Clone Ticket
- jcunningham
Description
This tool allows the user to take a ticket made for one assembly and clone all information to another assembly. This includes creating sheets, creating and placing all views, populating the title block and all applicable annotations.
The user will be prompted to first select the assembly to be copied from (the source) and the assembly to be pasted to (the target). Once these selections are made a window will appear which will allow the user to decide which of the source’s sheets they want cloned and decide what they want cloned on each sheet.
When cloning a ticket, the following is done:
A template is made for the given source ticket and applied to the selected target assembly. This is done using the #Create Layout and #Apply Layout tools. This is done automatically on the backend and will require no inputs from the user.
If desired by the user, once the sheet has been created the title block will be populated using the #Populate Sheet Properties tool. Typically, this tool will ask the user which map they want to use when populating the title block. When using clone ticket, the same map which was used on the source assembly will be used on the target assembly. If no map was used on the source assembly, the default map will be used.
Next, the tool will copy all selected annotations. These include dimensions, detail groups, detail lines, filled regions, revision clouds, symbols, tags, viewers, and text notes. When cloning annotations, they are placed at their position relative to the assembly in both the source and target views. This is only true for detail views, any annotations on the sheet itself will be placed relative to the sheet. For example, a line starting 2’ from the assembly origin will start 2’ from the target assembly origin regardless of its size.
Some annotations, such as dimensions and tags, refer to an element in the source view. For these annotations, the reference is mapped from the source view to the target view. In the mapping process a similar reference will be located that has the same family name and type name as the source reference. Because of this, if the bill of material between the source and the target varies too greatly, referenced annotations will begin to need more cleanup from the user.
If referenced annotations are not coming through correctly, this could be because the software is having trouble locating reference lines / planes on the family. When a reference line or plane is being used as a reference for an annotation and our tools appear to be failing to locate them, an easy solution is to name the given reference lines and planes on the given family. This step is typically not needed and should only be done as needed.