) create a new top-assembly into which you add the customer assembly.
This new top assy can be saved as you desire without modifying the customer assembly.

2) the color of an object is a so called "display attribute" and can be changed in the displayed part. - You are in other words free to assign new colors to the components in the new top-assy without modifying the original piece part / assembly.

3) Bribe Cowski to write you a journal which reads the excel file and assigns the corresponding attributes to the components.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[mousepotato]

Thx 4 all the replies
@Cowski!!

We are waiting!!!

Thanks all for the eplies

 

[cowski]

So basically, you have an excel file that lists the components and colors; you want to change the component color to that specified in the excel file so you can take some screenshots. Is this a good summary?

If so, what does the excel file look like? What column holds the component name? Does this name match the file name or assigned name of the component in NX? What column is the color information in? Is it an NX color index, RGB values, color name (red, blue, yellow, etc), or something else?

Also, what version of NX are you using?

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[mousepotato]

Hi Cowski,

Thx you are here.
You are exactly right!
Part numbers match exactly with the spreadsheet. Not so with Part descriptions and Materials assigned to individual parts. They, in some cases match and others don't match with Spreadsheet. Colors primarily are RGB colors.

Please see the attached Picture.

There is an assembly with lot of sub-assemblies including parts of different materials, and we have instructions not to save this working assembly.
This is presented in a Spreadsheet BOM as seen in the uploaded picture. Each material has been assigned an unique color.
Earlier my work flow was like this:
1. Open the main assembly and load all the components.
2. Search in the spreadsheet for a particular part number and select the color of the Material cell and assign it to the part (Ctrl+J).
3. Repeat this for ALL THE INSTANCES OF THE PART, inside many sub-assemblies, strewn all over the main assembly.
4. Do this for all the parts in the main assembly.

After KhimaniMohiki suggested an alternative method, I revised my workflow.
1. I created a dummy assembly and created COMPONENT GROUPS of all the materials in the BOM, which I can paste in the assembly which I am working on.
2. Then I would manually drag the components into the corresponding material COMPONENT GROUP, and assign the material color, by putting off every other COMPONENT GROUPS, and enabling only this COMPONENT GROUP.

The problem I face is that I cannot add a bunch of PART NUMBERS into a COMPONENT GROUP, in one go. We are adding it one at a time, which is time-consuming.

I wish it is like this: FILTER Part numbers based on their MATERIAL from the spreadsheet and create a CSV or Text files of this filtered part numbers, ready to be fed into INDIVIDUAL COMPONENT GROUPS.
I think that RGB values is the way to go!

It would be helpful, if this can be resolved.

Running Nx 8 on Win 7 / TCE 8 here

Thanks in advance..

 

[cowski]

So the component color will be based on the fill color of the excel material cell? Do you need the component to be the exact color of the cell or can it be the closest NX palette color?

If I understand correctly, the journal could find the component and change its color based on the excel file. I see no need to create component groups unless you need them for some other reason...

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[mousepotato]

Hi Cowski
Yes!! It can be close. There would not be any legibility in the report after all.

"If I understand correctly, the journal could find the component and change its color based on the excel file. I see no need to create component groups unless you need them for some other reason..."
Yipee!!!

Thx..

 

[cowski]

I finally made some time to work on this today...
You will need to change the column and colorColumnOffset values in lines 95 and 97 to match the structure of your excel file. The column value is the column that holds the component part name information and the colorColumnOffset should point to the column that holds the desired color information. If the part names are in column C and the color info is in column E, then column = 3 and colorColumnOffset = 2.

I don't guarantee it to be bug-free, so let me know how it goes...

component_color_from_excel.vb

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[mousepotato]

Hi Cowski,

Huge thanks for your effort...

Will check it and post feedback..

Thx again

 

[cowski]

No news = good news?

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[mousepotato]

@cowski
It really surprised me that you were eagerly waiting for my feedback.
Had to work in Dassault systemes CATIA for a month for project requirements and am literally on a tight schedule...It works really well for small assemblies I tested. But couldn't put my hands on very big assemblies. But I hope it will surely work...

Thx a ton 4 the efforts. You always extend the functionality of a software triplefold with your programming skills.

Will definitely post a field-tested feedback in the last week of june...