Top Down Design in a multi-user env't

[Guest0527211403]

Hi Folks,

I've been using the Insert-->Part feature for top down design of my assemblies. I create planes and sketches that define all of my critical geometry (linear rails, motor & sprocket locations, mating surfaces for my castings, etc). I then bring this into my critical part models and generate the casting & machining models.

It's worked pretty well for my subsystems, but now as our product is evolving, so too is the complexity of what I'm designing. I'm now working with a colleague in the design of the subsystem. We've been working quite well with the master model, but things are starting to get cumbersome as more and more information gets crammed into the master. As our group grows, we know this will be an issue and we would like to work out a good method for scaling up our design practices.

What I'm curious to know is if there's a way I can "package" elements of my master model so that my colleague only sees what he needs to see, and isn't bogged down with elements of the model that don't affect what he is working on.

Back in my previous life as a pro/e user, this would have been done using a "Publish Geometry" feature which would let me pick and choose which elements of the master model get passed down to the lower level components.

The closest I can get to this is to use "Display States" in solidworks to selectively show/hide my sketches, surfaces and planes. But from what I can tell, I still have to pick and choose items manually. If I have a fairly good naming system in my master model (i.e. planes and sketches are named such that they identify the aspect of the model to which they pertain) can I set up "filters" or something in my display states so that it always shows or hides items with a particular name (like layers in Pro/E)? Failing that, is there a way I can sort the list of planes and sketches imported using Insert-->Part alphabetically?

I'm interested in hearing your techniques for working in a multi-user environment with top-down design, and how one can "partition" a large, complex design into smaller more manageable chunks for individual team members to work with.

Thanks in advance!

 

[kellnerp]

What I have seen is the use of a master model (part) that could be dropped into both assemblies and parts to guide design. In assemblies it would be dropped in as an envelope part.

The master model would be planes and surfaces.



TOP
CSWP, BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

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Phenom IIx6 1100T = 8GB = FX1400 = XP64SP2 = SW2009SP3
"Node news is good news."

 

[Guest0527211403]

Yep, that's what we've been using.

Our master model consists of critical planes to locate mounting surfaces & midplanes, as well as critical datums elsewhere in the machine. It also contains sketches on these planes which define size limits, shared mounting hole patterns and rough outlines of other parts to ensure clearences. The few surfaces in our master model define static locations for piping and hoses to help us do our routing later on.

When we drop it in an assembly, we "hang" components we dont design (i.e. guide rails) on the geometry in the master. When we drop it in a part, we use the same geometry to define our mounting faces and apply appropriate machining allowances in the casting.

The issue now is that we bring in all of the sketches, which is what the insert-->part feature forces us to do, when any given component only needs a subset of these. I'm trying to prevent the case where someone inadvertently (accidentally or lazily) references some aspect of the model which shouldn't drive their part of the design, and then changes are made which cause the whole thing to blow up.

 

[ShaggyPE]

I haven't given much thought to the repercussions of what I am about to say... so I'm just going to say it.

You could make your master an assembly containing multiple sub-master parts (one for each sub-system). Each team could then use their corresponding sub-master part for their design tasks. This will mitigate the issue of referencing entities that are out of their realm.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

 

[kellnerp]

I worked something out similar to ShaggyPE's suggestion.

The one issue that pops up is that for a master part's changes to propagate the intermediate Sub Masters have to be rebuilt.

The heritage of the submaster goes with it when it is inserted into the part. So a macro should be able to be constructed to force rebuild intermediate steps because they won't propagate automatically. PDM might help in this matter.

Sub masters are kind of like feature freeze on an assembly level. It would take some training to make it work in a group. It would also help large assembly performance because so few mates would be needed in the top level.

Example


TOP
CSWP, BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

http://www.linkedin.com/in/engineeringtransport

Phenom IIx6 1100T = 8GB = FX1400 = XP64SP2 = SW2009SP3
"Node news is good news."

 

[drawoh]

justkeepgiviner,

If someone is designing sub-assembloes, can you move control of specific feaures from the main assembly to the sub-assembly?

My favourite trick is to define a pseudo-part as an outline. I embed my sketches into the outline part, not into the main assembly. I have not tried this, but I think you could reset this to read-only, and then your partner could load it with read-write access.

In a sub-assembly environment, you can define and control an outline for the sub-assembly, and your partner would use in-context design between this and his new parts, at the sub-assembly level.

JHG