File structure in SpaceClaim failes

Since we work with SpaceClaim we are very happy with the ease of working directly in
3D. However we have some problems with the way the filestructure is composed. It
complies with the so called Microsoft Open Packaging Convention. These files are
actually zip archives with a special structure, the contents of which are primarily XML
data. Problems for us arises when we create drawings of the parts, assemblies or
subassemblies. These drawings are positioned in the same file as the related part
or assembly. When, during the process of developing new products, you have to generate
drawings of the parts/assemblies. That is, a drawing is only visible in an opened
part/assembly and cannot be opened separately. This is very annoying when you want
to find different drawings you want to check or print. You always have to open the
related file to find the drawing. Because you don’t always remember where the drawing
is located (was it in the part file, the assembly file or the subassembly file, or was
it a part used in an other design?) it gives a lot of waisted time to find the drawing.
Better would be when the drawings where saved in a separate file (or a copy file related
to the original file). When I look at other 3D software like SolidEdge, Solid Works or
Inventor, the drawings are generated to a separate file with a *.dft or *.drw extension.
The great advantage is that you can put the file in a separate folder, together with all
related drawing files of the design. This makes it easier to find and check or print the
drawing. I really hope I that any one encountering this problem also, gives some reaction
on this of even come with a better solution. In the end I hope that the developers from
SpaceClaim will see this problem also and come with a solution on short term. The more
support from members of this forum, the better the chance they will react. So please,
give me some feedback….

Regards

Willem Wagelaar

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gabhan Gibson on March 12, 2011 at 4:01pm

Willem,

This bugs me too!

In addition, internalizing and externalizing affects the project as well, sometimes stripping a component of its associated drawing. I have not figured out what the pattern is, but I have had to re-detail the component on more than one occasion.

Another irritant is the inability to associate drawings with the main assembly: if a component is external, it does not share the numbering system of the main assembly on the drawing sheet - rather it starts a new set of drawings starting at one. In complex assemblies I have had to invent some less-than-desirable methods of numbering so that some sense could be made of the disparate sets of drawings. I would like to see an overhaul of this aspect of SpaceClaim.

A thorough explanation of how all this stuff works would be appreciated. I have not seen satisfactory documentation describing why these things happen or methods to solve or overcome these weaknesses, nor comprehensive descriptions of how to set up drawing formats.

I would also add that recoveries from corrupted files always results in lost drawings, in my experience.

Handling of sheets is very, very weak. There is no control over naming or order, no access to sub-assemblies (as you mention above) in the structure tree, unless you open the sub-assembly - which results in the opening of all drawings associated with that sub-assembly (unless I've remembered to save after closing them all one by one {sigh}). If I have many drawings open at once, closing them is a royal pain, since their tabs disappear off my screen. I would like to see a solution to this problem: more control over sheets from the structure tree would be my preference rather than a "close all" option (or both).

Finally, what is it with the warning associated with closing the model before closing associated drawings? Cannot SpaceClaim be "smart" enough to let me modify the drawing without having the model open, or if that is not feasible, simply close the drawings with the model!

I use the detailing aspect of SpaceClaim a lot because I modify the model a lot; changes to the model are, miraculously, mirrored by the drawings (Iknow other programs do the same thing - but I prefer using SpaceClaim). It would be fantastic and welcome if the detailing functions of Spaceclaim were as advanced as some of its other aspects.

Please add my voice to the request for better drawings management. Even if these issues can be addressed one at a time, it will be a step in the right direction.

Best,

Gabhan Gibson

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Permalink Reply by Willem Wagelaar on March 13, 2011 at 12:06am

Thank you Gabhan, I am glad I am not the only one who has troubles with drawings.
Thank you for your additional remarks which I fully support. One item I forgot to
mention is the disability to insert external parts into the drawing. Other 3D CAD
software does this without any problems. When I start generating a drawing in, for
example, Solid Edge I can open any part or assembly, related or not related to the
original file and put it into the drawing area. This is not possible but very
desirable in SpaceClaim. I hope many more forum members will support us with this
serious request to SpaceClaim to improve the drawing area. Because overall I am very
happy with this 3D Cad software.

