Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Discussion about the development of the Assembly workbench.
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herbk
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by herbk »

roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:45 am I've found that A2 + is the most realistic, workable, and advanced asm tool.
Thats my mind to... A2+ is intuitive to use and the assemblies are stable, there is a clean Object tree and no put this in that folder, but do't move it there...
And i like the handling with different files, some time ago i asket for a own file ending for ASM files...
Working with existing parts brings a new development faster to production stage and saves money, because you use you use existing parts. Making the whole construction at one file tempt to change things at "ready parts", because it's easy done at the computer. But to implement you have to build two new parts instead one.
But that's just a (one) design philosophy... ;) ;)

I come from vehicle/machine construction, so my claim at a ASM WB would be that it can handle imported files, because the bigest number of includet parts are "buy parts" where i can get a CAD data file to.

What i also would like to see, if a WB like Fasteners or Bolts would be part of the Assembly WB... A Fastener you need only if you puts different parts togehther, what an asm WB is made for.
Using Fasteners (with personal toolbar) at A2+ works well, only for the fasteners you have a secound parts list, - there i can live with. :)

And, what would be a very great thing, if the at a ASM WB given constraints will work for the (an) Animation WB to. Turning a part around it's bearing to check for collision... a dream... ;) ;)
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by chrisb »

kbwbe wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:13 pm 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.
I'm glad to see that you and realthunder have already started some kind of integration.
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by roerich_64 »

BassMati wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:06 pm
roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:45 am 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")?
These are workarounds around toponaming ;-)
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by roerich_64 »

BassMati wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:08 pm
roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:45 am 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.
Have al look at:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=33408
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=34101

And a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhuBDHwI6w

Walter
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by roerich_64 »

herbk wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 4:42 pm
roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:45 am I've found that A2 + is the most realistic, workable, and advanced asm tool.
What i also would like to see, if a WB like Fasteners or Bolts would be part of the Assembly WB... A Fastener you need only if you puts different parts togehther, what an asm WB is made for.
Using Fasteners (with personal toolbar) at A2+ works well, only for the fasteners you have a secound parts list, - there i can live with. :)
Hi Herb,
we dont need a part database in an assembly-tool ;-)

Standard parts as fasteners and so on should be in an extra parts database...
I take these standard part in a folder named warehouse...
See: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 01#p286342

Walter
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by chrisb »

I don't mind where these parts live, but I find it rather appealing to have direct access to standard parts during assembly.
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by Zolko »

roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 8:03 pm These are workarounds around toponaming
what exactly do you mean by "toponaming" ? I thought I understood but now I'm not sure anymore.
try the Assembly4 workbench for FreCAD — tutorials here and here
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by herbk »

Hi Walter
roerich_64 wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 8:30 pm we dont need a part database in an assembly-tool ;-)
i dont't talk about a database, just of a partslist of all parts used at an assembly... Atm we have two, one for the main parts and one for the fasteners (if you use Fasteners WB), - like say'd: i can life with it.
What i want to sugesst: Make fasteners a part of an assambly WB, thats the only place where you need it. ;) ;)
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by Zolko »

BassMati wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:40 pm
Zolko wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 9:20 am 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:
Interesting ... Assembly4 uses the ExpressionEngine of the Placement property of an App::Link, not the Link Placement property. realthunder, what do you think ? I know that you had already told something about it, but I must admit I didn't understand, with the toggling of the Link Transform between True and False. Should an assembly rather use the Link Placement or the Placement property of an App::Link ? (at least in the case of the ExpressionEngine)

realthunder wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:23 pm ping
try the Assembly4 workbench for FreCAD — tutorials here and here
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Re: Assembly3, A2plus, Assembly4? Get united!

Post by Zolko »

chrisb wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2019 9:50 am Just to make clear what I want and what I don't want: 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.
I've though a long time about this, and I might have a different view on this: I think that what really matters is not so much the functions of an assembly workbench, but the data structure representing the assembly.

I explain: I work on projects that have life-spans of years, if not tens of years. If I do a project now with a tool, I need to be able to use that tool in 20 years, or another tool that is compatible. If I can't be sure that I can, I don't begin with this tool. This tool can be as good as it wants to be today, if I don't have a very high degree of confidence that it will still be around in 20 years I don't even touch it. Think PDF, or STEP. At a former place we had CatiaV5 at work, I had it personally on my computer, but with a 2 year license: I never used it for my personal projects because I knew that I might not have it later (which actually happened). This is actually why I got involved in FreeCAD: I use today a commercial CAD system (very good) but it has an USB dongle, and if it breaks, if I loose it, or if it gets stolen, my data is inaccessible.

So for me, the real question is: what is the best data structure to represent assemblies in FreeCAD such that FreeCAD — or a fork of FreeCAD — will still open a project in 10 years ? There are basically 2 options:

  • put every App::Part in a single file, as I believe that App:Part is here to stay. This is probably good for small projects, but unworkable for large projects
  • put parts (App::Part or others) in different files, "link" them together in a way that the "linking" will still correctly "link" the parts together in 10 years. By linking correctly I mean that the parts are put in the correct place, at least in the place they were at the last time the project was saved. The placement might be frozen, might have lost its parametric functionality, but at least I can open the project and measure all parts, and if it's worth-it I can re-create the project in another software. BUT: I must be able to open it !. If I can't , the project is dead !
I have tried to open a discussion on this matter before, unfortunately none of the "gurus" answered: what should the FreeCAD native data structure for assemblies be ? How should App::Part, App::Link, PartDesign::Body ... be used to form assemblies ? And this should be decided such that it is forward compatible, meaning that it can cope with use-cases and scenarios that we can't think of today.

This is important, not which button goes here or there. A button can be coded in a day, changing a data structure takes years.
try the Assembly4 workbench for FreCAD — tutorials here and here
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