contact set? part grouping

[tmox]

I am detailing a complex assembly in a small box. In order to show the parts clearly, i want to have several views with the parts placed in logical order from bottom to top.
I must turn off visibility in each view for the parts i don't want to see and with that decided to group the fasteners for each part and name them so i know what i am turning off. ( one 10-24 fastener looks like the rest ).
There is no problem with COMPONENT PATTERNS but, with irregular patterns how do i group them for easy manipulation and still keep them as single entities for the BOM. (the component patterns still show all the parts in the BOM, assy's will not). I created a CONTACT SET, but it seems to do nothing. I looked in HELP, but, it said nothing about CONTACT SETs. Am i on the right track??

 

[DesignerMike]

Contact set is not for part selection.

Contact set is part of the contact solver feature. You can add parts to the contact set, and then activate the contact solver. When you try to drag parts, or drive constraints to create motion the contact solver will not allow 2 parts to occupy the same space (they will bump into each other and stop instead of simply passing right through them)

As far as grouping the parts, I don't know of any easy way to group irregular patterns. There are a bunch of "select" options in the .iam -- hit the "select" button right next to the "undo/redo" buttons, there are many ways to select parts by size, constrained to, etc. This should help in choosing the parts to make invisible. I would then make different design views in the .iam of some parts turned on or off (use view names that have some logic like "control room stuctural or hardware-off").
When you place a view in the .idw choose the assembly, pick which design view you are going to use (with those logical names), and I normally check the "associative" box so that if I make any changes to the design view in the assembly it is reflected in the idw (automatically).

If you are trying to alter the visibility of parts in the .idw I feel your pain. It is much easier to make design views in the assembly environment (where you can select parts in the model). You will learn to like design views very quickly especially in large complex assemblies.

The other option (not recommended) is to select all the parts you want to make invisible and "demote" them to their own assembly. You will loose all the constraints, but they should stay put in space. You just can't make any changes which would alter their position...without making the new demoted assembly adaptive and re-constraining everything, and then you have to worry about potential flakiness with adaptivity.

 

[tmox]

i havent used the design views before but, i guess, this is the only way to go in this case.
i WAS trying to alter the visibily in the .idw and gave up very quickly.
Having not worked with the design views before.........will the DV show up automatically as a selection for a view in the .idw or are other steps required?

ps thanx.

 

[DesignerMike]

Once you name a design view, it will show up in the "view creation" dialog box.

I guess you are running R8....I can't remember all the differences to R10, but the design views and part selection options have some significant differences (improvements). I appologize if my directions are not accurate in R8. Once you understand the concept of design views you will learn to like them. If you graphics card (and computer in general) is toward the low end of performance, design views can significantly help with performance on large assemblies by having some visability turned off.