Assemblies & Zones

[Befuddled]

I wish to set a default user zone for an assembly.

The zone is already created using a zone & a filter (component group).

The online documentation implies I can set a default user zone using the command ‘Set User Zone’, (open the online doc and do a search for ‘user_zone’) my question is how? I can’t even find the button in NX.

I have tried this on NX 2 & 4.

Any one got any ideas, how to do this.

Cheers in advance.

B

 

[cowski]

NX2 requires an advanced assemblies license to use zones. Look in the menu at "Assemblies" -> "Advanced" -> "Zones...". I can't get any farther than that as I don't have the required license.

 

[Befuddled]

Yeap, got that one, but no option to 'Set User Zone'

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, this is the story ;-)

The idea of setting a 'User Zone' is an old concept that was basically obsoleted back in Unigraphics V16.0 when we introduced, for all intents and purposes, the Assembly Navigator that you see today. Note that there was no Resource Bar back then so it couldn't be docked like today, but the basic appearance and behavior have not changed all that much in the past 9 years or so (of course a lot of new stuff has been added). With this new and improved Navigator also came the concept of 'Filters' and 'Component Sets' which went beyond what you could do with 'Zones' alone and while we still support Zones today, we no longer felt that the concept of a 'User Zone' was needed. BTW, a 'User Zone' is sort of like the 'Work Layer' where whatever you create next is added to that Layer, or in this case, to that 'Zone'.

Anyway, like so many other things in UG/NX, when we obsolete something, we don't actually remove the code behind these 'features', we just hide it so that new users aren't distracted and therefore use the new facilities. However, because we know that there will always be 'legacy' users who could have a need to continue to access the older tools, we create a 'switch' (environment variable) which will turn it back on. Well, we documented this variable for a couple of years in the release notes and such, but after awhile we dropped any mention of it as it became even more obsolete and out-of-date, however not all references to the old behavior and options have been removed from the user documentation (but we really should do that sometime), which is why you came across that mention of a command named "Set User Zone".

So, that's the story and I'm sticking to it. Note that I can't really take the credit for passing this information alone to you since someone else who's part of our Assembly group actually put me onto this (he lurks on this message board but doesn't post) so really he deserves the credit for recognizing what it was that you were talking about and telling me where I could learn more about it.

Of course that leaves us with the question, do you really think you need to be able to do this, and if so, do you want the variable? Now I've been told that there's no known risks in using the ONE extra option, 'Set User Zone', that this switch enables, but that since it's technically no longer supported (I think 9 years of obsolescence has earned us some relief in this area) there is the risk that no one is probably going to be able to answer any questions or provide any examples, and of course, if during the course of you using this, it does prove to not be working as expected, there is no chance in 'h***' that we will ever fix it.

So, do you still want to give this a try?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[hudson888]

B,

The use of zones in general is not completely obsolete, just I believe the case that John points out. Since I expect the outcome you wish to achieve is probably to open up only components that occupy the area of your design that you are interested in then perhaps some other complimentary techniques could be applicable. Have you thought of using open by proximity, or setting up filters in you assemblies. These two methods do I think require an advanced assemblies license, but they could be another way to achieve your goals.

You could if you're really set on doing something extraordinary make up a layout with a solid that occupies a zone of any shape and then open by proximity to that.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[Befuddled]

Cheers for that John,

This is something which has been driving my local Siemens rep & I mad for the last couple of weeks.

Then, just today we got a similar answer back from development. I bet we have been dealing with the same guy ?

I have been trying to automate a process which is very dependent upon the use of zones, so the though of being able to set a default one was appealing.

Now that we have finally got to bottom of missing command story, I spent this afternoon writing a NX open (ufunc C++) api which does the whole automation in a single ‘dll’ for me, its been many years since my college days of programming c++, but it is finally coming back. The love / hate memories of it have been washing over me all day ?

Once again cheers for confirming that his command is a dead end, so that I don’t waste any time holding out for the ‘missing command’
Cheers,

B