Intriguing SIG recording on Assemblies.
I am wondering what the advantage is over just using Cells to store things like toilet cubicles. Can't a normal Cell just be dropped after it is inserted? Is there a problem with this wrt the DataGroup System or F&P?
It seems a bit anticlimatic as a new tool at the moment. Are further enhancements on the way?
1. Is there a way to automatically assign a Graphic Group Number or -better yet- a Named Group to the placed Assembly components? This would work well with the new Placement Points, which I understand can also be assigned attributes like Item Types. You would never really want to place a cubicle as 'loose' elements in real life. Named Groups are great for organising elements in a permeable hierarchy. The elements inevitably need to be modfied as a grouped element; and having to collect everything up manually everytime a wall is moved, for example.... is a pain.
If Assemblies are intended to address OBD's inability to schedule nested elements in a Cell, then the tail is wagging the dog. I hope that this is not the case !!
Aecosim did not add F&P info to inserted Mstn solids in the early days. This resulted in a lot of models with Smartsolids and other Mstn elements having BIM compliance problems that needed tedious cleaning up, especially if some of the elements are in Cells. I note that OBD does a better job here. Although, apparently the official recommendation is not to assign F&P info to the nested elements in Cell, still.
Should Element Templates be used to manage the Named Group info? It would be good to be able to automate NG assignment to any element being placed in the model. I suppose that it would be better to start by including a NG input box in the Place Assembly dialog box.
The NG could take the Assembly .cel name as the NG name and automatically increment and append a number? The Placement Point would be assigned an Active Member status (Select and move the PP and all the rest of the NG would follow).
Extra Credit: it would be great if the Mstn Origin Snap would recognise the PP when the user snaps to the NG member.
2. Replace Named Group tool: One of the key reasons why Cells are used is because they always need to be updated. This used to be problematic with Named Groups because there was no insertion point associated with the NG. With Placement Points, there is an opportunity here to provide NGs with this key functionality.
If done well, you could really reduce the need for Cells in OBD... which we know can be problematic.