SolidEdge revision 20 and Product planning

Now, let’s look at the tools brought to this release for planning a new product. The last few releases have seen tools added to SolidEdge revision 20 which make the planning of complex products less painful, by allowing you to work at a very schematic, 2D sketch level, then fleshing out the design as it progresses.
This hasn’t changed in SolidEdge revision 20, but you are now given much more control both over the product and how the data is managed.

One thing that’s increasingly desirable in these days of dramatically reduced time to market is the ability to reuse portions of existing designs in a new project.
So, with this in mind, the new Structure Editor allows you load an existing product Structure from Teamcenter and inspect and visualise that structure, and run "where used" searches for example, with the eventual goal of reusing either all of it or just portions.

It allows you to choose to replicate certain parts or subassemblies (so they remain the same) and have them copied and placed in the database as new items (so you can edit them).
You have full control over the process and it’s shown in a split window format, with the source assembly on the left, the target on the right.
Both views are synchronised, so as you expand sub-systems or scroll, they remain the same.

Another very useful new tool is the Assembly Autoconstrain capability. This allows you to take an imported or legacy assembly, load it into SolidEdge and use some intelligent tools to add assembly mating conditions. It’s not fully automated, but does get you there much faster than doing such work manually.

Now, let’s look at the tools available for working with really large assemblies. The first is Zones. These are commonly used in the shipbuilding, auto and aero industries to sub-divide a product into more manageable chunks and revision 20 brings Zones to the mainstream – where typically it has been the sole preserve of the higher-end system.
Zones allow you to define spatial envelopes to isolate specific areas of a product.

A zone is intelligent and will update dynamically to include either parts that it entirely contains (the Inside option) or that are within or intersect partially with that envelope (Overlapping option).
To create them, they’re defined either by dragging out a box or selecting parts you want within it.

When stored within the assembly file, the user can choose to open just a specific Zone and the system will just load those parts into memory – you do have the full product structure available in the PathFinder.
When you combine this tool with the new intelligent caching (which will selectively unload parts from memory if you haven’t used or referenced them within a specific time frame), you have the potential to make large assembly working much more efficient.
Connected to this is the new Drawing Review Mode of SolidEdge revision 20.

Essentially, this disconnects your drawing file from the source 3D assembly SolidEdge revision 20. This means you just load the drawing and nothing else – but can still actually work with it.
All manner of 2D dimensions and annotations can be added, measurements taken and jobs printed.
As soon as you perform an action that requires 3D data (such as adding a new view or an isometric dimension), the system will just load the data you need – meaning that you take the performance hit only when you absolutely have to.

The new Auto Constrain tools allow you to add assembly constraints to a legacy or imported assembly file.
SolidEdge revision 20 and Product planning

SolidEdge revision 20 and Product planning

The new Zoning tools allow you to subdivide an assembly into intelligently defined zones to assist with work assignment as well as large assembly or complex product handling.