Building up a Design from Subsidiary Parts

In the preceding part of the exercise, the whole of the design model represented by the template was derived from a single Equipment element which owned three member primitives. For more complex items, it is often better to divide the design into subsidiary parts (represented by, for example, Sub-Equipment elements), each of which is referenced from a parent design template.

Consider, for example, a cylindrical vessel with selectable end configurations and a set of supports. If the end configurations and the support set are defined as subsidiary designs, they can be re-used for a range of vessels. We will create a template for the following equipment design (typical end types shown for illustration only):

Exercise continues:

1. Restart Marine if necessary and load the Design Equipment application.

   Navigate to the Zone which you created for these exercises (that means, TMPLZONE).

2. Create an Equipment element named Test-Vessel comprising:

   • a cylinder with its Z-axis pointing North (that means, the cylinder will be horizontal), and with Height (Length) 1500 and Diameter 400;

   • a negative cylinder with its Z-Axis pointing Up (remember that this orientation is defined with respect to the owning cylinder, whose Z/Up direction is already set to North), and with Height (Length) 1500 and Diameter 380.

3. Change to the Design Templates application.

4. In the Template Browser, navigate to the Template Area which you created for these exercises (that means, Template Area for exercises). In the Design Explorer, navigate to the Equipment on which the template is to be based (that means, Test-Vessel).

5. Select Create > Template to create a design template copied from the equipment.

6. Set the following Template Information:

   Name	Vessel-Main-Body
   Purpose	Unset
   Description	Vessel main body
   Function	VESSEL
   Generic Type	VESS

   Leave the Origin at (0,0,0)

7. Select both Add Properties and Add Points options so that a Design Dataset (to hold design properties) and a Pointset (to hold design points) will be created ready for later use.

   Note: If Maintain world orientation is unchecked then the system behaves as it does now, where the orientation of elements in a Design Template is determined from the orientation of these elements in the reference system of the selection item (for example, EQUI or VOLM). If Maintain world orientation is checked the orientation of elements in a Design Template is determined from the orientation of these elements in the world reference system. In this case the design template origin position is still the origin of element selected to import as a template.

   Note: If Ignore elements that cannot be in Templates is unchecked then the system works as it does now where Templates cannot be made from equipment that owns SUBE elements. If it is checked the hierarchy will be flattened under the equipment and all primitive elements from the equipment and its sub-equipments will be copied to the template in their correct position and orientation with respect to the equipment. It is still illegal to try to copy an element containing TMPL elements into a new design template.

   Note: Maintain world orientation and Ignore elements that cannot be in Templates are ignored if the element selected to import is a Design Template. In this case a simple copy function is used to copy the original template to a new template.

8. Click OK to complete the template creation. Select Display > Selected Template to show the new template in the 3D View.

9. Select Modify > Property Definitions to display the Define Template Properties form (remember that you created the Design Dataset in the preceding step).

   We will first create those properties which define the dimensions of the main body of the vessel and its position. We will later create some other properties which identify the subsidiary items which are to be merged with this body in the final design; namely the sub-equipments representing the vessel ends and the supports.

Before we begin, we will look at ways of restricting the options available to a designer when they create a template instance.