Someone sent us a 2004 assembly (we're an IV house currently) without any part files. I can still view the assembly with the SW viewer. Wutz up wit dat? Am I correct in assuming SW caches some type of lightweight model in the SLDASM file for viewing only or could this file be opened without supporting part files?

The file is attached.

Pretty cool I would guess it just basically embeds the edrawing in itself.

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Kent Keller
Inventor Parts, and Tools
KWiKMcad

I have noticed when I open a SWX assembly that I can see the entire model instantly. It then loads the parts one by one until they are all loaded. Maybe this is a by product of this?

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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You would be able to open the file in SW, but only if you choose the view only option which would just let you rotate, zoom, print, etc. I am not sure what they store in the file to allow this to happen.

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Todd Bryant
Ransohoff
www.ransohoff.com

Your just viewing the file. The viewer is just a graphic viewer for SW. It takes only the required data it needs to generate a 3d represention of the file. This data is saved in the file itself.

You don't have to embed in Edrawing data to do this. Before Edrwings the viewer was the primary viewer.

Regards,

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Scott Baugh, CSWP

I played around with it a little more, you can also open the assembly file in SW if you choose to open it in Lighweight mode which will give you more functionality than you get in View-Only mode. You will be able to hide parts and use section views. Of course you can do all this in eDrawings as well without having to own SW.

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Todd Bryant
Ransohoff
www.ransohoff.com

Thanks guys I appreciate you looking in to this.