Regards

Willem Wagelaar

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Permalink Reply by martin kopplow on March 14, 2011 at 7:14am

Hi Willem,

I agree with many of your points. Because we have a workflow where a drafter will generate all the drawings after the design is finished, we do probably not see all of your issues. Also, as soon a a drawing is finished, we publish it as a PDF file, so everybody in the office and the shop can access it. It would be nice, if this could be an automated process, creating PDF files of every drawing made, store these with the project, and include a link to the original file in order it needs to be accessed after reviewing the drawing.

One thing you might have missed is that you can move drawing views between drawings in SC. That is: A drawing view existing in say an assembly drawing may be moved to a sheet of a single component, simply by dragging it in the component tree. So, if you want to insert a view of a certain part to a sheet, you can generate a view of the part on its own sheet, then move that view to the desired sheet for illustrational or instructional purposes or similar. Views do also store visibility and color settings individually, so you can use color to highlight your individual part within an assembly. Maybe you can at least use this to work around your last point.

Martin

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Permalink Reply by Gabhan Gibson on March 17, 2011 at 4:58pm

Hi Martin,

You introduce a very interesting statement:

"...we have a workflow where a drafter will generate all the drawings after the design is finished."

Is this work done within SpaceClaim?

Elsewhere on this forum, it was once said that it is common practice, among engineers, to complete the detailing in another program. Is it possible that there is a method by which the model can be exported from SpaceClaim into another more mature draughting program, where the 2D drawings can be completed and reflect updates to the model as they occur?

Gabhan

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Permalink Reply by martin kopplow on March 21, 2011 at 1:09am

Hi Gabhan,

yes, this is all done in Spacecliam. There might be more sophisticated drawing packages, but the tradeoff between transferring and updating the model plus the investment or accepting the limitations within SC drafting and keepi it simple led to the current situation. It is not too bad after all, as it is fast, which is most important for us.

I agree there could be a few improvements easily made, beginning with a possibility to close all sheets when closing the model or, when opening a file, NEVER open sheets by default. I see no point in opening all sheets with the model.

Also, sheet 'retrieval' could be made much easier if there was a sheet tree or something that lets us navigate sheets, and most of all: Finally display the f#####g user editable sheet name in the tree. Those sheet numbers are as unintuitive as it gets.

Also, an option of externalizing sheets could be worth investigating. Users could then access them right away if they need to make specific changes.

Martin

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Nelson on March 16, 2011 at 12:11pm

I also find frustrating when all the sheet open up. It wouldn't be as bad if they gave you a better way to navigate through them. Especially since model views and sheet view end up on the same Tab line, which you can't expand to see all the sheets or views. Also the worst part as you mentioned is having to close all of them. I would like to see if an option if I close the model view, why can't it close all the sheet views associated with it. Like you said it warns you, so why doesn't it have an option to close those sheets?

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Permalink Reply by Tijs Driessen on March 24, 2011 at 1:30am

Hi Willem,

I've made our own drawing formats a few years ago. If I remember correctly, you can open a new file, make no model, but make a drawing sheet. Then just draw lines wherever you want, insert text boxes, that grab information like date and file name, and just save your file. Put the file in the drawing format folder in the spaceclaim directory and your done.

Good luck with it!

Tijs

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Permalink Reply by Tijs Driessen on March 24, 2011 at 1:27am

Hi Willem, Gabhan, Martin and Dennis,

I fully agree on the lack of functionality on the 2D drawings in SpaceClaim.

Would it be a nice option if you could make drawings external, like you can with components? I like the fact that everything can sit in one file. When we are in the concept stage of development we keep everything in one file until the design is almost finished. Than you don't have to worry about keeping track of all the revisions for multiple files.

