Aligning part and design structures

To allow accurate visualization of a part occurrence, Teamcenter must know its positioned design. To achieve this, data is copied from the source occurrence to the target occurrence by a Publish action that creates a publish link relationship between the occurrences. A publish link may associate one source occurrence with several target occurrences. If you are associating parts and designs, the design structure is the source structure and the part structure is the target structure. You can align any items types that you use in structures. You can align other item types in structures, if appropriate. To configure the source and target types of such alignments, set the following preferences: PUBLISH_AlignableSourceTypes Specifies the item types that are valid as the source of a publish link. The default values are Design and Item. PUBLISH_AlignableTargetTypes Specifies the item types that are valid as the target of a publish link. The default values are Part and Item. Teamcenter creates the publish link between absolute occurrences of the relevant structure lines. Data published on the target occurrence is stored as an absolute occurrence override. When you publish data, you require write access to the BOM view revision (BVR) of the displayed top-level context item. Ensure the contexts in which you align the occurrences are equivalent. For example, in the case of a car, the position of a wheel in the context of a wheel assembly differs from its value in the context of the entire car. It may not be practical to load the top-level item of very large structures. If you utilize installation assemblies in your design structure, it is sufficient to load the relevant installation assembly as the top-level assembly for alignment purposes. (Installation assemblies are assemblies above which no transforms are created.) You may have designs aligned from different installation assemblies. In the case of a large part structure, consider breaking it down such that it is not a completely flat structure. The high-level part structure need not mirror the design structure exactly. The context level at which you perform alignment may have designs aligned from different installation assemblies. The publish link is independent of revisions and persists if the structures are revised, unless one of the associated structure lines is removed. It is preserved if the structure line is substituted or replaced. For detailed information about aligning structures, see the Multi-Structure Management.