Usage of Make Work Part & Make Displayed Part when working in assemblies

[pazz001]

We have generated a small test assembly which mimics a much larger assembly we are actually working with. The overall test assembly structure can be seen in the following image.

What we have noticed is that there appears to be a discrepancy between changing the layer on which geometric objects appear dependent upon whether you have the component active via the Make Work Part or the Make Displayed Part options.

Both of these functions appear to allow a user to be ‘active’ within a required component and both options allow the component to be ‘saved’. We can see this from the time-stamp against the part within Windows-Explorer.

Both of these functions also allow the user to modify the part, e.g. adding a new sketch or changing the name of a sketch, and see these changes propogate through to accessing the component via the other route, i.e. if the component was modified whilst using Make Work Part and it was then switched to Make Displayed Part.

However, if we were to change the layer (or colour) on which geometry resides, this modification does not propogate through to the alternative part state (i.e. Work Part or Displayed Part).

Within the test assembly shown above, the component which we have changed the layer settings for is CHECK_ANALYSIS_MODEL. This component contains wave-linked geometry from another component and an additional sketch which projects some of those wave-linked entities into it along with some subsequent trimming operations in order to provide a single profile. This profile is subsequently exported to an .iges file for downstream analysis.

The problem was highlighted during this .iges export as this operation was working with the Displayed Part, but the assembly operator was using Work Part.

We’d like to understand the background workings to both of these functions and also understand whether what we’re seeing is a software bug.

We're currently using NX 11.0.2.7

Best regards,
Andy.

 

[pazz001]

For additional information:

If the layer is changed whilst only using the Displayed Part, the Work Part updates to show this change. However, as soon as the layer is changed whilst active in the Work Part the layers are no longer automatically aligned.

Best regards,
Andy.

 

[cowski]

I don't think it is a bug. If you raise the issue with GTAC, I'm fairly certain you will get a reply along the lines of "it is working as intended".

When working in the context of an assembly, the display part (assembly) controls the layers and WCS. When you add a component to an assembly you have the layer options of "original layers" or "as specified"; objects in your component part file are "mapped" (for lack of a better term) to layers in the assembly file. If you right click on the component and go to properties -> assembly, you can check the current layer option in use: original, as specified, or mixed. The mixed option means that one or more objects have been moved to a new layer in the assembly.

For what it's worth, my personal preference is to make the component part the displayed part before moving objects to different layers. I generally do not change an object's layer when working in context of an assembly.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[pazz001]

Thanks for your feedback Cowski.

Is there a way to 'restore' the layer of an object to its original state, i.e. so that the Work Part reflects any change to the Displayed Part? Obviously talking about a case when an simple undo isn't possible.

Thanks in advance.

 

[cowski]

Right click component -> properties -> change layer option to "specified layer" (pick any layer number), then change it back to "original".

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[pazz001]

Cowski - That works a treat. Thanks.

 

[Toost]

This is working as designed.
i spoke to development about this many years ago.
they then explained that layers and colors are "display attributes" and therefore always performed in the displayed part.
But, there are "variants" on this....
If you would select an object* and go Edit -Display Display( Ctrl+J) and change the layer or the color, there is an option in the bottom of the dialog "Apply changes to owning part".
This will push the change down into that file instead of the displayed part.
* For this to work you need to select something "in" the component file and not the component itself. I.e a line / sketch / solid body etc.
Layer settings will always change the layers in the displayed part.

Regards,
Tomas