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The new version of Vault Copy Design (as you would imagine) still enables users to carry out a replace file as part of your copy operation, providing a simple way to swap out one common component for another or set up a new configuration based on existing design data. What happens though when you haven't actually finished creating the part or files you want to use in that replace action?
Well, you might say, you're crazy and there is no need to do that. Bare with me though.
What if for example you have have several variations on a common component (left / right handed or varying finish) that you want to copy and consolidate back to a single design iteration in one action?
What about the scenario we looked at in the "Select References" post where we want to copy some component references and reuse others without creating a whole bunch of new files?
Well, using pending file replace, these workflows are now supported.
In the video below we will first off switch to select references mode and do a simple, traditional file replace, just select the existing file and replace allows us to search for a potential replacement which is inserted. The change of component automatically sets the model tree to copy.
We now select to copy one reference of the Combo Spacer, as expected we have one new copy of this and 1 reference being reused. I repeat for the notched spacer, 1 of those now being copied and 1 reused.
Copy the other reference to the Combo Spacer and this is where it gets interesting, I am creating two new files, but using this numbering scheme I will have 2 new files with the same name in the same folder – this will cause the copy to fail…..
We can of course just rename one of these, but if you actually want to use just 1 part in both places we can actually "Replace" the second reference with the pending file. Simply select to replace the second Combo Spacer reference and in the file dialog select "Pending Data". Here we see all the new files that are about to be created as part of the copy design command – BAM!
Picking the new instance of Combo Spacer you will see the count for Combo spacer changes to 2 and I am actually creating a single new file with 2 references.
What say I no longer need the notched spacer in the main assembly and intend to replace with this new Combo Spacer design? Right click on the reference I am interested in and I can again replace and select the new Combo Spacer from Pending data.
I now have 3 references to this new part which is yet to be created.
We can continue on here replacing a number of components with new files and once the copy is executed, we can open the file and our newly copied part will be referenced in all the desired locations. As with all replace actions, we may have some constraining / repositioning to do as part of the new design, but I now have the right references to start with.
So there we have it, no more waiting around – the "future" copies are yours to use right now!
– Allan
