Insert copies of Content Center parts

By Adam Nagy

You might need to insert lots of instances of the same Content Center part in an assembly - e.g. placing rivets in similar holes on the same part. You could write some code that would help replicate an instance, so that you would only need to insert a single component manually then select the inserted component and all the holes where you would need the same component and the code would insert them and add the constraints.

This sample is just to show the idea and is far from a robust solution which would work in all scenarios. In this case we assume that the rivet has been placed with a single insert constraint and the selected holes are the same size as the original one.

So we already have a rivet placed in the assembly and now we select it and the other holes where we want to place them:

Then we run this VBA code:

Sub InsertSameInstances()
  Dim doc As AssemblyDocument
  Set doc = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
  
  Dim acd As AssemblyComponentDefinition
  Set acd = doc.ComponentDefinition

  ' Instance to copy
  Dim occ As ComponentOccurrence
  Set occ = doc.SelectSet(1)
  
  ' Store selected faces
  Dim fs As ObjectCollection
  Set fs = ThisApplication.TransientObjects.CreateObjectCollection
  
  Dim i As Integer
  For i = 2 To doc.SelectSet.Count
    Call fs.Add(doc.SelectSet(i))
  Next
  
  ' Faces of holes that the copies should be placed to
  Dim h As Face
  For Each h In fs
    ' Insert same component
    Dim tg As TransientGeometry
    Set tg = ThisApplication.TransientGeometry
  
    Dim occNew As ComponentOccurrence
    Set occNew = acd.Occurrences.AddByComponentDefinition( _
      occ.Definition, tg.CreateMatrix())
    
    ' Check original component's constraints
    Dim c As AssemblyConstraint
    For Each c In occ.Constraints
      If TypeOf c Is InsertConstraint Then
        Dim ic As InsertConstraint
        Set ic = c
      
        ' Get native edge
        Dim e As Edge
        Set e = c.EntityOne.NativeObject
      
        ' Get its equivalent in the new occurrence
        Dim ep As EdgeProxy
        Call occNew.CreateGeometryProxy(e, ep)
      
        ' Get hole's edge
        Dim eh As Edge
        Set eh = h.Edges(1)
      
        Call acd.Constraints.AddInsertConstraint( _
          ep, eh, ic.AxesOpposed, ic.Distance.value)
      End If
    Next
  Next
End Sub

And get this:

I think based on this someone could create a nice Inventor App Store plugin - hint, hint ;)