Persistent list of Solid/Surface Bodies 1

[Guest0527211403]

Hi everyone

I've been doing a lot of multibody part modeling lately and I'm looking for a way to have the list of Solid and Surface bodies at the top of the feature tree to always be in the same spot without needing to scroll to the top of the tree. In my worfklows I'm often selecting a body for feature context and I find myself spending a lot of time scrolling to the top of the featuremanager to get back to the list of bodies. I also go there to hide / show / change transparency of bodies quite often, though I do try to manage that with display states (which I can show in a toolbar dropdown).

I've tried splitting the featuremanager tree into two using the split bar, but both top and bottom trees want to scroll to whatever feature I've selected. I've tried turning off the "Scroll selected item into view" setting in Options, but I find that function useful as well, so it would be ideal if I could only apply it to just one of the 2 featuremanager trees (i.e. one stays put and the other scrolls to what I've selected).

So, does anyone know of a way to make the list of Solid or Surface bodies in a persistent location on the screen? Or a quick trick to get the list(s) of bodies to pop up?

Thanks in advance!
M

 

[SBaugh]

I spend a lot of time repairing large models using surfaces to get it back to a solid. I understand your frustration as I feel it too. Try out some of these things that I do to help relieve the hassle.

1) Try using Favorites - RMB the surface\solid and select Favorite. Granted it always at the top so if that's the case select within the tree and use Ctrl-Home takes you to the top of the tree.

2) Folders - when Open a part file with a lot of surfaces (the largest part that I can recall that I opened had over 10000 surfaces and a couple of Solids). What I do is I take the time to either sort the surfaces into areas using folders or if its an assembly as a part I organize them using folders per each part. Also attached is a tip I put together on how I move multiple bodies at once within a part, works on surfaces and surface bodies as well.

3) "Selection sets" is something else you might consider.


Scott Baugh, CSWP
CAD Systems Manager
Evapar

http://www.evapar.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Guest0527211403]

Thanks Scott, the Ctrl-Home windows trick is a good one that I forgot about, for now I've remapped one of the radial popup buttons in my 3d mouse software to run that macro.. already better than scrolling up a feature tree!

My parts are generally organized into folders but by the end of some days I'll have a few hundred features that have yet to be cleaned up into folders. That said, the current problem has kept me fairly disciplined in cleaning up the tree at the end of a work session.