I am using SW2003 to design a device where I have used a master part to replicate common geometry to all of the assembly's parts (using inserted parts). In some cases there are nested relationships: for instance, a circuit board that is driven by a housing that is in turn driven by the master geometry file, or battery housing clamshells that are driven by a battery master part that is in turn driven by the master geometry file. It may sound complex but it seems like good information architecture to me -- why duplicate geometry or load down the top-level master any more than necessary? -- and the parts are pretty complex (100-500 features mostly).
The problem I am having is that planes and axes from "two-deep" nested parts do not appear ever to update after the first time they are inserted. Call my representative three parts Master, Sub-master, and Housing. Master is an inserted part in Sub-master, and Sub-master in turn is inserted into Housing, each time bringing along planes, axes, and surfaces.
Planes and axes that are defined in Master appear in Housing but are apparently frozen where they were the first time I inserted Sub-master into Housing. Surfaces update correctly, and new features added to Naster appear correctly in Housing when Housing is rebuilt. All the parts are in memory, Ctrl-Q on each of them individually does not fix the problem.
If I redefine the inserted Sub-master not to import the planes and axes, then redefine again to turn them on, they come up in the correctly updated positions. I then have to reattach every reference in the part, which is no fun, but I'm in the process of redesigning anyway, and am not at this point accustomed to SW saving me time on projects in any event.
Has anyone seen this behaviour before? I haven't taken the time to build a simple test case but have had the same problem with several different parts in my model.
Good day, Peter. stokesp at earthlink dot net