Being Inventive

Apply Units Formatting for the Structural Shapes lengths in Parts List

You have an assembly that contains subassemblies created with Frame Generator.

You have inserted the Parts List in the drawing of the assembly and you want to apply a different Units Formatting for the QTY Column.

For instance, you want to display the lengths of the frames in meter (m) instead of millimeters (mm).

By the way, if you edit the Parts List, and apply the settings as in the image below in the Column Format tab, the result won’t be correct, because the settings apply as well to the quantities that are not expressed in length.

So, in order to get what you want, leave the Default Formatting in the Column Format tab.

In the Substitution tab, do the following.

• Enable Value Substitution

• In the field “When exists, use value of” select Browse Properties.. from the drop-down menu

• In the following dialog, click on New Property and define the property G_L                 

• In the field “When rows are merged, value used is” set Sum of Values

• Then, apply the Units Formatting below

And get the desired result.

Ale

Change the Base Quantity for Structural Shape frames inserted with Frame Generator

You have inserted some Structural Shape frames with Frame Generator and in the assembly BOM the quantity of these frames is set equal to the length.

This is because the Base Quantity of the frames is set to the "G_L" parameter.

So, if you want to have the Base Quantity set to "Each", but, without editing each frame within the assembly for changing this, you can do the following.

• In the Bill of Material dialog click on Choose Columns.
• From the following Customization dialog, drag the column Base QTY in the BOM.

• In the first frame row, double-click in the cell of the Base QTY column.
• Click on the arrow that appears at the right of the cell.
• In the following dialog, select the “Each” under the Standard Quantity Property.

• Select the lower-right corner of the cell and drag it down to the last frame cell, applying the same setting to the other cell.

By the way, if you don’t want to apply this procedure and it is enough to display the quantity you like in the Parts List, as alternative, you can just replace “QTY” column with “ITEM QTY” one there.

And, if you want, change the column Heading.

Ale

Frame Miter Cuts in BOM and Parts List

You have applied some Miter cuts, with the command Miter from the menu Design > Frame, to the Frames of your assembly inserted with Frame Generator.

Now you want to display the angle info of these end treatments in the assembly BOM and Parts List.

When you apply the Miter cuts to the Frames, Inventor creates for each frame, some custom properties named CUTDETAIL1, CUTDETAIL2, etc.

So, in order to display them in the BOM, you need to add these Custom iProperty Columns from the BOM dialog.

In case you need to display these columns in almost all your assembly BOMs, you can include them, by default, in the BOM of your assembly template.
In order to do that, you open a new assembly selecting your standard template and, after having added the two columns, you save the assembly as template with the command Save As >  Save Copy As Template.

 

In order to display the two columns in the Parts List of the assembly drawing, edit the Parts List after inserting it and add the custom property columns.

Even in this case, if this is a common workflow for you, in the Style Editor you can define a new style for the Parts List that displays the custom columns by default.

Caveat. If you delete the Miter cut of a frame associated to the custom property CUTDETAIL1 and recreate it, the name of the property will be CUTDETAIL3 and the value will not display in the corresponding cell of the CUTDETAIL1 column.

Ale

 

Include the length from the Steel Shape profile in a custom property

When you insert the Structural Shapes with Frame generator, for each frame you want to have a custom property displaying its length along with other properties (i.e.: Stock Number).

In order to do that, you need to do the following.

• Copy the Structural Shapes family in a Read/Write library.

• Add a new column in the Family table.

• In the Column Properties define the Expression as “={STOCKNUMBER}&-&<G_L>”.
• Map the Column to the Custom Property and assign a name to it.

After doing that, you will get the profile length in the custom property either when you insert it, with Frame Generator or from the Content Center, and the length value will update accordingly, if you edit the frame.

You can see all the details in the video below.

Ale

Part Number and Description always in synch for Frames

You want to insert the Structural Shape components in your assemblies in the way that in the iProperties, the Description Field value is equal to the Part Number one.

So, you have copied the Structural Shape Families you want to use in a custom library.

For each of them you have edited the Family Table adding a column with the properties as in the image below.

By the way, doing this you get the result you want inserting the Structural Shape components in your assembly with the command Place from Content Center

But not inserting them with Frame Generator.

In order to get the desired result inserting the components either way, you need to replace in the column property Expression “{PARTNUMBER}” with “=<Part Number>” as in the image below.

Ale

Frame member Family information in BOM

You want to include the “Family” information of a frame member in the Bill of material of your Assembly.

In order to include this information in the BOM and, in case, in the Parts List, you can do the following.

• In the assembly BOM, add a new Custom iProperty column.

• Name the new iProperty column, for instance, Family Name, and set the Data Type to Text.

• Select the first cell of the Family Name column and click on Create Expression.

• In the following Property Expression dialog write the expression “=<Family>” and then click OK.

• Select the lower-right corner of the first cell and drag it down to the last column cell, applying the same expression to all the other cells.

In the Frame member rows, the Family name will appear in the cells.

 

Alternatively, you can get the same result doing the following.

• Copy the Family of frames in a custom library in the Content Center Editor.
• Edit the Family table and add a column with the properties as in the image below.

In this way, you will get the custom property for each Frame member you insert from the Content Center or Frame Generator.

The advantage if this alternative method is that you can create an assembly template that contains in the BOM the custom iProperty column "Family Name".

