Convert Anonymous Blocks to 'Known' Blocks and Remove Annotative.

Scott McKenzie

Hello:

I am building a huge model of a piece of equipment and have built it using the mechanical tools such as BMFORM to create mechanical components inside a mechanical assembly, or BMINSERT to insert the parts created previously in a separate file.  I now have a problem where all of my parts are anonymous and annotative.

The anonymous blocks are, well, useless, I would like to be able to take two mating parts, refedit one of them in the main assembly and add something like bolt holes to the one part, but I cannot do this since the block of the parts are anonymous.  Running the REFEDIT command on a part yields "Cannot REFEDIT anonymous blocks. This includes dynamic blocks." on the command line.  Now to put these bolt holes in, I have to open the one part file to edit, copy the mating part, rotate and align it to fit again, and then I can cut the holes as required.  Is there a way to convert these anonymous blocks to something known so that I can perform a refedit on them in the main assembly?

The other problem I am running into is annotative blocks.  On some of the blocks in the model I seem to be able to right click them and select "Open XREF" from the menu, while on 99% the 'Open XREF' option is replaced with 'Annotative Scale'.  How do I remove the annotative scale from a file and is this a bug, why can I not open an XREF if that XREF is annotative?

Thanks!

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Can it be that you have mixed up the BMINSERT and the BIMINSERT commands?
See: http://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/28103 (Posts #17 and #18).

Scott McKenzie

 Hi Roy:

I have been using the button on the mechanical toolbar - just checked what command it runs and it is BMINSERT.  I should note that the parts created are XREF's, and not blocks, and the scale is 1 for all three axis...

Daniele Piazza

 Hi Scott,
Mechanical parts uses XREF as a base technology with (I guess) some kind of extension dictionary to implement the *extra* functionalities.

If you decide to use Mechanical parts you have to forget they are XREF and just rely on parts commands.

In your case I think the right operations are:

1) right click on the part in the Mechanical browser and "open" one of the two parts in a new drawing

2) make the hole and save

3) go back to the assembly, right click on the top node and "update"

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Knut Hohenberg

Hello Scott,

You are right - the inability to refedit components is a downside of the 'mechanical' modeling approach as it is now.
Bricsys is aware of the problem (I raised a SR quite a while ago), but I can't tell you with what kind of solution they will come up.

If refediting components in your assembly is vital to you, I fear you have no choice but to replace the anonymous block inserts with 'normal' blocks or xrefs.

In principle, there are two possible ways to do so:

1.) you remove the mechanical structure from the components that you want to refedit (by opening them and invoking BMUNMECH). If you BMINSERT them again, they should be inserted as xrefs, but will still show up in the mechanical browser.

2.) you reinsert these components as xrefs using the XREF command. This will allow you to leave their mechanical structure intact, but they will not show in the mechanical browser.

If your components are in fact sub-assemblies that contain further components, removing their mechanical structure is probably not what you want. As you may have read in the forum post that Roy mentioned, I went for the xref way myself.

Any way, you will have to replace the respective components in your assembly, preferably with a script that facilitates this - if you do not use one already, you might want to try the attached lisp that I wrote (long ago). The steps needed would be as follows:

- back up all files that you are going to touch
- re-insert all components you want to replace as described above (no matter where in your assembly)
- run audit and make sure there are no errors in the drawing's block table
- place the attached lsp and dcl somewhere in your SEARCHPATH, and load them (via APPLOAD)
- type BS, select one of the newly inserted xrefs and then one by one the anonymous inserts you want to replace by it
- purge the anonymous block definitions (should be done automatically when you reopen the drawing)

As to your problem with the annotative flag, I can't really help, since I hated the way Autodesk implemented this feature so much that I never used it myself. But since you will have to reinsert the components anyway, you should be fine if you open them before and make sure that ANNOTATIVEDWG is not set in them.

blockswitch.lspddblock.dcl

Joe Dunfee

I upgraded to the Platinum version 14 in hopes of using the Mechanical part.  But, I soon ran into its limitations.  One of the major ones for me, was that once I inserted an item using the Mechanical Browser, there was not way to later query what the object was.  And while the identity was somehow coded into BricsCAD, the only way to get the information is to get a BOM.  However there is no way to correlate a BOM item with an actual object in the model.

The above limitation meant that figuring out what bolt is used  requires measuring the major thread diameter, and then to counting threads per inch.  I am actually guessing about counting the threads, since this is obviously a ridiculous process, and not a viable way to call out parts on an assembly. And since I am mentioning bolts, in the U.S. smaller bolt sizes are called by numbers, and not the diameter. Bricscad always uses a diameter.  And of course, the same issue with bolts is present on I-beams and C-channels, etc.

-Joe

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ Joe:
Maybe there have been some developments to fix the issues that you mention, or maybe I have just misunderstood. But in V16 the Mechanical Browser clearly lists the mechanical components inserted from the library, using names that correspond with those in the BOM. And if you select an item in the Browser the drawing object is highlighted and vice versa.

Joe Dunfee

Thank you Mr. Gebbinck, I was totally unaware of that.  I also noticed that my mechanical browser had been minimized at some point, and I was never aware that it was a list until now.  In spite of posting about this issue on both this forum and even to tech support, this was never mentioned before.  

I still have the issue of small machine screws being referenced in a non-standard way, and all threaded fasteners being way too detailed to be useful.  I eventually built up a block library of most fasteners that I use.  I wonder if it is possible to convert them into mechanical objects?  Even if it is, I have doubts it would be worth the effort.

-Joe

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@ Scott:
I am interested in knowing if, and how, you have solved your problems. Can you give an update?

Scott McKenzie

 I have yet to give it a go and try to update this model - I am a bit hesitant to try, but when I have a free moment and give it a go, I will post an update here.