API and Coordinate Systems

What do you want to position in your assembly? Parts or something else. I have only little experience with position parts in assemblies, using their Component2 Objects, which represent the parts within assembly documents. These Component2 Objects hold the geometrical transformation information and provide methods to manipulate it. If this meets your needs I can describe it a little more in detail. If not, please describe your problem in detail.

greetz

I'm not sure if the Component2 matches my needs or not. It sounds like it might. What I want to do is position parts in an assembly bases on positional references. I thought about using named faces and automating but it seems too complex and its overkill, since the parts I'm assembling could be set in a fixed location and still serve the purpose.

Let's start with the basics. How to put parts in assemblies. Therefore you've got your AssemblyDoc object which represents your assembly document. First you have to add a part using AssemblyDoc::AddComponent4. This method(function) needs the partfilename and the position (x,y,z coords) where you want to put this part in the assembly. This method returns a Component2 object which represents this part. Now you can put a further part to the assembly document by using the same function. You will get another Component2 object for this part.

If you want to reposition the parts in the assembly you can obtain an transformation object from the Component2 objects using Component2::Transform2. This function returns a MathTransform object which handles the geometrical transformation of the Component2 (part in the assembly). Now you can repostion you part in terms of 4x4 transformation matrix (you should be familiar with this)

Now I will guess a little, what you meant with:

You want to align 2 parts (part1 and part2) e.g. so that a face of part1 is next to an face of part2 (e.g. distance zero and parallel) by using named faces. Therefore you will need to deal with AssemblyMates. Named faces are a good idea, due to selecting these faces. This you will need to mate them in the assembly.

any questions? just ask :o)