Instantiating an Item

About Instantiating an Item

During product development designers and engineers search for existing parts and incorporate some of those parts into the product. CES provides a way to search for existing parts, and compare those parts based on manufacturer, supplier, pricing, attributes and geometry. Once the desired part has been selected, that part can then be incorporated into the product. This access to an extensive amount of information on numerous existing parts speeds up the development process and cuts development costs.

Depending on the type of item you are instantiating and the environment in which you are instantiating that item, the window that appears when you instantiate it will vary. In the How To Instantiate an Item section below, a part is instantiated from the Sourcing Search Results window. In this case the Insert Object window appears. This is the same window that is used when instantiating PowerCopies in Part Design, or instantiating Part Templates in Assembly Design. For more information on the Insert Object window and these other instantiation processes, please refer to:

  • Assembly Design User Guide : User Tasks : Managing Part and Assembly Templates : Instantiating a Part Template (in the Instantiate Keypad1 section, step 3, refer to "For more information about the Insert Object dialog box, click here.")
  • Part Design User Guide : User Tasks : Using PowerCopies : Instantiating PowerCopies

CES and Electrical Harnessing

Within CATIA, the electrical workbench supports certain technologies required for designing electrical components. These technologies include:

  • Device Placement
  • Document Chooser
  • Protection Placement
  • Smart Placement
  • Wire Routing

These technologies are used by CES to instantiate CATParts, and CATProducts. They are also used when copying, comparing, loading and viewing item details for CATParts, and CATProducts.

For more information about Device Placement, refer to Electrical 3D Design & Documentation : Overview, Electrical Library : Overview, or Electrical Library : Displaying Location Information from External Electrical Specification.

For more information about Document Chooser, refer to CES Engineering Catalog Navigator : User Tasks : Integrating CES and Document Selection, or NC Manufacturing Infrastructure : PLM Integration.

For more information about Protection Placement, refer to Common Functionalities : Electrical Package in Knowledge Expert, or Electrical Harness Flattening : Distinguishing Overlapping Protective Coverings.

For more information about Smart Placement, refer to Electrical 3D Design & Documentation : Using Smart Placement from Catalog, or Electrical Library : Using Smart Placement from Catalog.

For more information about Wire Routing, refer to Electrical Wire Routing User Guide.

When Instantiating an Item

  • Only one item can be instantiated at a time.
  • Only Internal Items that have an associated geometry (CATPart) and an APPROVED Approval Status can be instantiated. Please note that internal items associated with V4 .models cannot be instantiated.
  • The save mode of the generated CATPart for the Part Families' instance is not transparent. It can be seen when saved in ENOVIA V5 VPM.
  • In normal CES usage the "Check In Enovia before instantiate" and "Allow family component dynamic resolution in catalog" options should be unlocked by the administrator and activated by the user. If these options are not activated, part families will not be resolved dynamically, and only resolved part families can be instantiated. For more information about resolution mode, refer to the Component Catalog Editor User's Guide.
  • If the related part item contains only one Knowledge Template, the instantiation process instantiates the Knowledge Template instead of the part itself. For more information about Knowledge Templates, refer to the Product Knowledge Template User Guide in the CATIA documentation.
  • If multiple Product Structure Editors are open when you instantiate an item, you must select the Product in which to instantiate the item.

How To Instantiate an Item

This task explains how to instantiate an part found using a simple or a standard search. For more information about Simple Search or Standard Search, refer to : CES Engineering Catalog Navigator : Search : Simple Search or CES Engineering Catalog Navigator : Search : Standard Search.
This example assumes that:
  • you have CATIA Client running and it has access to a CES database that has been populated with manufacturer, supplier and internal items
  • you have logged in to ENOVIA V5 VPM and CES. For more information on logging in, refer to Logging in to ENOVIA V5 VPM in CATIA and Accessing CES Functionality.
  • you have performed a search for internal items using attribute values appropriate for your database
  • you have a product structure open for editing
  1. Select the item in the Sourcing Search Results window that you wish to instantiate. (It must be an internal item and it must have a geometry associated with it.) Right-click on the item and select Instantiate. Select the window in which your product is located. In the selected window, click on the product in which to instantiate the item. The Insert Object window appears. Please note that depending on the type of item you are instantiating and the environment in which you are instantiating the item, the window that appears will vary. For this example, a flexible part was used, so the Insert Object window appeared.

  2. If you select a regular part, instead of a flexible part, then instead of an Insert Object window, the window below may appear. Please note that when instantiating a regular item the item is automatically previewed in the Product Structure.

  3. For this example, a flexible part was used, so set the desired values in the appropriate location in the Insert Object window. You can preview the part within your product by clicking Preview. Click OK to accept the values in the window and actually instantiate the part in your product.

Insert Object Window

This table describes the fields displayed in the Insert Object window.

Fields Description

Reference

Select the feature that you want to instantiate if many advanced features (Power Copies, User Features and document templates) are defined.

Format

Select the appropriate format.

Instantiation Mode

This is available only if you work with meta inputs. If you do not select the Force meta inputs instantiation option when creating the meta input, 2 different modes are available at instantiation:
  • MetaInputsInstantiation: The meta inputs are displayed in the Inputs list.
  • MetaInputsNormalInstantiation: Even though meta inputs are defined, you can switch to the normal instantiation mode and select the real inputs.

Name

Set this to change the name of a User Feature instance.

Repeat

Check Repeat to repeat the instantiation.

In this case, after clicking OK in the Insert Object dialog box, the latter remains open, the template's Inputs are listed and ready to be replaced with new inputs, as described above.

Modified parameters using Parameters are retained as well for the next instantiation.

To exit the command, uncheck Repeat before the last instantiation or click Cancel.


This table describes the buttons displayed in the Insert Object window:

Button Description

Comments & URLs

This button is available with User Features and Document templates only. It is always grayed out when instantiating Power Copies. If a URL was added to a User Feature or a Document template, clicking this icon enables you to access the URL. For more information about this function, see Knowledge Advisor User's Guide.

Use identical name

This button searches the whole CATPart for features having the name of the input. If a feature with the input name is found, this feature is automatically used as input

Parameters

This option enables you to display the Parameters dialog box and modify values if needed. It also lets you create formulas by clicking Create formulas on every parameter with the same name, provided there are any.

Documents

This option enables you to access the list of documents (such as design tables) pointed to by one of the elements making up the template.

If there are documents, the Documents dialog box opens and you can click Replace to display the File Selection dialog box and navigate to a new design table to replace the initial one.

When no document is referenced, Documents is grayed out.

OK

Accept the object and insert it in the active product.

Cancel

Cancel the instantiation process and close the window.

Preview

Display the item within the active product, but do not instantiate it.

Catalog Window

This table describes the buttons displayed in the Catalog window:

Button Description

OK

Accept the item and insert it in the active product.

Cancel

Cancel the instantiation process and close the window.