Creating an NX assembly directly from TC Visualization Pro, visible/selected items only

[please_dont_crash]

I'll preface this by saying that I do not have much familiarity with Teamcenter Visualization Professional and only basic use of NX, and there's not much support available to me on my company's side, so I turn to you for some guidance.

I am using NX 2007 and TC Viz Pro 12.2. I am working with an absolutely massive assembly. I need to create an NX assembly of my own that contains just the parts that I have painstakingly made visible one by one in Viz. These parts come from all over the main assembly. I am at the point where I have Viz showing only these parts, ready to go. The final goal will be to go over this assembly in NX, removing things I do not need, and then export to STL—I really only need the outermost visible surfaces.

What I have tried:

- Export as JT. This produced a 1.1 GB file that I then imported into NX using Import Part. It created a large amount of items, but it looked like only non-timestamp geometry (reference curves and other criteria) were visible, even after ensuring I had rendering set to shaded with edges. I had originally tested this method with just two parts, and it seemed to break up every object into individual facets with no relation to the object they came from. I did not pursue this further, and then tried:

- Export as STEP. I am in the process of importing the 3 GB STEP file into NX and it's been running for about 5 hours. I don't have high hopes of this working out without crashing, or my TC login being reset at some point in the middle of the night, as usually happens.

So, to summarize, my goal is to have Viz create an assembly in Teamcenter that only contains the parts I have made visible currently in Viz. Retaining the original assembly structure would be nice, but not necessary.

If all else fails, I will have to open the top-level assembly in NX with appropriate load options (so nothing loads initially, just assembly structure), and then manually turn on the parts I have identified in Viz with the windows side by side.

Thanks in advance!

 

[please_dont_crash]

In the end the STEP export worked, though none of the part names were carried over. Not a problem for me; maybe it was a setting I missed.

Anyway, if someone knows of a way to do what I originally asked, I'd still like to know.

 

[NX User]

Use the 'Alternative Hierarchy' feature available.

Once you have turned on the parts you need from a larger assembly, Right click in the Project workspace (product tree) and click on 'Create Alt Hierarchy' and select 'From visible' and have the option to 'Preserve Structure' on.
You should see a 'Alternate hierarchies' item in the tree. you should be able to turn on/off the parts you want just using this alternate hierarchy (Alt Heir). You can rename the 'Alt Hier' as you want.
To export the file to as a JT or a STEP file, in the export window , once you select the file format ( JT or STEP) , select the Alternate hierarchy you created in the Hierarchy window list. export the file
After this , if you import the step files in to NX you should have the as NX assembly file with only the files you wanted, but with the same assembly structure. The files will have the names as the original assembly but wont have any other assembly/part attributes.