Automatically update Design Tables with rebuild ???

[oggy]

Hope someone can help me out. I want to have a SW model, controlled by an external spreadsheet, but I can't get the model to update automatically. In the assy I have a rectangle that has a design table that links the values of the length and width to an external spreadsheet. The assy has a part in it that is a "c" channel and part has its own design table that (again) has the height of the channel linked to the same external spreadsheet.

In simplistic terms, I want to be able to change the three values in the singular external spreadsheet, then open up the assy, hit the rebuild button and the assy dimensions (as well as the height of the assy part within the assy) to change to the given dimensions in the ecternal spreadsheet. All I can get is to open up the part, open up the design table and close again to force the dimensional changes. Inventor does it easily and I can't believe SW can't..............

 

[meintsi]

I have an idea but let me guess....

When you hit the rebuild button, only 1 of the controlled features changes size.

Also, does a second rebuild finish it?

How does <Ctrl-Q> work?
Or does it take two forced rebuilds also?



Remember...
&quot;If you don't use your head,
your going to have to use your feet.&quot;

 

[m56]

If I read you right, I think you need to &quot;Link&quot; the design table excel file to the drawing.
In SW2003, right click the table, select 'edit definition' (edit feature in SW2004), make sure under source &quot;from file&quot; is checked.
under that is where you can browse to the table since it's external to the part file.
There's a check box there that is 'LINK'
if you don't check that box, it will do exactly what you described.

It's my opinion that when you use an external design table, Link to file should be checked by default. Since it's not, it really can confuse people.
Hope this helps

 

[JNR]

You have to at least &quot;edit design table&quot; and immediately close it.

We have an extensive tool set which modifies many complex geometric features within parts in assemblies. (I presented a paper on it at SW World in Las Vegas) This uses (classic style) design tables linked to an external spreadsheet and/or database file. The linking is pure Windows technology, but in order to update parts and assemblies after a change we used to have to open each one and open/close the design tables. One of our guys wrote some code to scan the assembly and automatically do the whole process very quickly.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[oggy]

I have linked the spreadsheets, but what I hoped Solidworks could do (as Inventor does) is drive the model from an external spreadsheet. And use the SW software to print out the final assy and detail drawings without having to play within the SW model itself. ie make a change in an external spreadsheet (change plate thickness of body from 5 to 6 mm - part now to be made in Singapore and not in Australia say), then save the spreadsheet, open up detail drawing sheets of assy and parts in SW and print off drawings. Not having to get a CAD operator to open up each part(s) and assy(s) to open and close the design tables to force an update.

If someone knows of some code (perhaps visual basic) that can automatically do this as a single &quot;update&quot; type button (assy and all assoc. details within). As I'm new to this. and SW doesnt have this feature, then perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree !!!!. I didnt want the engineer to have to operate solidworks to do small set changes. He knows excel and it is feasable to train him to change his spreadsheets, then open up the drawings himself (NOT PLAY WITH THE MODEL @#$%) and print out the new changes (too old to teach a dog new tricks for him).....

 

[JNR]

I guess the issue is that the drawing is kind of a child of the model files. In other words just opening a drawing does not give you write access to the models displayed on it. Thus it cannot do an automatic rebuild on them as you other program apparently does. This is very much by design for many logical reasons. Unfortunately it does not seem to suit your purposes. It would be hell for us, by the way....

SW 2004 (and 2003) will use external spreadsheets as the design table without linking cells into an embedded design table from an external spreadsheet. Did that make sense?

I think this is what you want to do.

Set up your code to parse the drawing database and find all the referenced models. Have it open and update them. Of course if you have PDM systems in the loop you will have to deal with other issues. Also you will have to have write access to the files. Shared use might become an issue too. From using the version that our guy wrote, it appears that you don't have to actualy display the files as they are being updated, so it goes REALL QUICK!!

Ours is a complex mechanism arrangement with oddball angles to the pivot axes and links and brackets, plus some glass objects that are themselves automatically modeled from parameters. It folds HUD combiners up into cockpit ceilings and every aircraft is different - very nasty geometry. We can now iterate iterate and optimize these designs very quickly. With the first version of the toolset (which I created) we used to have to visit each file containing a design table, then open and close the DT to update the parts every time we change the spreadsheet values. This took a couple of minutes (more if you got trigger happy and forgot one, mind you the results could be amusing!) Now it takes one mouse click and about 2 seconds max. Plus our progammer whizkid moved from a shreadsheet to a database which works much better with VB. Now he has added nice parameter entry forms right in SolidWorks, so you don't even have to go out and dink with a spreadsheet. Unfortunately the company owns the code, but he said he mght be able to give you some pointers on how to start.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[JNR]

PS. Our guy also does custom programming work on the side (with company approval). It's a bit expensive and he seems to be pretty booked up at the moment ( I think our VAR has more than enough overflow of customers for him!) , but I can ask him if he is interested if you like.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[drvitorino]

This is a real problem. The only way to solve it until the version 2003 and without the use of VB is to use the Equation Editor in the assembly.
You can create a spreadsheet which calculates all the parameters you want to calculate. Then you use another sheet to distribute the calculated values using lines (you can use Excel matrix functions to organize that). Then you copy the cells and paste into the equation editor in the assembly. Since you have some productivity functions inside SW, this is not a hard task. Always update twice. Nothing can garantee the changes when you have small changes almost invisible.
Forget linked spreadsheet, they only work on the others programs....

 

[JNR]

Aux contrare. Linked spreadsheets work extremely well. There are a few limitations due to some logical issues with temp files, but they few and not insurmountable.

If you have an embedded (old style) DT in a part, you can only link TO it and not from it, since it has no real filename of its own - it's in memory.

We in fact link to many different part's DT's from single master spread sheet containing all the parameters for the entire design.

Be careful using equasions as a get-around when you don't really need their functionality. If your parts get large with a lot of equasions they will get slow to rebuild. There is a lot more overhead involved in equasions than in DT parameters.


3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......