Generating a drawing in SC is more work than for instance in Solidworks and the options are less complete. I always liked the autodimension option in Solidworks, that you could then improve a little. I understand that SC doesn't store the dimensions like the history based SW, but especially for simpel models it shouldn't be too difficult to automatically dimension a bushing or holes or something.

And if that's not possible, I think it should be possible to reattach dimensions that have become floating after you changed your model. So you make a model, make a drawing of it, with dimensions. Than you perform some modifications, more complex than just pulling the faces, and than you return to your drawing. SC doesn't understand which new edges are associated with the old dimensions, which is understandable. But please let me drag the dimension's end lines to the correct lines of my drawing!

And if I remember correctly: when you copy a model (or component?) it doesn't copy the sheets with it. I have had to completely remake the whole 2D drawing more than once. Really annoying.

And the tabs below that disappear off the screen are indeed really stupid. The active tab can be way off your screen, why?

And when exporting to PDF, I can only generate 3D PDFs! I want 2D PDFs, but I can only make them by printing to PDF, which is stupid. And I'm having more troubles with exporting, IGS generated incredibly large files (150 Mb), IGES tends to give errors when opening in other 3D software and so does STEP. Are we the only ones here, that have that?

Regards, Tijs

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Nelson on March 24, 2011 at 7:26am

So you make a model, make a drawing of it, with dimensions. Than you perform some modifications, more complex than just pulling the faces, and than you return to your drawing. SC doesn't understand which new edges are associated with the old dimensions, which is understandable. But please let me drag the dimension's end lines to the correct lines of my drawing

And when exporting to PDF, I can only generate 3D PDFs! I want 2D PDFs, but I can only make them by printing to PDF, which is stupid

I completely agree and actually have a enhancement request in for both of those issue. Spaceclaim is so great at being able to manipulate and modify the model easy and fast, but that hasn't translated into the drafting/detailing environment. I think I might make a new post of the issue I see that could be improved upon, but in the mean time here is one that kills me. To move text around you have to use the select tool, then click and drag it around. To move detail lines around on the sheet you have to use the move tool. So what this does is not allow you to move and text and lines together, which is really painful when setting up your titleblock, and you want to reposition a bunch of elements.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Bock on March 30, 2011 at 10:18am

I also agree about the need to create PDF's of the drawing sheets directly from SC. On that note, I think when I printed them to PDF I could only do one sheet at a time, instead of all the sheets. Maybe I missed an option somewhere.

Also I haven't had any luck generating 3D PDFs. A file gets created, but it appears empty when I try to view it.

From a data management standpoint, I like the fact that the drawings are in the same file as the model. When the files are seperate and you are working in a versioned system, you risk the chance of mismatching the versions of the drawing and model files. Having them in one file is nice in this regard.

There's a caveat though that I have thought of but haven't worked through yet. Sometimes we have more than one drawing of a model. For instance, we will have one drawing, or set of sheets, describing the manufacturing information for a part or assembly. Then we may have Interface Drawings of the same model, that highlight interface information that we provide to our customers. These practices are covered in the ASME Y14 series standards for drawings. But How would indicate in the SC document which sheets are for which drawing? And some of the drawing properties like "sheet X of Y", must get screwed up in this arrangement.

When we develop a new product, it is nice to keep track of the design by having all the components be internal. When we fully detail a design, and release it, it is nice to have everything external. Getting from point A to point B in this case can be a nightmare in SC.

We have also run across problems opening certain assemblies if in the last session, new components weren't saved. One assembly I worked with wouldn't allow the missing components to be deleted or replaced. Very annoying.

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Permalink Reply by Willem Wagelaar on March 30, 2011 at 11:31am

for creating 2D PDF-files I use PDF Creator (www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator) which is freeware and easy to use. You can make multiple sheets in one PDF file without any problem. Highly recommended!

Willem Wagelaar