How to add "reference calculation" columns in design tables?

The column you're looking for is $COMMENT

Ken

Ah yes it would be :P Thanks.

Just an extension from this, can I somehow assign a column to the design table that points to a DRIVEN reference dimension so that it auto-updates and is used to calculate some other value?

eg. In a very siple case, you may have a sketch with a rectangular profile defined by the driving dimensions H (height) and W (width), and a reference driven dimension across the diagnol D. I want the depth of the extrusion to always be equal to the reference dimension D.

NOTE: in this simple instance the reference dimension can be easily calculated anyways, but my question is more relevant to driven dimensions derived from complex geometries.

If you simply just click on a driven dimension it does insert itself in the design table but it doesn't auto-update at all. Is there some other workaround for this?

Cheers

Bullman

It's been a while since I messed with Design Tables, but I don't remember ever finding a way to insert a column linked to a driven dimension. I always added an additional column and repeated the calculation (same as you stated).

Ken

OK. I can understand there would be a limitiation.

Just back on my original question, I understand that you use the "$comment" notation to create a reference/comment column. However, is there anything I can do to make the comment column heading more descriptive of what information that comment column holds as the title "$comment" doesn't really tell you anything of what information is being displayed in the cells below?

I thought that "$comment@wxyz" notation wouold allow you to "describe" the comment column but this doesn't work. My only other work around is to use the Excel Insert Comment function to tag the "$comment" cell.

Cheers

Bull

Bull, You can add a row under your statement row and dimension names to add a header row, something like this:

Row 1 - Design Table for: XXX Row 2 - 'blank' $d1@sketch1 $d2@sketch1 $comment Row 3 - 'blank' Width Length Heading Row 4 - First Instance 0.250 1.000 2.000 Max You can then hide Row 2 and only see the headings.

Hope this helps.

And you can add a driven dimension to a design table. Just make sure that the "allow model updates to update design table" option is selected when creating the design table. This can be a little strange and you may need to rebuild each configuration for this to work.

Yeah thanks it does....but for some reason not in all the cases I have tried. In the one case I do want it to work I get the error message "No valid design table instances found" when I exit out of the design table. This occurs if I simply insert a new blank row (Row 3 in your example) below Row 2.

I just can't work out why I am getting this error in some design tables I try it on while in others it works OK. :-/

Thanks this does work, however in my case, where I have a design table relating to an assembly that has several reference dimensions (annotations) of interest that vary depending on the assembly configuration, there is a problem. I find that if you add a column relating to a referenced/driven assembly dimension (eg RD17@Annotations) SW will NOT correctly fill in what that dimension is for each of the configuration instances listed in the design table. It will only use and fill in for all instances in your table, the value of that dimension that it saw teh last time the assembly was opened/rebuilt. Seems that listing/using reference dimensions in design tables are no good if the reference dimesnion changes for each configuration.