Assembly3 preview

Discussion about the development of the Assembly workbench.
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Tilli
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2018 10:38 pm

"Add Workplane" greyed out - Tutorial - Assembly3 preview

Post by Tilli »

Hi

It's exciting to see this project, and it's clear I'm not alone in wanting to send Thanks and Respect for all your time and expertise devoted to extending FreeCAD. After finally getting the opportunity to download your latest AppImage from GitHub, I started to try to follow the basic introductory Tutorial. Unfortunately the second step fails with the "Add Workplane" greyed-out. :(

Steps to reproduce :
  • Launch by double-click the locally-downloaded file "FreeCAD-asm3-20180331-6008183c-b5489b8.glibc2.17-x86_64.AppImage"
  • Click "Create a new empty document (Ctrl+N)"
  • Click "Create assembly (A, N)"
  • Select the newly created "Assembly" in the Combo-View tree
  • "Add Workplane" is greyed-out
Screenshot attached below.
AddWorkplane-GreyedOut.fcstd
(3.29 KiB) Downloaded 64 times

Have I misunderstood something, or is there an assumed-step missing from the tutorial, or is it a bug?

Thanks

:)


Code: Select all

OS: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.17.5235 (Git shallow) AppImage
Build type: None
Branch: LinkStage3
Hash: ccaa87e12aaadbd3106607fc503542a863b742da
Python version: 2.7.6
Qt version: 4.8.6
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.1.0
Locale: English/UnitedKingdom (en_GB)

Assembly3-AddWorkplane-GreyedOut.png
Assembly3-AddWorkplane-GreyedOut.png (134.06 KiB) Viewed 2147 times
Last edited by Tilli on Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Matael
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:50 pm
Location: France

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by Matael »

Hi!

I tried to make a "plane alignment" constraint on the floating bar and the vertical bar of this :
2018-04-18-120218_822x982_scrot.png
2018-04-18-120218_822x982_scrot.png (28.52 KiB) Viewed 2142 times
here is a zoom (in green, the selected faces):
2018-04-18-120234_1093x981_scrot.png
2018-04-18-120234_1093x981_scrot.png (29.05 KiB) Viewed 2142 times
but I get the error "Failed to solve "Assembly": inconsistent constraints".

I tried several orientation, I tried to inverse the order of selection without success. I don't really understand because, even if it was not always easy to create the constraints (because of this error) moving the bars had made the constraints to work.

Any suggestion ?

OS: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.17.5235 (Git shallow) AppImage
Build type: None
Branch: LinkStage3
Hash: ccaa87e12aaadbd3106607fc503542a863b742da
Python version: 2.7.6
Qt version: 4.8.6
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.1.0
Locale: English/UnitedStates (en_US)
triplus
Veteran
Posts: 9471
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:45 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by triplus »

@Tilli

Likely some issue/regression is preventing it to be selectable ATM by default. As a workaround add something to Assembly and select it in a 3D view. That should make the command active.

@Matael

Try to position/rotate the bar closer to the desired outcome. That will likely do it. In the future there might be more control over this. And things will hopefully improve in this area. Like it happened with all other "big issues" detected in the past. This inconvenience. To be rather fragile to initial conditions. Is more or less the last "big issue" before i guess Assembly 3 becomes production ready from an average user point of view.
dyleks
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:10 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by dyleks »

LINK - Future modification request/question.

Is it possible in some future releases in linking to have:
When I drag and drop part from other project
1) I should be able to close source part file
2) add property with location of source file.

I can imagine that point 1 could be impossible to achieve, but point 2 would be very useful.
Imagine when you open assembly project and you can see only missing links. by just clicking on them
it would be possible to see location of source file or even open it directly in FreeCad.
triplus
Veteran
Posts: 9471
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:45 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by triplus »

dyleks wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:01 am 1) I should be able to close source part file
It was discussed in the past already to some extent. And it might happen in the future:

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 80#p224118
2) add property with location of source file.
Assembly 2 basically does it like that. That is you can use any location. If the file is not found on that location it automatically checks relative path in regards to the assembly related document for that file name. From exchanging the project point of view (outside of any "local setup" environment). Relative paths likely make more sense. In addition storing absolute paths in a FreeCAD document can introduces some privacy related concerns. Said that inside "local setup" environment absolute paths are likely highly convenient. As it is for example easy to use the same parts collections and things like that.
Tilli
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2018 10:38 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by Tilli »

triplus wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:53 am Likely some issue/regression is preventing it to be selectable ATM by default. As a workaround add something to Assembly and select it in a 3D view. That should make the command active.
Indeed, thank you @triplus. I switched to PartDesign WorkBench and created a default Additive Box. In the Combo-View tree I dragged its newly-created "Body" onto the "Assembly" and it ended up in the "Parts" subfolder.

The "Add Workplane" was still greyed-out when selecting "Assembly" ... but it did become available after selecting the "Parts" subfolder.

Hopefully this helps @realthunder keep squishing those bugs. :)

Thanks.
dyleks
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:10 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by dyleks »

triplus wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:37 am Assembly 2 basically does it like that. That is you can use any location. If the file is not found on that location it automatically checks relative path in regards to the assembly related document for that file name. From exchanging the project point of view (outside of any "local setup" environment). Relative paths likely make more sense. In addition storing absolute paths in a FreeCAD document can introduces some privacy related concerns. Said that inside "local setup" environment absolute paths are likely highly convenient. As it is for example easy to use the same parts collections and things like that.
Great, So is it possible to add it as user editable property ?
triplus
Veteran
Posts: 9471
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:45 pm

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by triplus »

Tilli wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:11 pm Indeed, thank you @triplus. I switched to PartDesign WorkBench and created a default Additive Box. In the Combo-View tree I dragged its newly-created "Body" onto the "Assembly" and it ended up in the "Parts" subfolder.

The "Add Workplane" was still greyed-out when selecting "Assembly" ... but it did become available after selecting the "Parts" subfolder.

Hopefully this helps @realthunder keep squishing those bugs. :)

Thanks.
Good to hear that and you're welcome.
dyleks wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:58 pm Great, So is it possible to add it as user editable property ?
Assembly 2 exposes the path to imported part as an user editable property. Assembly 3 AFAIK doesn't expose the XLink property ATM.
realthunder
Veteran
Posts: 2190
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:55 am

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by realthunder »

Gee, the forum must have some glitch again. I didn't receive any email notification and missed all those questions here. Thanks for those who answered for me.

First, new version is released. This marks the first time I release for MacOS platform. Although again, this is mostly a release for my topological naming adventure. And I think that functionality is mostly complete, but still lots of bug fixing ahead, of course. I'll be shifting my attention back to Assembly3 now.

dyleks wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:58 pm Great, So is it possible to add it as user editable property ?
The link is editable actually, and it is better than manually editing the file path and object name. Here is how,

Image

Tilli wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:11 pm The "Add Workplane" was still greyed-out when selecting "Assembly" ... but it did become available after selecting the "Parts" subfolder.

Hopefully this helps @realthunder keep squishing those bugs.
Thanks for the report, will fix it soon. BTW, if you select Parts, then you can only create work plane in standard XYZ direction. You can select any plane in your (nested) part object, and click AddWorkplane, it will create a plane at that location. In case you have more nested sub-assembly in between, and you want to create a work plane inside some sub-assembly, add a second selection by Ctrl select that assembly (or its Parts group), and then click AddWorkplane. The workplane is not linked to the part object, though. I don't think you need a linked work plane in Assembly3. Simply drag a selected plane to the Elements group, you'll have a linked plane that can be used in constraint as expected.
Try Assembly3 with my custom build of FreeCAD at here.
And if you'd like to show your support, you can donate through patreon, liberapay, or paypal
realthunder
Veteran
Posts: 2190
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:55 am

Re: Assembly3 preview

Post by realthunder »

Matael wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:09 am I tried several orientation, I tried to inverse the order of selection without success. I don't really understand because, even if it was not always easy to create the constraints (because of this error) moving the bars had made the constraints to work.

Any suggestion ?
Can you please attach your file here. I'll take a look.
Try Assembly3 with my custom build of FreeCAD at here.
And if you'd like to show your support, you can donate through patreon, liberapay, or paypal
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