For doing that, you just need to start a new assembly, go to the Bill of Material, add the new Custom iProperty column and save the file as Template

Starting an assembly with this template and inserting the frames from a Family modified with the alternative method, the Family Name column cells corresponding to the frame members rows will display the family name automatically.

The disadvantage of the alternative method is that you need to copy in a custom library and modify each Family of frames you are going to use.

 

Once you get the Family Name in the assembly BOM using one of the methods above, you can easily add the column in the assembly Parts List in the drawings.

Ale

Cost of Structural Components

You want to calculate the cost of a Structural Shape component based on a standard cost per meter x length.

The solution is to apply the following procedure for each Structural Shape family you are going to use in Frame Generator.

• Copy the family in a Read/Write library.
• Open From Content Center and insert one member of the family with the option As Custom.

 

• Go to Parameters dialog.
• Create a new User Parameter: CostPerMeter and set its unit to Unitless. Set the value according to your requirement.
• Create another new User Parameter: Cost and set its unit to Unitless. Set the equation for Cost to “G_L / (1 m) * CostPerMeter”.
• Check the Export checkbox for the parameter Cost.
• Edit the parameter Cost Property Format for not displaying the Unit String.

 

• In the CC Editor, Replace Family Template selecting this file.

 

• In the Family Table, define a new column and map it to the custom property.

  

After that, every family member generated with Frame Generator will have the Cost property in the Custom tab in iProperties and it can be referenced by BOM table.

   

And you can easily edit the Parts List if you want to display the total cost of all the components with the same length.

 

The video below shows all the steps described above.

 
 

Ale

Double mitered frames report the wrong frame length

There is a long standing known issue with double mitered frame generator beams like the orange colored beam in below image.

 

Figure 1: Double mitred frame generator beam

These type of mitred beams report a length in the G_L parameter that is too large.

Here is a proposed solution although it will only work with straight beams because the solution uses a bounding box algorithm. So it will not work properly on curved beams , keep that in mind before you jump in.

There are two approaches that depend whether you want to treat existing assemblies or want to set the length right for new assemblies.

A. For existing assemblies:.

The first step is a one time operation:

• Download and unzip this macro to any folder
• Start Inventor 2011 or 2012
• Tools > Options > VBA editor
• Expand the ApplicationProject so that you see the Modules
• File > Import  the file called Precise_FG_length.bas. The macro will end up in module called "Precise_FG_length".

The second step needs to be performed on a  per assembly basis

• Open your frame generator assembly
• Run the macro called "Precise_FG_length" and check the G_L values in the BOM editor

The macro replaces all length calculations for FG beams with their bounding box length.
This means that the macro overrides systematically all formulas that exist in the G_L parameter of a beam and needs to be rerun each time you modify your assembly in order to get correct results.
 

    B.For new assemblies:

You could add an iLogic rule to your assembly template file so that for all new assemblies, the BOM length will AUTOMATICALLY show the correct value.

1. Start a new assembly

2. Add the Precise_FG_length() macro to the ApplicationProject as explained in A if you haven't done so.

3. Add an iLogic rule called "Precise length" to the assembly template

• Open the Assembly.iam file from the Inventor templates folder.
  - For R2011 this folder is located at  %public%\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2011\Templates
  - For R2012 this folder can be found in %public%\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2012\Templates
• Manage > iLogic > Add rule 

4. Place following one-liner in the rule  

      InventorVb.RunMacro("ApplicationProject", "Precise_FG_length", "Precise_FG_length") 

5.Make sure you trigger that rule "Before Save Document" by using Manage > iLogic > Event Triggers

6.Save as your assembly template so you can start using it for any new Frame Generator assembly.

 Bob

Length parameter of frame generator beams not updating in R2012

As mentioned in several newsgroup posts, the G_L parameter in frame generator beams in R2012 remains static after modifying a beam. In normal circumstances the G_L parameter contains at any time the cut length of a beam. The length of a beam can change after several different operations (changing the skeleton sketch,  doing a trim/extension or a lengthen/shorten operation).
After any of these operations the G_L value in 2012 only shows the initial length and does not change.

 Autodesk has published the following hotfix to fix this problem going forward.

However if you have created beams with R2012 before applying the hotfix, these beams will continue to have a static G_L value even after applying the hotfix.In order to completely get out of the woods, you will have to do a one time clean-up of your frame generator assemblies.

The one-time procedure is very simple:

1. Download and unzip this VBA macro to your local drive
2. Open the VBA editor
3. File > Import and insert the file Correct_G_L_parameter.bas into your application project (typically Default.ivb)
4. Open your frame generator assembly
5. Run the macro Correct_G_L_parameter in module Correct_G_L_parameter
6. Save your assembly

Repeat steps 4-6 for any frame generator assembly you want to clean up.

Update:
The only thing above macro does is restore the associativity between geometry changes and the G_L parameter value. It does not ensure that the G_L value actually displays the correct value, especially when notch operations are used.
To obtain a precise G_L value, you actually need to run a different macro which is documented in a different blog post that you can find here. 

Frame Member Part Number

When you insert a Frame Member with Frame Generator, by default, the Part Number is in sync with Content Center since the "Get Frame Member's Part Number from Content Center" box is checked by default.

 

If you want the pre-2011 behavior back, please uncheck the "Get Frame Member's Part Number from Content Center" box.

When this box is unchecked, the Filename and Part Number are identical.

When this box is checked Content Center determines the Part Number and the Part Number will no longer be in sync with the Filename.

 

The state of the checkbox is remembered for the next insertions in the same Inventor session.

Ale