Large Assembly Performance Improvements in Solid Edge 2020

Operating with large assemblies might be difficult in older versions of Solid Edge. If you’ve been operating on a massive assembly with 500 or more components, you’re probably familiar with the software slowdowns and even crashes that can come along with those bigger assemblies. Luckily, Solid Edge 2020 provides many strategies that you can use when dealing with large assemblies to improve performance.
Solid Edge 2020 now supports a wide mode of assembly. A mode in which several applications and display settings have been fine-tuned to provide improved performance with large assemblies. A new option has been added to Solid Edge Options > Assembly Open As a page to automatically apply/override various user and document settings that will improve performance.

Settings created for this mode will only refer to the context of broad assembly documents and the tree structure thereof. Other non-large documents will use the default settings defined by the user & documents.

Large assembly mode is set using assembly size that crosses the threshold specified in Options-> Assembly Open As settings. You can see this mode on Home > Modes panel

To enter and exit large assembly mode you may use a toggle switch.

Large assembly mode is applied to the Assembly File Open, place part of a large assembly or component into the active ASM, Edit Open a large sub-assembly and Edit open Draft assembly.

View Settings:

• Floor reflections
• High Quality
• Cast Shadows
• Floor Shadows
• Ambient Shadows
• Silhouettes
• Depth Fading

Display Settings

• Settings > Options > View Tab
  • Display drop shadows during view operations = OFF (Default is Off but prevent a user from modifying)
  • Process hidden edges during view operations = OFF
  • View Transitions = OFF
  • Auto-sharpen = OFF (Default is Off but prevent a user from modifying)
  • Glow Set to 0 (consider a checkbox)
  • Use shading on highlight = OFF
  • Use shading on selection = OFF

• Settings > Options > Assembly
  • Dim surrounding components when a selection is made in relationship pf = OFF
  • Inactivate hidden and unused components every XXX minutes = ON

• Fast Locate Using Box Display

  • You can improve large assembly performance by setting the Fast Locate Using Box Display option on the Assembly tab on the Options dialog box. When you pause your cursor over a part in the assembly, it will highlight using a rectangular range box, instead of all the graphic display elements of the part.

• Fast Locate using box display for assemblies

  • When tested, subassemblies are shown using a rectangular range box (A) instead of the graphic display elements of the geometry (B). Having this option increases display efficiency when components are highlighted and selected within an assembly. This setting should be considered an option when working with large assemblies.

• Fast Locate when over pathfinder

  • Setting the Quick Locate When Over Pathfinder option on the Assembly tab in the Options dialog box also makes performance improvements. If you set this option and move the cursor over the name of the component in Pathfinder, the name of the assembly component is shown in the message field, but it doesn’t highlight in the graphics window. When this option is clear the assembly component highlights in the graphics window once you pass the cursor over the name of the device in Pathfinder.

In summary, Solid Edge 2020 contains user-configurable options that help to improve interactive performance with large assemblies.