Automatically generate to last feature

[MVP123]

Hi everyone,

As the title says I'm just checking if there is a way to automatically generate to last feature in a part when I edit a feature part way up the list. I've spent the last 12+ years working everyday in Inventor and got used to this being an automatic process, in Alibre I have the generate to last feature on a shortcut, but it's still one more thing to do/miss when editing a part.

Thanks
Matt

 

[Ken226]

I kinda like the manual regenerate feature. I used to get annoyed with Inventor taking such a long time regenerating features on my more complex parts.

With Alibre, I can edit away, and save the regerate for when I take a break.

Granted, it's annoying when sometimes I forget to regenerate and end up with a part in my assembly that's missing a bunch of features, but I've got used to hitting the button and have decided that the tradeoff is worth it, for me.

I've learned to think of it as a feature rather than a limitation.

 

[MVP123]

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one! My work computer is more than fast enough to regenerate features promptly, but like you mentioned I often find myself forgetting and then having to edit parts and it seems like a waste of time to me

 

[Max]

It really all boils down to whether your parts tend to take a while to compute or not. If you work with automotive folks and you are making parts with 150 features and 35 fillets, you may not want to autoregenerate because it could take 2 minutes. If your parts tend to have 10 features then it would be nearly instantaneous, feature depending. It should therefore be an option. I'm not sure of the effort involved in this - I'll ask the devs.

 

[simonb65]

It really all boils down to whether your parts tend to take a while to compute or not. If you work with automotive folks and you are making parts with 150 features and 35 fillets, you may not want to autoregenerate because it could take 2 minutes. If your parts tend to have 10 features then it would be nearly instantaneous, feature depending. It should therefore be an option. I'm not sure of the effort involved in this - I'll ask the devs.

If this does get implemented as a option, can you please make the default 'off', i.e not automatic and as-is at present, so that it doesn't change existing behaviour unless the user explicitly turns it on. I know you'll already be thinking this ... but just in case whoever implements it doesn't! TIA.

 

[Ken226]

S

It really all boils down to whether your parts tend to take a while to compute or not. If you work with automotive folks and you are making parts with 150 features and 35 fillets, you may not want to autoregenerate because it could take 2 minutes. If your parts tend to have 10 features then it would be nearly instantaneous, feature depending. It should therefore be an option. I'm not sure of the effort involved in this - I'll ask the devs.

Many of my models are assemblies with hundreds of parts with many of the parts having hundreds of features. I'm not a fan of auto-generating. It would be fine as an option, but I would hate to be stuck with it always on.

Inventor was pretty painful sometimes with really big parts, even with 4+ ghz multicore cpu's and lots of memory. Especially so when using their integrated CAM. Some of the machining operations wanted to regen the part after every single edge selection.

 

[jfleming]

I would like to see an option to step down thru each feature, perhaps Ctrl+PgDn or Ctrl+PgUp, versus dragging the wishbone which is often somewhat tricky

 

[DavidJ]

Jason, you can just double click on the next feature in the tree to advance through the Design Explorer. Perhaps not quite as smooth as your request.

 

[Stu3d]

Automatic generate to last feature would be a good option for me, most of my designs are simple so generate fairly instantly.
Also when generate to last feature is used it leaves the last item in the feature list highlighted/selected which then requires yet another click on a blank area of the screen to deselect before carrying on with a new sketch, feature etc. Bit annoying or am I missing the point?

 

[Ken226]

Automatic generate to last feature would be a good option for me, most of my designs are simple so generate fairly instantly.
Also when generate to last feature is used it leaves the last item in the feature list highlighted/selected which then requires yet another click on a blank area of the screen to deselect before carrying on with a new sketch, feature etc. Bit annoying or am I missing the point?

Yea, that has been driving me nuts lately too. I could be wrong, but I don't remember it leaving the last item selected in V24 or V23.

 

[Stu3d]

Yea, that has been driving me nuts lately too. I could be wrong, but I don't remember it leaving the last item selected in V24 or V23.

I am still Expert V23