Current building some documentation efficient components for MEP and although I usually use groups as the sub elements and name those but components have advantages in terms of file size and additional attributes. Downside is it floods reports, component tray views and outliner lists with additional items that are usually not needed to be seen.
That is an elegant useful extension, thx (and you are the author, thanks James) I went back to the extension warehouse to specifically thank the author but there is no option to do that or even leave a comment ! that was a surprise, should be the same as 3DWH !
There isn’t really any file size benefit to components over groups, that’s a bit of a myth. If you copy a group and have several instances of the same group definition, it keeps the file size down just as several instances of a component would. It’s when you start editing groups and they are implicitly made unique you end up with two similar definitions. If you want to edit all group instances you could use an extension such as Component Replacer to replace the outdated ones with your new edited one.
Another way to hide sub-elements is to save out the parent element as a separate file and re-import it. When a component is only used as sub-components within components associated with files, they are by default hidden from the component list. I’m however not sure if generate report is smart enough to honor this.
That’s interesting, I guess I am imposing my old autocad concepts. So a group instanced many times does not occupy any more bytes than if it was a component ? That explains how multiple instances of groups can be changed to components easily with an extension ? Nevertheless the bulk editing of components and the additional attribute capabilities of components do make them useful in some circumstances, product data and global edits. PS, shouldn’t it be called Group Replacer ?
I tried Tomtom’s Component Replacer, it sort of works but compresses the source object into the bounding box of the instanced object.. maybe its because I am still on SU2021 ?
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