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OneSpace Designer: ME10 Dynamic Drafting MI Interfacing


Part Name Section (#~6)

This section consists of a single data item, the name of the part. The part name is the first section in the part definition, so it is used as a pointer by an ASSE. This chapter describes the conventions used in naming parts.

Part Names

Each part within an MI file must have a unique name. It is possible for some systems to operate with identically-named parts.

MI pre-processors for use with such systems must either produce an error message when identical part names are encountered, or else append each of the identical names with a unique postfix. The following syntax is used for part name postfixes:

'~N
where:

' is ASCII character 96
~ is ASCII character 126
N is an integer that must be different for each identically named part.

For example, if two different parts exist with the name Wheel they must be renamed during the process of translation to MI. One of them could be called Wheel'~1 while the other is called Wheel'~2.

Part Names for Shared Parts

The part name for a shared part will have the following syntax:

'~S'~N

Where S indicates that the part is shared. N is a unique number that identifies the shared part.

For example, if a part called Screw1 is created and then shared in ME10, the part name for the original shared part will be Screw1'~S'~1. The S indicates shared status and 1 indicates that this is the first part called Screw1. If Screw1 is copied using MODIFY and Keep, then the second copy of Screw1 will be called Screw1'~S'~2.

Note that these suffixes are added when the parts are stored in MI and removed when the MI file is loaded.

Some MI postprocessors may need to remove the part name postfix when reading an MI file and writing data to a system. This will depend on whether or not the system allows the characters '~ to exist as part of a part name. If you want to store data from a system to MI and then load it back into the system with exactly the same part names, a postprocessor should remove any postfixes that were added by the preprocessor.

The character ~ should not be used within a part name, except for the purpose of adding a postfix. Some systems will not allow the user to enter this character, even as part of a postfix. The MI files produced by ME10 only contain a ~ character within a part name when it has been added by the preprocessor as part of a postfix.

There is a convention concerning the use of a period ( . ) at the beginning of a part name. Some systems use parts containing original geometry, and then create additional parts that may contain, for example, a detailed view of the geometry. Since the detailed view can only contain geometry that already exists within another part, it may be required that the part containing the detailed view should not appear in a parts list. The period at the beginning of a part name indicates that the part is used for displaying a detailed view, or some special purpose other than creating original geometry.

For example, the name .view1 may be used as the name of a part containing a detailed view.


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