Dyn Components and Generate Report

bmike · 9 Jan 2009, 13:19

Hello All -

How can one get a true length for a component with the 'generate report' operation?

I've posted a model here:
http://tinyurl.com/a96rbh

And the html report here:
http://tinyurl.com/ay87e8

Timber in white is inserted from my library.
Timber in blue is scaled from that timber.

I've then copied and 'swapped' the end markings for joinery, themselves dynamic components.

Taking a look at the list - I do not get a reliable value for LenZ of the 'timber' component.
Is this due to the way I've built the components? Or is it a function of the scale tool? Or nesting?

If we look for sub component 'beam' - this does return a true value for that instance, regardless of scale.
But - ideally I'd like to see the true length value for the parent - this would simplify estimating / etc.

Am I doing something wrong? Missing something?
One would think that the LenZ would be overall length of whatever you stick together - and this is true when I build simple boxes and nest them... but I cannot repeat the behavior when I use the dyn components.

Thanks for the help.
Great forum here!

peweuk · 9 Jan 2009, 15:03

I had a quick look at your model and report and it is not exactly clear what the problem is.

To make it quicker and easier for someone to see the problem can I suggest that you identify the cells of your report where the incorrect dimensions are showing and what you expect them to be - eg column_name/row_name is XX and should be YY.

bmike · 9 Jan 2009, 18:27

Broken down by Entity Name in Col3, check the LenZ# in Col12 - look for the following to see where I'm confused:

Entity Name T1 - LenZ should be 48, it is reporting 17.015
Entity Name T1A - LenZ shoudl be 96, it is reporting 34.030
*note, the subcomponent in the row below the ones listed above is showing correctly

Adding the joinery, I thought the LenZ would be the accumulation of all the components in the parent. This is not the case, the LenZ of the beam with joinery on the ends is reporting smaller than in the model:

Entity Name T2B - LenZ should be 120, it is reporting 34.030

Nowhere in my report do I see the same values as the dimensions (converted to inches) as I have in the model, with the exception of the subcomponent 'beam'

-Mike

peweuk · 10 Jan 2009, 01:03

Mike.

I have played a little with this and found that it is the position and orientation of the Axis of each subcomponent, along with the lack of setting the lengths and positions of them that is causing the corruption when scaled.

If you don't fix a proportional or arithmetic relationship of the sub components to the parent, I've found it can cause corruption when resized by scaling (as opposed to doing it via entries in the Component Options dialog window).

I have not had time to experiment fully, but have a look at the changes to the axis and the attributes entries of the Timber reference and beam at the right in the attached file to give you an idea of what I changed to start correcting this problem. On quick test it now seems to scale with the correct dimensions shown.

I'm not saying its complete (short of time) but I hope it helps.

timbertest2.skp

bmike · 10 Jan 2009, 02:16

Thanks for the input.
I worked on an updated model - I added a Z length to the parent component and noticed I had some strange scaling behavior in the original joinery. Fixing these makes the results more predictable.

I'm still not getting an overall length when I add the joinery...
And I'm getting some weird behavior dealing with other dimensions now...

But I think I see a way to address this. I will rebuild them from scratch and see if it improves.

bmike · 11 Jan 2009, 12:43

Still no luck, even after rebuilding everything. When I swap for the joinery component I can't get an updated overall length.

Will post a model later.

peweuk · 11 Jan 2009, 15:04

Ok, here's a starter.

The attached is a staring point.

It shows 2 components, one is the starting size of your T1. The second is a copy of the component, made unique and re-sized.

The report shows it is scaling properly with correct output (although the model is in mm and the report is always in inches).

Pay particular attention to how the X Y Z positions and X Y Z sizes of the Beam and Beamguide vary because of the different orientation and location of the AXIS for each sub component.

See if adding the other subcomponents to this start to affect the way it scales.

Hope this helps.

timbertest3.skp