As I mentioned in a prior blog, the 3D Product Architect role enables users to create or modify multi-CAD and multi-discipline product structures without the use of CAD tools through the application Product Structure Editor (PSE). This is a rather broad statement, in that there are many functions that PSE must provide to fulfill this goal. Let’s explore a scenario in large assembly design that will expose some of the underlying capabilities of this tool in the area of large assemblies.
Let’s say you are working in a large assembly, such as a complex car engine where the top assembly can have 1000 parts or more. Opening the crankshaft in context of such a large assembly can prove time consuming.
To reduce the amount of data loaded, PSE offers the ability to find a “Path” between the crankshaft and the top assembly. A path represents only those components that connect the top assembly to the crankshaft. PSE then only needs to load those products into memory, before performing subsequent volume-based queries. This speeds the overall operation of establishing a filtered context for subsequent operations. It should be noted, that in the case of CATIA as the CAD tool, the resulting filtered structure could be loaded into a session for subsequent design work.