Techniques for documenting progress?

I find that using a PDM system to save a version of my parts/assemblies at each point where someone else gets involved (sent to customer) helps. Also, I make a powerpoint with a lot of screen shots and annotations when I'm proposing a change or to verify that I understood the customer's request.

Matt

Scott,

The tried and true method is to view changes in an assembly having each model represented to track the evolution. I typically don't use this as it doesn't work when you are rolled back in a model (assembly is inaccessable).

Here is a way that I take a "snapshot" of my work before making changes to the model:

1. Open your model.
2. Convert the model as a Parasolid.
3. Rollback to the beginning of the design tree.
4. Import the parasolid.
5. Delete an unimportant face to convert it into a surface.
6. The parasolid may have additional surfaces and solids (if you aren't careful while saving) that can be easily deleted.

You now have a blueprint by which to track your in model changes.

I have submitted this as an enhancement. My take is that it would be great to take a snapshot of the model at any point. It creates a representation of the model at any point in the tree that can be measured, but has no useable surfaces/solids. The only thing that you can do to it would be hide it, view it, and delete it; and I don't believe it should show up where it was created in the tree(other than maybe a marker of it's snapped location). The snapshot is viewable forward and back. This would be great for all sorts of troubleshooting when moving forward or back in the tree, and you could have multiple snapshots for your various needs. Think about the benefit of having snapshots to track part revisions over the course of 10 years - a model can change drastically, and often old versions disappear a few revisions back.

Hope this helps,

Dan Sommerfeld Product Designer

I'm not good at this, but it seems like this is the type of stuff that the Design Journal (if that's its name) that SW introduced in SW05 was designed for. Long before that came along, someone in this group suggested using notes in a separate sheet of the Excel spreadsheet used for design tables. That seems like a pretty good method if you habitually use design tables.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Good questions, not so easy to administer.

Storing every assembly/part model change as you already know can consume vast amounts of disk space. I don't save every assembly/part model change as a separate file. However, I do save revision changes to the models detail drawing. One of the challenges is to describe the revisions with sufficient detail and also dealing with the sometimes large number of changes per revision. Sometimes I will create a sheet 2 of the detail drawing and document the revisions on this sheet (i.e. more room to be detailed).

As someone suggested, pictures is one way of accomplishing a history (PowerPoint, PDF, Word, Excel). Hey, maybe even insert a picture into SolidWorks drawing file.

Kman

For what I am doing the following procedure is in place.

1. I have a project number (usually the model number if a new model). To that number is appended a sequential 3 digit number. Could be 4 digits if necessary.
2. Each new part and assembly is issued a part number based on 1. This includes configuration parts.
3. I track the numbers in Excel.
4. When changes happen they get new part numbers if they are something totaly new. I usually don't track developmental changes to parts driven by FEA or hand calcs except in my FEA results.
5. As my assembly grows I create sub assemblies to keep the part count and mate count down.
6. When done (if ever it seems) I go through the Excel spreadsheet and pick out the parts that made it through development. They get official part numbers.
7. The Excel spreadsheet is used to track whether the drawings have been made, neutral files for quote and anything else.

This works well with the style of work we have.

Sometimes I don't start the spreadsheet right away. In those cases I have a macro that will suck unique parts out of an assembly if the parts are named configurations. Since I always name the default config with my part number / filename this works out very well.

A series of e-drawings can serve as a pretty good lightweight record.