Material replacement

 

As previously mentioned in the “Working with material and color names” section, the Woodwork for Inventor add-on allows the user to work with summarized names. In the final information preparation stage, the constructor can replace summarized color and material codes and names by specific codes and names. BOMs generated in this way are linked to actual materials ordered from suppliers.

 

 

Color and material replacements

 

Full material definition includes the following:

 

Color definition

 

Material definition

 

Geometry definition

 

 

If there is a match between all three parameters (the same color, the same material, the same material dimensions) of the material, this material is considered to be identical.

 

Some Woodwork for Inventor materials do not have colors (for more information, click here). Therefore, to define such materials, it is enough to define the material itself and its geometry.

 

Materials that are linked to colors:

 

Each type of material has different geometric parameters defining it. For example, a board can be 10, 12, 16 or 18 mm in thickness, whereas an edge band can be 0.45, 0.6, 1 or 2 mm in thickness and 22 or 28 mm in width, etc. In Woodwork for Inventor, some geometric parameters are obtained when specifying them during the material assignment process, while others are calculated based on the part model geometry.

 

The table below provides material types and geometrical parameters defining them.

 

 

 

 

The cells in brown show parameters that are obtained when selecting a parameter value during a material assignment process. Meanwhile, the cells in green show parameters that are obtained after calculating the actual edge band width in the model, and after matching it to the closest width range contained in the Woodwork for Inventor database. Other parameters provided are calculated based on the part model.

 

Woodwork for Inventor classifies all materials by levels:

 

 

 

 

Such classification is convenient because sometimes there may occur different materials having the same color. For example, a laminated board of 18 mm in thickness and an edge band sized 2 mm x 22 mm have the same color F01; Façade 01. In such case, you can change the color for all aforementioned materials in one go, e. g. to R4647C; Alder color. This means that in the final specification, the parts consisting of a 18 mm thick laminated board covered with the aforesaid edge band, will be listed as materials having the R4647C; Alder color. If, for example, such color is not available for the edge band, the user can go one step down to the material properties level, and specify a different material that is close to the R4647; Alder color.

 

Woodwork for Inventor is able to remember such modification combinations which are called modification configurations. It is easy to apply them to a different assembly. In this way you can accumulate different combinations of color modifications as modification configurations. Examples include “Light-colored combination”, “Retro-style combination”, etc.

 

 

Purchased product replacements

 

Only code and name appear in purchased products. Similarly as in the case of materials, here the user can change a code and a name. In this way, e. g. the same confirmat screw in the assembly model can be ordered using different codes from different suppliers.

 

Click here to see a detailed description of how the Woodwork for Inventor replacement command works.

 

 

Accessing original value item data field values in BOMs

 

As previously mentioned, after performing replacements of field values, modified field values will be exported to BOM specifications via the keywords. For example, Item.FillWorkpiece.Material.Color.Code keyword exports a modified workpiece color (if any). However, there may be cases when you have to indicate, in the BOM specification, the field values that were obtained during the reading of the CAD model by the Woodwork for Inventor BOM generator. In other words, original field values are required. In this case for each item that defines the material and has a replacement value, there is an option of extracting an original value obtained during the reading of the model. In this case, you can use the Original prefix for each such modified field.

 

For example, we need to know what an original color code of a given material is. For this purpose, you need to enter the Material.Original.Color.Code keyword in the table description. Or, let’s assume a material name is required: Material.Original.Color.Name.

 

In case a replacement was not performed, an original name corresponds to the replaced name.