Sharing Master Models

In my Naming the Master Models post I advised that master models can be shared across different assemblies.

The information captured from the models will be identical in each assembly it is used in. Whatever is captured from the model in one assembly, will appear in the model from the other assembly.

Although the captured information remains the same the rules will not. This is because there is a very high chance that the behaviour of some, if not all, of the parameters will be different between all the assemblies the model exists in.

So with that in mind don't expect to see the rules applied to the model in one assembly to ripple through to the same part in the other assembly. You will need to apply the rules again.

A good example of this can be seen with the 2 different window designs below. They both use the same extrusion model to form the top member. And both extrusions have the length controlled by DriveWorksXpress.

But in the single window the length of the extrusion is calculated by the rule: -

Opening Width – (2 * SectionDepth)

While in the window with the centre mullion the length is: -

(Opening Width – (3* SectionDepth))/2