Hi everyone,

I am an experienced SolidWorks user but relatively new to SolidWorks Composer. I’m running into a workflow issue regarding Associative Paths in complex/nested exploded views.

The Goal: I am trying to create exploded views where:

1. A sub-assembly is translated away from the main assembly.

   1. In this case, I created a sub assembly inside of Composer of the items circled in red.

2. Individual parts are then translated out of that moved sub-assembly.
3. Associative Paths connect the parts back to the sub-assembly (not back to the global origin).

The Problem: I initially achieved this by restructuring the Assembly Tree inside Composer (grouping the sub-assembly parts so the path logic followed the parent). However, whenever I run "Update Composer Document" to sync with CAD, the specific SolidWorks importer I am using resets the Assembly Tree, deleting my custom sub-assemblies.

This breaks the paths or forces me to rebuild the structure every time.

What I have tried:

• "Create Path from Neutral": Works perfectly if the tree structure is modified, but fails once the update wipes the tree (the paths revert to the global origin or break).
• Selection Sets: I tried using Selection Sets to group the moved items, but they don't seem to act as a "Parent" coordinate system for the path tool to snap to.
• Polylines: I know I can manually draw Polylines using Alt-snap, but I want to avoid doing this manually for every single screw if possible.

My Question: Is there a robust workflow to create associative paths for nested translations that survives a model update, without having to create the folder structure in the original SolidWorks CAD file?

Thanks in advance for any tips!