How to count only visible identical items in assembly

[Dwight]

All

I wish to get an item count, limited to the subset that shows in the active Display-State. Seems there ought to be an easy way, but I have not found it.

I am doing a multiple sheet drawing of a complex weldment. I have created a number of Display-States to show a suggested progression of assembly. I show a Display-State per sheet. It would be helpful to get an item count for a type of thing shown in that sheet.

I can go to the assembly model, select one of the items, filter for identical items, and isolate those. That gives me a screen showing just the items I want to count. How do I find how many? I can copy them, paste them in a new assembly, and then get a count. This method seems a bit over the top.

What am I missing?

Thanks

Dwight

[AlexLachance]

Hello Dwight,

The best way would be to add configs and use a "delete body" feature to "create" the steps IMO. If you'd like I could go into further details if required.

Edit: The reason I say to use delete body feature rather then display states is that there are no way to get BOM's according to display states. So using the deletebody feature a multitude of times will allow you to create the desired number of steps to show how it is assembled once your multibody weldment has been created.

[Dwight]

Alex

Yes, that would be a good approach. Another way is to break up the assembly into subassemblies and create drawings for each. I am thinking of bailing out and doing that. Doing the sub-assemblies probably will work better in our collaborative design situation, with a lot engineers who like it simple.

Thanks

Dwight

[AlexLachance]

Alex

Yes, that would be a good approach. Another way is to break up the assembly into subassemblies and create drawings for each. I am thinking of bailing out and doing that. Doing the sub-assemblies probably will work better in our collaborative design situation, with a lot engineers who like it simple.

Thanks

Dwight

Don't forget, splitting it in sub-assemblies creates new part/assembly numbers and is somewhat "harder" to manage for a company.

[Dwight]

Don't forget, splitting it in sub-assemblies creates new part/assembly numbers and is somewhat "harder" to manage for a company.

Yes indeed. That's what I was trying to avoid. It does cost money. On the other hand, we know how to do it.

[IndianaDave]

You're not using an assembly for a weldment, are you?
Use the weldments feature, and you can create sub-weldments.

[gupta9665]

Never tried but macro might be useful to count the visible parts/components.

[Dwight]

I stumbled onto a good solution. Save a selection set. The count is then shown in the selection set folder list:

image.png (5.65 KiB) Viewed 2770 times

Dwight

[AlexLachance]

I stumbled onto a good solution. Save a selection set. The count is then shown in the selection set folder list:

image.png

Dwight

Good idea, just be careful, the selection set does not update itself to count new instances as far as I'm aware.

[Dwight]

Good idea, just be careful, the selection set does not update itself to count new instances as far as I'm aware.

Alex

Good point. Probably best to delete the set once you get the number.

Dwight

[Dwight]

I now find that the count shown for a Selection Set is wrong if you box select items. A box select adds one to the count, where individual selects give a correct count.

I'm on SW2022.

If someone would confirm this, I'll add it to the bug list.

Thanks

Dwight

[AlexLachance]

I now find that the count shown for a Selection Set is wrong if you box select items. A box select adds one to the count, where individual selects give a correct count.

I'm on SW2022.

If someone would confirm this, I'll add it to the bug list.

Thanks

Dwight

I'm not quite sure I understand. When you do a "box selection", even though there are X instances selected, it will only show a count of 1? (X being >1)

I'm on 2023 SP4 and that behavior is not occuring. The box selection shows the correct count.

[Dwight]

Alex

Say I have 4 inserts in a plate, I have the assembly open, and I filter so only the inserts show. If I box-select all the inserts and create a Selection Set, the count is 5. If I select all the inserts individually, the count is 4.

Note that I am certain there are no duplicate inserts at any location.

Dwight