The 56 parts that make up the Cabinet 01 assembly were further broken down into the sub assemblies shown in the image to the right. This is the part I think can be automated so I don’t want to dwell on the minutiae of part demotion here, but will instead gloss-over the procedure. Its not rocket science.

All that needs to be done is to open the assembly, then select a logical group of parts in the workspace, such as the face frame, then right click and choose Component > Demote, just like it is shown in the last post. Once the assembly is created, just right click and ground it, then turn off its visibility so that you have easy access to what is left to demote. Any parts that will not be part of an assembly can just have their visibility shut off as soon as you encounter them.

You just keep doing this routine until the workspace is empty, then restore the visibility of all, rearrange the order if you like, and you’re done. Easy peasy.

I did not time the procedure, but guess it took about 15 minutes or-so. This dosent sound like a big deal until you add up all of the cabinets. There were 10 in this test, but the test was a very small kitchen, and did not include uppers. The average would be closer to 15 cabinets, which would take 3 hours and 45 minutes to complete, or about a half day. Continue reading →