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Combining drawings

I had three drawings that needed to be combined into a single drawing while capturing all the same views and details (and, I hoped, without redoing all the work). I thought I'd seen something, though never used it, that was a menu pick of 'Merge Drawings'. But, I couldn't find it.

Well, just by accident, I went to the Insert menu and tried 'Shared Data>From file' and picked the drawing whose contents I wanted to add to the existing top level inseparable assembly. Bingo, the sheets were copied from the second drawing into the first, appended to the end of the drawing. And the views didn't lose a dimension. I did this with a third drawing as well and got all the information into the drawing.

Then, to finish the job, the separately named "parts" were duplicated in Intralink with 'Duplicate Objects' with the 'update parents' option (assembly and drawing) set to yes. Then, when I opened the drawing and did 'File>Update>Current', it brought in the updated assembly and showed the "renamed" items in the weldment BOM. Their models were even added to the Drawing Models list, replacing the previous versions. Best of all, I didn't have to manually do the ever awkward 'Replace' which generally loses assembly constraints, causes subsequent components to fail/freeze, loses BOM balloons, etc. This was slick as snot on a brass doorknob {somewhere up there with Teflon in slickness}.

David Janes

Reply to
Janes
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Thanks for this Dave. I just used the first part of your tip to make a

2 sheet drawing, each sheet having the same views of the same assembly, but with different View States (Simplified Reps). I had one drawing with one sheet, saved a copy to a different name, then opened that second drawing and changed the View State.

Then I created a new drawing and imported the other 2 drawings into it. The initial empty sheet (from my template) remained and I had 3 sheets. I removed the first empty sheet.

What was interesting was that I tried to insert the second drawing into the first drawing and visa versa, but it would always set the inserted sheet to be the same view state as the original sheet. Hence the new drawing.

What's cool is all the views are in exactly the same positions so I can switch between sheets quickly to compare the 2 View States.

Reply to
graminator

Thanks for this Dave. I just used the first part of your tip to make a

2 sheet drawing, each sheet having the same views of the same assembly, but with different View States (Simplified Reps). I had one drawing with one sheet, saved a copy to a different name, then opened that second drawing and changed the View State.

Then I created a new drawing and imported the other 2 drawings into it. The initial empty sheet (from my template) remained and I had 3 sheets. I removed the first empty sheet.

What was interesting was that I tried to insert the second drawing into the first drawing and visa versa, but it would always set the inserted sheet to be the same view state as the original sheet. Hence the new drawing.

What's cool is all the views are in exactly the same positions so I can switch between sheets quickly to compare the 2 View States.

____________________________

Don't know why this isn't quoting text. Anyway, what I WISH they had, since I had a need for it a couple days ago, is the ability to copy/paste views, both parent and detail view, from one sheet to another. And dimensions intact would be a good thing, as well. The insert sheet, the way I described it, winds up being a workaround for a lot of things that should be done directly.

David Janes

Reply to
Janes

I'd like to be able to copy a view to the same sheet.... i.e. same orientation, x-section including hatching spacing etc, and other display settings. it would save me a lot of time sometimes.

Reply to
graminator

I'd like to be able to copy a view to the same sheet.... i.e. same orientation, x-section including hatching spacing etc, and other display settings. it would save me a lot of time sometimes.

______________________ Yup, the views get crowded. One view for position, another for size, for example. You can do it in the usual way (create 2 views from the same xsec, but why not just copy and remove the stuff you don't need. Maybe PTC is too busy spending all its extra cash buying up other companies to improve the core product with things users find useful.

David Janes

Reply to
Janes

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