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In-Context: What is the better strategie?
martin_kopplow
Member Posts: 730 PRO
I have recently been doing some in context editing again, or better outright in-context design of parts because I have a few given parts and want to create several new parts to fit in between.
I'm still wondering what might be the best approach:
- Create each part in it's own context (and part studio)
- Create one context for multiple parts (in one part studio)
Both do work in principle. The first method appears to be simpler or provide more clarity at first sight, but in the long run, it has the potentional of increasing confusion, so I tend to find the latter more promising. What puzzles me is the fact that when I initially create several parts in one context, they get inserted in the assembly in one go, but each part subsequently created has to be manually inserted the usual way. That leads me to believe this wasn't the way in-context modelling was meant to be. Wouldn't it be a good idea to provide the "Select parts to insert" UI element each time we return from the in-context part studio to the assembly when a new part has been created? Also, and especially in the era of AI, I think we should be able to define a mate for each new part while editing in-context as opposed to doing it after the fact. As of now, it appears only the first part created in any one context can be defined.
How do you people here prefer to go about in this case: Individual or all-in-one?
Comments
Unless your parts are very complex, having them in a single part studio and referencing the same context should be less prone to error (i.e. you wouldn't have to update multiple context and risk missing one). Even for a more complicated cases you might be better off creating one context and then creating layout geometry (from the context) to derive into individual part studios.
The "insert into assembly" is just a "shortcut" the link isn't complete until you've inserted at least one of the parts from the in-context studio (you don't "have to" but you can't update the context). In the end it's just a "regular" part insert.
If nothing is moving you could "insert as rigid" part studio (or whatever it's called) and anything you add the PS would show up in the assembly.
Basically I would keep it to a single context as much as possible to avoid having to update several contexts down the road. And use derive to "extract" reference geometry from the single context if things need to be broken up.
I totally agree with @eric_pesty. In context is hard to manage and it's easy for it to become unhinged.
Why do we have part studios? To keep from assigning assembly references. This is a great thing.
There will be a time in a larger project when you need to reference from 2 part studios at an assembly level. I'd use it when I had to because nothing else will work.
Like Eric, I'd definitely keep things in a part studio until it won't work.