Configuring Publishing of Positioning Assemblies
This topic explains how to configure Visualization to publish Creo Parametric and CATIA V5 assemblies as positioning assemblies.
A positioning assembly is a high-level assembly that is used to fix the relative location (position) of its child assemblies. As a result, for Creo Parametric, there can be no assembly features used between these assemblies. In addition, for both CATIA V5 and Creo Parametric, if parametric positioning or assembly constraints are used, changes in any child components must not impact the position of components within the assembly being published as a positioning assembly. This also applies in CATIA V5 for assembly constraints driven by global attributes; these cases also must not impact the position of child components within the assembly.
When an assembly is converted as a positioning assembly, Creo View branch links are used to reference the child assemblies’ representations, rather than converting the data in the context of the parent assembly. When the parent assembly representation is created with a latest configuration spec, this allows the latest child assemblies to be automatically displayed for the parent, without the parent needing to be republished.
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• Positioning assemblies are only available for Creo Parametric and CATIA V5.
• In versions of Windchill prior to 9.1 M070, CATIA V5 positioning assembly publishing using File Synchronization downloads all dependent objects.
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To publish a Creo Parametric or CATIA V5 assembly as a positioning assembly:
1. Specify that the EPMDocument will be published as a positioning assembly. You can do this using the Publish and Thumbnail Control option in the Business Administration section of the Utilities page of Projects, Products, Organizations, or Site.
Alternatively, you can specify a list filename, global attribute name, or custom method to identify which EPMDocuments to publish as positioning assemblies, using the methods described next:
<Property default="" name="publish.positioningassembly.filename"/>
<Property default="" name="publish.positioningassembly.ibaname"/>
<Property default="" name="publish.positioningassembly.filtermethod"/>
<Property default="" name="publish.positioningassembly.ibaname"/>
<Property default="" name="publish.positioningassembly.filtermethod"/>
◦ If you specify a list filename, that file contains a list of EPMDocument CADNames that are positioning assemblies. If the EPMDocument type does not define a CADName, the EPM number is used instead.
◦ When the publish.positioningassembly.filename property is set and the indicated file exists, if the CAD Document is in it, then publish Positioning Assembly; if it is not in the file, the global attribute method is then checked.
◦ The text file contains a list of CAD Document filenames (CADNames) of the EPMDocument; or alternatively, the CAD Document Number. One CAD Document is listed per line.
◦ If the CAD Document being published is listed in the file, it is published as a Positioning Assembly.
◦ If an EPMDocument is not specified in the file, then the existence of the global attribute name (if specified) is checked instead. If you specify a global attribute name, it must be of type Boolean, where a value of TRUE indicates that the EPMDocument is a positioning assembly, and FALSE indicates that it is not. If the global attribute name is not present, that EPMDocument is not processed as a positioning assembly.
Additionally, an administrator can specify in the New Representation wizard that a representation be created by publishing an appropriate EPMDocument as a Positioning Assembly or as an Extended Positioning Assembly. This overrides the other methods of specifying a positioning assembly.
◦ If you specify a custom method, only that method is used to determine if the assembly is a Positioning Assembly or Extended Positioning Assembly. In this case, the property value format is as follows:
classname/methodname
With the following method signature:
public static Boolean methodname(EPMDocument d)
Where a return of Boolean.TRUE indicates that the EPMDocument is a positioning assembly, and Boolean.FALSE indicates that it is not.
2. Specify whether to publish the children when publishing a positioning assembly, if there was no representation for the positioning assembly to use.
<Property default="false" name="publish.positioningassembly.
publishchildren"/>
publishchildren"/>
The property can be any of the following values:
◦ false - no publishing of children takes place.
◦ true or latest - If a positioning assembly is being created with a latest configuration spec, the children are published if required.
◦ default - If a positioning assembly is being created as the default representation, the children are published if required.
◦ all - If any positioning assembly is being created, the children are published if required.