Introduction
The ENOVIA Relations app allows you to view and navigate through the relations (Associated objects of the selected object). You can access the relations of the object by any one of the following ways:
- Using the Relations command in the Action Bar of the app
- Using the Relations tab from the Properties panel
- Using the context menu of the object in the 3DSearch result.
In this blog, you will become familiar with the way you can use the Find Paths command in the Relations widget. This command allows you to find and highlight all the paths between any two objects in the relation structure without the need to go through a complex and lengthy search process. The Find Paths panel allows you to select a start point (object) and one or multiple stop points (objects) of a path. This command is useful when you are using the Where Used relations set that shows the Parent-Child product relations. This command is available within the fly out options in the Relations widget. Here are some usecases that illustrates the find path usage:
Usecase-1
Most often, before modifying an object, it is important to assess its impact on the related objects. In case of a multi-level and complex relation structure, it can be difficult to find the path that connects two related objects. The Find Paths command shows you the full path that connects these two objects. You can select any path and highlight it in the Relations app for easy identification. Furthermore, you can also open the entire path or any object in the path in their respective apps using drag-and-drop or context menu option.
All Paths from Current Network:
The paths shown in this section are computed based on the all the loaded relations in the view. You can drag-and-drop the path in the required app or you can use the context menu option to open the path/object, in the required app.
All Structure Paths
This section shows all the paths (Although the objects are not loaded in the view) based on indexed objects between the start and stop objects. For all the paths in this section, a tree structure view of the path is also available in the respective tile. When you open this path in the Product Explorer app, objects in the path are loaded in form of a tree structure view.
Note: In this section, the sequence of the start and stop object is important. If you select a leaf as a ‘start’ and a root as a ‘stop’, no paths are computed and shown in this tile.
Usecase-2
In many industries, while working with a complex and large product structure, the Volume Filter (In the Product Explorer app or Product Structure Editor app) is often used to find out the objects in the proximity of certain product. To use this filter, it is important that the object is loaded along with its root. To make this happen, you can load the entire assembly and search for the required object. However, this is not the most effective way especially when the assembly is complex and large (contains millions of child products).
To make this happen seamlessly, you can open the relations of the given product. In the Relations app, use the “Where Used” relations to explore its parent until the root. Use the Find Path option to highlight the path between selected product and its root. Now, using the context menu option of the structured path, open the product along with its root in the Product Explorer app. This is one of the easiest methods to obtain the context required to open a product along with its root to perform a volume filter query.
Please refer to the following video that illustrates these capabilities.
