{"id":712,"date":"2010-01-29T13:17:24","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T18:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.org\/futures-made-of-virtual-parts-and-assemblies"},"modified":"2013-08-16T10:39:44","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T14:39:44","slug":"futures-made-of-virtual-parts-and-assemblies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2010\/01\/futures-made-of-virtual-parts-and-assemblies.html","title":{"rendered":"Futures&hellip; made of&hellip; Virtual Parts and Assemblies!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SolidWorks 2010 introduced some great new functionality to the area of Virtual parts and assemblies.<\/p>\n<p>First of all lets go back to basics:   <br \/>What are virtual parts and assemblies?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A part or assembly that does not have a saved file on disk<\/li>\n<li>Saved internally in the assembly<\/li>\n<li>Can be a bought-in, non modelled item such as paint or glue<\/li>\n<li>Square brackets are used to denote the part or assembly as virtual<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/6a00d83451706569e20128772a122f970c.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image\" border=\"0\" class=\"at-xid-6a00d83451706569e20153935e2c2a970b\" height=\"45\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/6a00d83451706569e20153935e2c2a970b.png\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"image\" width=\"304\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Virtual components are especially useful in top-down design. During the conceptual design process, when you frequently experiment with and make changes to the assembly structure and components, using virtual components has several advantages over the bottom-up design method:   <br \/><a name=\"concept_3D9E472CE65A4951ACABB7CA1FA4B19D__ul_6231D4E6B7A9466F8528A41545FC9D9D\"><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"concept_3D9E472CE65A4951ACABB7CA1FA4B19D__li_C1C59610D82947059A97CA568E005321\"><\/a>You can rename these virtual components in the FeatureManager design tree, avoiding the need to open, save as a copy, and use the Replace Components command. <\/li>\n<li><a name=\"concept_3D9E472CE65A4951ACABB7CA1FA4B19D__li_84B0CC1766114A76A1E37CB097105EA3\"><\/a>You can make one instance of a virtual component independent of other instances in a single step. <\/li>\n<li><a name=\"concept_3D9E472CE65A4951ACABB7CA1FA4B19D__li_33FC181681674FC0B9C081373B71945A\"><\/a>The folder where you store the assembly is not cluttered with unused part and assembly files resulting from iterations of component designs. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">So what\u2019s new in virtual parts and assemblies in SolidWorks 2010?<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make existing components virtual<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>You can make externally saved components virtual, which breaks the link to the external component file. Existing references are ignored and the component is renamed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Naming virtual components<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>The name of a virtual component now always includes its parent assembly&#39;s name. This ensures the virtual component is always unique.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Copying virtual components<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>You can copy virtual components between assemblies. The copy is not linked to the original virtual component. Existing references are not copied, and the copy is given a new name.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Moving Virtual Components<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>You can move virtual components within the hierarchy of the FeatureManager design tree. Existing references are ignored and the component is renamed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lets take a look at an example:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wlWriterEditableSmartContent\" id=\"scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:10bf9dfa-cdb1-4b68-b20a-61d99a8cdd0b\" style=\"padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px\">\n<div id=\"6e765d9e-7eae-40db-afa0-62aeac55d036\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;\">\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SNvj2sUPbCA\" target=\"_new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"at-xid-6a00d83451706569e20153935e2c2e970b\" galleryimg=\"no\" onload=\"var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById(&#39;6e765d9e-7eae-40db-afa0-62aeac55d036&#39;); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = &quot;&lt;div&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/SNvj2sUPbCA&amp;hl=en&quot;&gt;&lt;\/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/SNvj2sUPbCA&amp;hl=en&quot; type=&quot;application\/x-shockwave-flash&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;355&quot;&gt;&lt;\/embed&gt;&lt;\/object&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;&quot;;\" src=\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/08\/6a00d83451706569e20153935e2c2e970b.jpg\" style=\"border-style: none\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><div class=\"wlWriterEditableSmartContent\" id=\"scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:b2c8302c-a57f-484d-81ac-dddff99e7599\" style=\"padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px\">Technorati Tags: <a href=\"https:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/Virtual+Components\" rel=\"tag\">Virtual Components<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/SolidWorks+2010\" rel=\"tag\">SolidWorks 2010<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/Tips+and+Tricks\" rel=\"tag\">Tips and Tricks<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SolidWorks 2010 introduced some great new functionality to the area of Virtual parts and assemblies. First of all lets go back to basics: What are virtual parts and assemblies? A part or assembly that does not have a saved file<\/p>\n... <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2010\/01\/futures-made-of-virtual-parts-and-assemblies.html\">Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":3036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidworks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}