NX 7.5 move component by constraints 1

[CaptainCad]

We just upgraded to NX 7.5. When I open a new asm., I have the ability to move component by contraints, after a period of time, the "by contraints" option becomes greyed out. If I close and reopen the asm., the function is restored.
It seems that maybe the system is running out of resources or something?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Is the option actually inactive or does it just look like it is? How many constraints would you say are in your assembly? Do you have any overridden constraints?

John R. Baker, P.E.
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[CaptainCad]

It is inactive, clicking it does nothing. There are just a few permanent constaints, nothing overridden.
Just to be clear, I am talking about the temporary constraits used during the "move component" command. When the "by constraints" option is greyed out, the system will still let me use assembly constraits.

 

[JohnRBaker]

A couple of us have been trying to reproduce this behavior and so far we've failed. We've tried several scenarios which we felt might offer some unique situations, but so far nothing.

Does this happen often, on different assemblies or only with one particular assembly?

Have you checked to see if the 'By Constraints' option is inactive before or after you select the component(s) which you intend to move?

Have you ever seen it go inactive during one move operation, but then become active again for a subsequent move operation?

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[CaptainCad]

I was just getting ready to post that it hasn't happened all day, then it just now happened.
It happens before and/or after I select a component, and on different asm's.
Once it's inactive, it stays that way until I reload the asm.

I thought assembly constraints still worked after the "by constraits" went inactive, but I just tried it again and it wouldn't constrain the component. It acted as there were conflicting constraints, but there was not anything constrained in the asm. (attached a screen dump).

When I had a large asm. with lots of parasolids (45mb hemmer) and heavy product asm. it seemed like it happened every hour or two. I lightend the asm. and it took 5 hours today for it to happen.

 

[JohnRBaker]

We may be at the point where you need to contact GTAC and provide them with your assembly and the syslogs.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[CaptainCad]

Ok thanks. If it continues to be a problem, I will follow up on your suggestion.

On a separate note, these same assemblies were taking a very long time to save (over 5 minutes). Someone suggested I turn off the "save with preview" feature (not sure of exact name, not at work) and the same assemblies would then save in seconds.

 

[JohnRBaker]

There has to more to this than that since the time to save a preview image is something which normally can be measured in seconds.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[Toost]

Have you by accident set the 7.5-new option to delay assembly constraints update ?
Tools - Update - Interpart Update - Delay Assembly constraints ?

- It will grey out the assy constraints option.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yep, that'll do it.

And if you read the 'What's New', this makes sense based on the following item listed in the 'Why should I use it?' section of the entry covering this change:

You can also use this enhancement to prevent unwanted updates in frozen assemblies, such as released assemblies.



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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[JohnRBaker]

Back to your performance when saving an Assembly with or without the system saving the preview image. First, were both of the 'Store Preview' options ('Part Preview' and 'Model Part Preview') on the...

Edit -> Properties -> Preview

...dialog toggled ON? When you toggled them OF, did you toggled BOTH of them OFF? If so, have you tried with just the second option ('Model Part Preview') toggled OFF?

Also, are you running with TeamCenter or native?

Note that I tested this with an assembly with over 11,000 components and there is absolutely NO difference in save time, as expected since all that the software is doing is taking the screen image of the displayed part (your assembly) and remapping it down to thumbnail size and adding that small record to the file header. And whether you have a single block on the screen or 11,000+ components, the number of screen pixels saved are EXACTLY the same.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[CaptainCad]

I will experiment with the different preview settings when I get a chance. I may have jumped the gun a little, we are in the process of converting to a new server.

I did experience the move components "by constraints" being disabled today. I check the settings as posted above, the "Delay Assembly constraints" setting was not checked, but I clicked the "Update All" command and the "by constraints" functionality was restored.

 

[CaptainCad]

I changed the settings so that "Part Preview" was checked on and the "Model View Preview" was checked off, and the save time was very quick. What would the Model Preview be used for?

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you have any Drawings in your Assembly file, this option will cause the creation a separate thumbnail image for each drawing sheet in the Part file. Since the drawing may not be displayed, we have to use a different technique to create those images which can add considerable time when you perform a save operation, particularly if it's a large or complex model/assembly. However, this will allow you to review, while in the File Open dialog, thumbnail images of each of the drawing sheets in a file prior to actually opening the Part file. In addition, if you're creating and saving a Drawing file with multiple sheets, you not only can review the different thumbnails images for each sheet while in the File Open dialog, but depending on which thumbnail is being displayed when you hit the OK button, that sheet will be what is displayed when the part file is opened.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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