Nested Family Tables

[bistromathics]

Hey.

I've been lurking for a while and this forum has been a great resource for a lot of information about the CAD software I've been working with lately and was hoping someone could help me out:

I know there are CAD systems out there that support nested family tables, but is NX one of them? I have been playing around with part families a bit, but can't really imagine how someone would set something like this up. Is it possible for a family instance to actually be a generic? If so, any tips on how to create this kind of data?

Thanks!

 

[looslib]

I work with another CAD package that does support nested family tables, but when tied to their PLM system, it leaves room for errors.
My recommendation is to NOT use nested family tables. Besides the PLM side issue, they become too complex to keep the logic straight about which parts are nested where and why.
You can build a single-level family table that as easily as a nested one, if you understand the full range of design parameters.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[bistromathics]

Thanks for the input! Unfortunately, I am writing utilities to analyze NX data and nested family tables were a possible corner case that came up. The first thing I'm looking for is to see if it's even possible to do this in NX. If that turns out to be the case, then I'm going to have to create this whack data for testing.

 

[JohnRBaker]

What version of NX are you using?

And lets make sure that we're clear as to what constitutes a 'nested family table'. I assume you're talking about creating a family which is an Assembly consisting of Components which themselves are family members. And the further, at the time that you select a member from the Assembly family that some or all of the family member Components have not yet been created as individual part files. Is that what you consider as being a 'nested family table'?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

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

 

[uwam2ie]

Interesting thead,
for me a nested partfamily is an assembly - partfamily of components (APF) consist of second assembly partfamily of components :structure like this:

APF
+-NPF (standard PF)
+-NPF (standard PF)
+-APF
+-NPF (standard PF)
+-NPF (standard PF)

 

[bistromathics]

^
yes this is what I mean - at least this is what I think I mean. Would it just be a matter of adding an existing family template (generic) as a member of a new generic that I am creating? I guess I will try this out and see what happens.

 

[bistromathics]

So when trying to import a generic (the one I intended to be nested) into an assembly, NX pops up a window of that generic's instances and forces me to pick one. This is in line with what JohnRBaker said in his post. I've heard from a couple of other sources that "ProE is the only cad system to support nested family tables". I can't say for certain, but for now this is a corner case I won't bother with.

Thanks for the help, guys!

 

[bistromathics]

p.s.

I am using NX 7.5

 

[uwam2ie]

I'm waiting for some input from more experienced users
reg.