Manual Autoballoon

[stThree]

I am having trouble getting autoballoon to work in the manual method. I have followed these instructions from John Baker:

Now as to how to add a manual, yet fully associative, ID balloon to your drawing, just go into the ID symbol function and place as many 'empty' (don't enter any numbers or letters) ID balloons as you wish making sure that you were actually attaching them to components, which is generally the default behavior in situations like this. Once you have all of these ID balloons placed, go back and select the Parts List object, press MB3 and again select the 'Update Parts List' option. When the update takes place, the manually placed 'empty' ID ballooons will automatically have the proper ID letter/number inserted into them.​

But the problem is my balloons are not populating. Is there something I am overlooking? This is in NX 7.5.5.4, which I am testing for our company to role out soon.

Steve
NX 6.0.5.3

 

[jerry1423]

So none of the balloons are updating when the parts list is updated ?

 

[nxprog]

I'm having the same problem, but I'm on NX8...gtac is reviewing my files

NX 6.05.3/7.5.5/8.0

 

[stThree]

If I do the standard autoballoon those work. However, any balloon I place manually, without entering any text, but attaching the leader to the edge of a component, I get nothing after updating the parts list.

Steve
NX 6.0.5.3

 

[stThree]

I tested the sames parts in NX 6 and they work as expected. So the problem is in NX 7.5 somewhere.

Steve
NX 6.0.5.3

 

[nxprog]

Steve...same behavior on my end...autoballoon works...manual does not.

NX 6.05.3/7.5.5/8.0

 

[nxprog]

stThree... and NX8

NX 6.05.3/7.5.5/8.0

 

[stThree]

I found a solution. The UGII_UPDATE_ALL_ID_SYMBOLS_WITH_PLIST variable was set to 0 so I switched to 1 and now my balloons update. I had this set in my site_ugii_env.dat file.

Here is the description of that variable:

If UGII_UPDATE_ALL_ID_SYMBOLS_WITH_PLIST is set to a non-zero value then parts lists will have the pre-NX2 behavior of updating all ID symbols in the part that have rows in the parts list when the parts list updates. Also, creation of multiple parts lists will not be allowed when this variable is set.

Hope this helps you, nxprog.

Steve
NX 6.0.5.3

 

[JohnRBaker]

It works for for me, in both NX 7.5 and NX 8.0.

Select the Parts List, press MB3 and pick the 'Style' item. In the 'Parts List' tab, make sure that in the 'Callouts' section of the dialog that the 'Symbol' option is NOT set to 'None' and that the 'Main Symbol Text' is set to 'Callout'. If either one of these is set to 'None' then there will be no updating of the ID symbols, whether they were created manually or automatically.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

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

 

[nxprog]

I did have mine set the same way...I did that some time ago, to have the option of multiple parts list.
That fixed mine too Thanks Steve! I'll report back to gtac

NX 6.05.3/7.5.5/8.0

 

[JohnRBaker]

I forgot about the Environment Variable. The reason that update doesn't work with that set to '0' is that IF more than one Parts List is allowed, there is no way to tell the 'Manual' balloon WHICH Parts List it's associated with.

It's interesting in that we had a conversation about this very issue in my office yesterday during a discussion about what sort of things should we be working on in future Drafting projects and this idea that we need a scheme so that IF you have multiple Parts List that there would be a way so that we could indicate which Parts List note went with which Drawing view (the assumption being that you'd have a different view for each 'configuration', and once that was sorted out the balloons would be easy to get right).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

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