Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

[roerich_64]

I need mostly A2+ for assembling, you have seen in the forum.

And i followed the other developers (Realthunder, Zolko) in the forum.
All three mostly discussed Asm-Tools have the same deep problem: Topological Naming.

Other WB's have also problems with TopoNaming.

I think this should be the first point of all of the todolists

After solving this, it should be easy to create in FreeCad an universal assembly tool

Then we must diskuss over a human / machine interface...
The approach to A2 + is very handy and clear, as even huge drawings are easy to handle because you can go through the data structure quickly and easily. You can also integrate data sheets and easily generate bills of material ...

I've found that A2 + is the most realistic, workable, and advanced asm tool.

Best
Walter

[Zolko]

I don't want to suppress different workbenches, but I don't want to see that several capable programmers invest time in basically the same functions.

To be honest, I think that the ball is in the hands of the users, not the developers: please test and report. Make comments, tell what is good and what is bad. And ideally try to make the same things in several workbenches. We ("developers" as you say) can't do that because 1) we don't have the time and 2) we're biased. Testing is as important as coding. If you want to wait with testing until the coding is finished then we all have a problem.

[BassMati]

...I don't want to see that several capable programmers invest time in basically the same functions...

Agreed. On the other hand, I regard the effort of the authors as a kind of building a "prototype software", not intended for release, but for learning the inner workings and pitfalls inherent in their design idea. Once the prototype is stable (not necessarily complete), the learning process is more or less done, and the author is in a real good position to discuss (with the others) about a united assemby workbench design.

(This is how I experienced my own software projects: After a lot of thinking and planning, I built that thing. While building, stumbled across problems which I didn't saw on beforehand. When done, and after playing around with that thing for some time, I knew what I would do differently in a version 2.0... This is the reason why I don't want to press Realthunder right now. It seems he is now very busy with Assembly3...)

[BassMati]

You may be right, yet I hope that a common base can be found on top of which we may have different flavours.

Agreed.

[BassMati]

It is all about use cases and users. We all want assembly workbench but actually manage to do our projects without one. Some can actually create one but do they need it in the long run?

I vote for a "Yes" here, because

• I want to heavily re-use simple Bodies without copying them (keeps the memory footprint low)

• I want to organize libraries in separate files and re-use them in my projects

• I want to heavily re-use (nested) Assemblies without copying them

• I want a powerful, intuitive, highly interactive Assembly Workbench for sketching out ideas

• I want a (potentially different) Assembly Workbench with top performance on very large projects, even at the cost of being non-intuitive (such as crafting formulas). The time for a complex formula is spent once, the time for a slow screen refresh is spent multiple times.

• I don't want the program load time for (assembly) workbenches that I don't need at the moment

(Sounds like the start of a requirement list…)

[BassMati]

Yes, this sounds familiar. Do you have some code so I can have a look ?

On the property page, Link Placement > Position > (y, z) > expression:

(Sketch001.Constraints.XBTD + Sketch102.Constraints.D4) / 2 * cos(30)
-(Sketch001.Constraints.XBTD + Sketch102.Constraints.D4) / 2 * sin(30)

Positions a sub-assembly depending on the X Base Tube Diameter, the the outer Diameter of a ball bearing, and the tilt angle of the sub-assembly. Not so exciting I thing. No contributions to the code base yet, although the wish to do so rises continuously But I don't feel capable enough…

[BassMati]

… So far, the master sketch approach works quite well for me especially for articulating mechanisms.

the master sketch approach is also what I use with Assembly4 … It's quite exactly what kisolre does, except that he places clones of parts (or bodies) in the same file, whereas in Assembly4 the "clone" is an App::Link.

Looks like similar concepts, so may by potential for unification?

I still have to learn that "master sketch approach". Currently I do "mechanisms" with formulas.

[BassMati]

Other WB's have also problems with TopoNaming.
I think this should be the first point of all of the todolists

Zolko's LCS idea? Realthunder's named mating interfaces idea ("elements")?

Currently I try to reference Sketch elements instead of generated vertices, edges and planes. I can live with that, i. e. no problems so far.

[BassMati]

Then we must diskuss over a human / machine interface...
The approach to A2 + is very handy and clear, as even huge drawings are easy to handle because you can go through the data structure quickly and easily. You can also integrate data sheets and easily generate bills of material ...
I've found that A2 + is the most realistic, workable, and advanced asm tool.

I must have a closer look at that A2+ thing. Seems that the frustration level was too low when I tried it last time.

[kbwbe]

Currently we have at least these three Assembly workbenches. And none of these deserves yet to be called "The FreeCAD Assembly Workbench".

@realthunder,kbwe, zolko:
...
For the FreeCAD community it would be phantastic to see you walk into one direction!

Having "The FreeCAD assembly Workbench" for sure is that what most users want including me. Having a stable tool for future projects.

As an assembly is a very general tool for a cad system, it should be possible to define its most important capabilites, as there could be:
- a clean object tree, suituable for product management
- a working partslist
- an intuitive workflow
- good solvers including a LCS constraint
- robust against toponaming problem
- in place editing
- not intrusive to existing parts
- etc...

We could try to define all capabilities in advance, the better way i assume is to listen to users feedbacks and their needs. I am sure, the users will find the merrits and disadvantages within each proposal and none of them is the perfect one yet.

Regarding user testing: A2plus is out quite some time. Zolko's Assembly4 is now included within the addon manager and is working with the recent FC master branch. It would be very fine if RealThunders Assembly3 finds it's way to the addon manager too soon. So testing will be possible for a wider range of users.

For me, i am now testing and working with Zolko's Assembly4, trying to find out the merrits and disadvantages. Also looking at his code. I am doing this, as the "big merge" has been done now, which changes a lot of things, especially regarding my A2plus WB. It's concepts are based on FC versions long times before that.

If every developper of the recent assembly workbenches is looking what his "neighbor" is doing and is listening to the users, there could grow a new assembly WB, what kind ever.