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Just downloaded V21 and played with the new gear, rack & pinion and thread constraints. Very nice! Also the 'reverse' and 'flip' buttons. These will be useful. Pretty intuitive, but some better tutorials would be good. We're still limited to motion in a single assembly though. Would be...

Oops. Sentence should read "I've saved as a drawing, but I still can't pick any of the entities."

I imported a 2D DXF file of a template. I can see the template, but I can't seem to do anything with it. I would like to at least check some dimensions but Alibre doesn't seem to recognize anything as a 'pickable' entity. I've saved as a drawing, but O still can't pick any of the entities...

Now that you mention it, it does seem to happen with long, thin parts. The zoom level doesn't seem extreme, but the part is 24' long X 4" wide, so it probably is zoomed pretty tight.

Switching back to legacy display and a restart of Alibre seems to have fixed the problem...for now

Here is an example. I had the cursor in the middle of the front face (the screen capture didn't show the cursor). Notice that it is trying to pick the surface behind the one I want. If I swing the part around, I can pick the front outside surface, but only from behind. This is the worst case...

2019 is being a pain in the a.. (yes, I have the latest build). When adding constraints, sometimes I can't select a surface on a part. It is usually the end faces of an extrusion. No matter how tight I zoom and make sure the cursor is on the surface, when I click it picks the next surface...

Ah, it may have been an assembly. Will check. Will verify the .stp vs. solidworks comment with my colleague. He received both, but seemed much happier with the SW native parts.

2019 does take longer to load and run big files. I've had several issues with AD2019 (both new versions). I routinely send parts and assemblies to colleagues who use Key Creator, Rhino or SolidWorks. The KC guys are saying that the .stp files (stp214) I send are no longer complete parts...

I 'upgraded' to 2019. I now can't seem to export to IGES or to SolidWorks native formats. I've also received comments from colleagues that files I've exported in STP format do not import correctly. Anyone else having these issues? BC

Never mind. Just realized I can select more than one part for insertion. Go to insert part, grab all of the stp files, insert, select them all in the part tree, anchor. Done.

I did figure out that if I insert directly from the STP file into the assembly, Alibre places the part at the assembly origin. All I have to do then is anchor the part. That's pretty easy, but if I have 100 parts, I think a script would be worth some time to figure out.

I have a number of stp file that I would like to insert into an assembly. All parts may be anchored (or constrained by planes) at the assembly origin. I'm not a script writer, but I have have had some success modifying macros and other simple code. Is there something like this out there? BC

Hi Lew, I do understand proper assembly and structure. I have been using CAD systems since Anvil 1000 back in the 1980's. Our "issues" stem from transporting files between different CAD systems. Once again, this thread has nothing to do with the McMaster pillow block bearing or bearing...

Hi Stefan, Thanks again! How simple. I never realized it would snap to the origin. Perfect! We design all parts or sub-assemblies from the top level origin. All parts I import to the top level assembly will be inserted at the origin. It prevents errors when multiple people are working on...

Hi Stefan, Yes, there are weird things with the way assemblies are being sent. The vendor can send individual parts. If I substitute the Windows file name for the empty string in the PRODUCT line of the STP file, all is well. I'll have my code spewer generate a little app for me that will do...

Hi JST, It's not the McMaster part that is the problem. They always import with the McMaster part number, which is fine with me, as we typically don't re-number vendor parts. I sent it along as a 'good example'. Actually, I love McMaster for having the CAD models available and very accurate...

The sender of the file is using Kubotek Creator. Apparently he uses levels as part names, so the individual part names may not actually exist. At least we've found which side of the send/receive transaction owns the problem.

Thanks Stafan. I have a friend who can write a small macro to change the "PRODUCT" definitions. Any idea where the filename for individual components of an assembly might be? It seems another place to look is the source (the output parameters from the sender).

GOT IT!!!! Almost. The bad file has this line: #41141=PRODUCT(' ', ' ', ' ',(#2)); I changed it to: #41141=PRODUCT('123', '123', '123',(#2)); and Alibre named the part "123". However, I just realized that the file is actually an assembly and Alibre is now naming the component parts...