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To Isolate an assembly and make a difference in it and keep both

Hello friends
Actually I have made a complex assembly and I have used different environments in it such as structure design, sheet metal design and so on. I have to keep this assembly, and I am forced to change some parts of this assembly such as beam sizes, lines and nodes and some components to make a second assemblies. I need to keep the previous version of my Assembly design while I need to have some necessary changes to the second one. I need to keep both files. But there is a big problem for me. How is it possible to make the second assembly fully isolated from the first one? because when I make any changes, I see the effects on the previous assembly. I want to make them unlinked with each other and keep both.
Thank you in advance.
 
Open the Assembly and use File + Save As to make a copy with a new name (and maybe a new folder?)

However, both assemblies will have the same parts. So any changes made to the parts will be seen in both assemblies. Unless you Replace some of the parts with different parts.

(Save As is only good, if you do not have an assembly drawing that you want to copy also)
 
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Thanks alot Mr. CATIA. I think there should be a way to save a copy of session that is uneditable for all time. like power point in Microsoft office that there is an extension for saving the session and if you open it later, you will be only permitted to watch the file not edit it. I wonder if there is any similar way for CATIA or nit, But it came to my mind to save the work and put it in a RAR file so it will be Isolated fully for later modifications.
 
What kind of changes are you making to the assembly?

Another option to make an isolated copy is to use File + Save Management to save the CATProduct AND ALL the CATPARTS in a different folder. Since everything is copied, whatever changes you make will only effect the current assembly.
 
I mean any modification in each parts like changing dimensions of their sketches and so on. by doing File + Save management unfortunately we can't reach a fully isolated assembly. by doing so, Again every single modification in parts, has a direct effect on saved assembly CATPART. but There must be a way for that. Thank you MrCATIA for your great responses.
 
As I said earlier, you have to replace some on the parts within the assemblies in order to make them different.

For example, lets say we have two assemblies that have many parts, including PART-A, PART-B, and PART-C (see diagram below). PART-A and PART-B are similar, but PART-B is longer. Modifications made to PART-A will be seen in ASSEMBY-1, but not in ASSEMBLY-2. Modifications made to PART-C will be seen in both assemblies.

ASSEMBLY-1
-- PART-A
-- PART-C
-- many other parts

ASSEMBLY-2
-- PART-B
-- PART-C
-- many other parts

If you want the modifications to PART-C to only show up in ASSEMBLY-1, then you need to replace PART-C with a new part (PART-D) in ASSEMBLY-2.
 
I think there should be a way to save a copy of session that is uneditable for all time. like power point in Microsoft office that there is an extension for saving the session and if you open it later, you will be only permitted to watch the file not edit it. I wonder if there is any similar way for CATIA

There are many ways to accomplish this:
1. You could use Windows to make the CATProduct Read-Only
2. Your System Administrator could set-up a folder that is Read-Only, and move the CATProduct file to there.,
3. Your company could add a PLM system with Change Control, so that RELEASED assemblies can only be modified with an Engineering Change Order.
there are probably other ways as well
 
As I said earlier, you have to replace some on the parts within the assemblies in order to make them different.

For example, lets say we have two assemblies that have many parts, including PART-A, PART-B, and PART-C (see diagram below). PART-A and PART-B are similar, but PART-B is longer. Modifications made to PART-A will be seen in ASSEMBY-1, but not in ASSEMBLY-2. Modifications made to PART-C will be seen in both assemblies.

ASSEMBLY-1
-- PART-A
-- PART-C
-- many other parts

ASSEMBLY-2
-- PART-B
-- PART-C
-- many other parts

If you want the modifications to PART-C to only show up in ASSEMBLY-1, then you need to replace PART-C with a new part (PART-D) in ASSEMBLY-2.
So it means there is no any way to have a fully isolated file assembly that remains permanently unchangeable (name it for example A) while we have the another same file assembly that we are working on it (name it for example B) and modifying its parts, while the file assembly A remains unchanged. at first the files A and B are the same, B is the copy of A. But what we wanted to do, was working on B, while file A remains unchanged for all times. you know I have designed a huge file containing many parts. So we decided to modify some parts of this file assembly and finally compare the second modified file with the first file. the problem is whatever we do with this assembly (file B) has a direct effect on the first file (file A) that we had saved a copy of it in another directory. both of them read each other because their parts are the same. both of them read the parts that are located in one file and we are working on these parts. we have to cut access of file A to these files of parts. for your solution to have a read-only access, of course it is true that we won't be able to change it, but the file itself changes while we are working on it's copy in another directory because their parts of component are just in one file. we want to cut this access and make our first file assembly fully isolated from the second file.
 
As I said before, you have to replace some of the CATParts with different CATParts, if you want to modify only one assembly but not the other assembly.

Another option to make an isolated copy is to use File + Save Management to save the CATProduct AND ALL the CATPARTS in a different folder.
 
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