Replace copied parts with linking

Sometimes you can find out afterwards that"I really should have linked that part" when you have already copied the part around in your design. In such a situation it is easy to think"just delete the copies manually and relink everything with TriBall". Sure, you can do that, but it can be time consuming, especially if you have tens or hundreds of instances of that part.

In this post, we'll walk you through how to replace already copied parts with a link.

As an example we use the construction below. In this case, the user has copied the I-beam (green) in several instances with TriBall. When a copy has been made with TriBall, it means that the parts are completely independent of each other even though they are (from the start) geometrically similar. This means that if you want to change in any beam but want the change to be the same in all instances, you need to make the change in all beams. It is then more convenient to have the beam as a link.

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We select a steel beam and then go to Home-tab and press Save As Part/Assembly. We do this to save out the part to a standalone ICS file while maintaining an "external link".

To make the change more visible, we have chosen to add a red colour to the steel beam that is externally linked.

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Here we now choose where to place the part on the computer, suggesting placing the ICS file in the folder for the project. Also make sure that the option Link to current scene is checked.

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Then select the part and drag-and-drop it into a catalog. Of course you can put the part in any catalog, but in this case we have created a new empty catalog. The part does not need to be saved in the catalog, as we are using the catalog temporarily and only for this purpose.

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Since the part is externally linked to an ICS file, we will get a dialog asking if we want to keep the external link to the item in the catalog, which we do.

Press Yes here.

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To replace the copied parts, we now hold down the [Ctrl] key on the keyboard, while dragging with the left mouse button and dropping on the part to be replaced, which in our case will be the green steel beams. Repeat the process of dropping from the catalog on one of the parts, until all parts have been replaced.

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If we now look at the history tree, we see a small icon next to the part in the form of a chain, indicating that the parts are externally linked.

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When you have fewer copied instances to replace, the above methodology is a smooth and fast way.

There is also another way to do this if you have many copied instances in your scene. I ICM Toolsdirectorythere is a tool called Replace Elements(available to anyone with a support contract). To demonstrate this feature, we use the same construction as before where we still have the red steel beam recessed as an external link to an ICS file.

Drag-and-drop the Replace Element on the part to be replaced.

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In this mode, we now have to select, via an Explorer window, a file to replace the green steel beam. Here we select the ICS file and then press Open.

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We then get a dialog box where we have to choose which properties will control what to replace. In our case, we have identical PartNumbers on our green steel beams. In this case it is most convenient to choose to replace all parts with the same part numbers.

Then press the green check mark to continue.

Now, all former "copied" parts have been replaced by a "linked instance" instead:

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We also note this by looking in the history tree for the small chain icon:

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