The future for Dynamic Components

Dynamic Components have been with us for a while now but I am not sure the feature is being developed much. That is a shame because they are potentially very powerful.

The interface could do with some upgrading to make the whole process of constructing DCs simpler. The navigation of the Component Attributes window could be improved and some amount of automation introduced. I have referred to this in earlier posts and people seem to agree.

As things stand, learning to create DCs involves a steep learning curve. I suspect it is too steep for most busy designers.

I have found it useful creating some 2D DCs to get familiar with the process before moving on to more complex 3D ones. But I would have found it helpful to have had guidance early on with the principles as they differ markedly from those we would use for, say, non-dynamic components. It almost needs a book to itself, but SU is meant to be easy and intuitive and I feel the creation of DCs is not that yet.

for this reason alone, I think DC creation ability would benefit greatly from being included in ‘Make’…

john

I should perhaps add that the difficulties I have encountered are mostly to do with scaling and positioning. If you want to be able to scale something selectively, you have to be very careful about how you construct the drawing and the definitions of position and size of each sub-group. You also have to be very aware of where the axis is placed. You might want to have a scalable door, say but to keep rail sizes constant. That is harder to achieve reliably than it sounds.