Treehouse 2

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Scope out how your next design will be structured with Treehouse 2. You can use an intuitive interface to plan out your assembly and name components before you actually start designing.

Arrange Assemblies, Parts and Drawings

Drag visual representations of your SolidWorks templates to build a hierarchy of assemblies, parts and drawings. Rearrange the documents by simply dragging documents to their updated position in the tree. Fill in any custom properties defined on the document templates.

Import and Edit Existing Assemblies

You can add parts and components into your assembly tree or modify existing assembly structures, saving you the time of opening them in SolidWorks. Each component element is outfitted with a preview image, which makes Treehouse 2 a great tool for visualizing assemblies even if you don’t plan on making changes.

Create New Configurations

Treehouse 2 provides a menu for managing configurations and the graphical interface gives you a new way of understanding the complexities of multiple configurations.

Export to SolidWorks Documents

Once you are satisfied with your layout, you can export the hierarchy to SolidWorks documents. Treehouse will automatically create SW documents in the location you specify and give you the option of backing up your existing files before making permanent changes. You can now start filling in your design or check the documents into your PDM system to be filled in later.

Save Treehouse 2 Layout

You can save the Treehouse structure to a file to be re-used or shared with colleagues.

Note: Treehouse requires SolidWorks 2008 or greater to be installed.

Note: Treehouse requires .NET Framework 3.0 to be installed.

Average Rating: (30)
usefull if it worked
by: mal cook on Thursday, March 14 2013
Ok it's Beta software: but it's totally broken now; so useless.. please fix : it has been a very useful planning utility.

Since 2012 the error causes the tool to fail:

"OBJECT NOT SET TO INSTANCE OF OBJECT"

Presumably because the software by default points to:

C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\lang\english\Tutorial?

Have also tried other "default" template locations and multiple machine/os:
C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\data\templates
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2012\templates

Regardless of system options and folders: it is still broken...

A utility to publish the tree to an image and files to a list would be useful.

See thread https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/59349

It would be good to know at the least if you are listening to peoples feedback? Otherwise we shall all give up on software that doesn't progress... let us know please what your intentions are for this potentially GREAT utility.
Great disappointment
by: maurice bellando on Friday, October 12 2012
A potentially golden application which would deserve a full 5-star rating (and more!) if it was updated following the many suggestions in this review thread, primarily a print function. Currently, this program is useless.
Maurice
needs a print function
by: Chris Ball on Thursday, March 8 2012
I've been watching this product for years and can't understand why there isn't a print function or the ability to add the drawing tree to a SW drawing. The drawing tree is a standard deliverable for most aerospace projects. It'd be great to make them with Solidworks instead of Visio.
good but it is missing someting that could make it better
by: Steven Gaffin on Thursday, January 12 2012
We actually use SolidWorks to draw up a deisgn tree using sketch lines and notes. It takes forever. What would make this a golden program is if I could drag and drop it into a SolidWorks drawing and it would automatically make me a design tree that I could print out.
malek yusefi
by: Malek Yusefi on Wednesday, December 21 2011
PHONE NUMBER
09387598891
malek yusefi
by: Malek Yusefi on Wednesday, December 21 2011
BRAVO.
I am a Iranian. Please insert Persian language.
Wow! This is great! Just needs a few more features.
by: Timothy Johnson on Thursday, December 1 2011
I just stumbled across this and love it. I am currently using it as a visual way to change some Custom Property values in my completed design, before creating prints (instead of SolidWorks Explorer). I would LOVE to be able to rename parts/assemblies as well, without having to use SW Explorer. This seems like a much better solution for that. I often create concept designs that develop into a completed design. But, then I have to go back and rename files to follow the final structure of design. With Treehouse I can visually see my assemblies/sub-assemblies, and if I could rename them right there, that would be amazing.
99% useless
by: David Anderson on Saturday, October 29 2011
what bothers me about this product is resources are being dedicated to it and for design, it is 99% useless.

who knows all the parts and their names BEFORE one initiates design? by definition, none of these are known, otherwise it is not design, rather reverse engineering.

what would be useful is a product that actually creates a drawing tree from an assembly, not the other way around.
Great idea... need some improvments :)
by: Yvon Certain on Thursday, August 11 2011
This is a good idea need to be developped, for example
1) to have the possibility to manage inserted part inside/under part.
2) to locate manually object and switch between structured tree and personalized locations.
3) manage more than one assembly inside one tree but without links together
4)have the possibility to drag and drop and/or copy-past an area of objects from one assembly to an other one.
5)have the possibility to export all the tree or just an area of the tree
implementation needed to get a great tool
by: mathieu crozet on Friday, July 1 2011
I will not write here all the wishes that have been already given but I would like to have one thing more.

in the properties of the part, I would like to get my customs properties from the properties masks I created for SW 2010. (file.asmprp and file.prtprp)
What would make this 5 stars
by: john Johnson on Wednesday, May 25 2011
- the ability to print the tree view.
-abilbity to add notes to the tree view and have them collapse with the part they are referencing.
-to add titles to "levels" of the tree.
-able to see where else a part is being used from the tree view not just the number of instances it is used.

Overall this product has alot of room for growth which I would like to see happen in the near future.
Very useful tool but needs some enhancements
by: Jon Benavides on Monday, April 25 2011
I really like how you can layout a nice assembly echelon structure. It really helps visualize how your assembly structure is. Especially when you have assemblies that have optional components. Using a PDM you wish to minimize the amount of revisions when you make customer driven changes and having you assembly tree laid out well ahead of time can really lend you some advantage but graphically seeing the tree.

I would really like it if the developers would add some other functino like:

1. the ability to add/edit custom properties.

2. to have subassemblies and parts be able to inherit part numbers from their parent as a prefix. (selectively like a checkbox to turn it on /off)

3. automatically add drawings to each document at the puch of a button

4. Ability to pre-define a folder structure to store the created parts and subassemblies.

But still its a great tool to kick off a project.
solidswork
by: abdelhakam mohammed on Wednesday, April 6 2011
its being averf useful
Great program, but some ideas still to add
by: Jens Poulsen on Wednesday, March 30 2011
I love the product. but some thing would take this product through the roof.

1: need a Print funktion.
2: Save as PDF
3: Change part and assembly name directly from the program without breaking link in assembly
4: multi add - being able to add your name in the main assembly title line and getting it done through all lower parts.

Hope to see some of these ideas in the next update. Keep up the god work.
SolidWorks 2008 and Treehouse
by: H.P. Gygax on Wednesday, March 23 2011
Hello

We got problems with treehouse and SolidWorks 2008. If we want to open an existing SolidWorks Assembly there is always an error message, that Treehouse could not find a referenced part. But the part is in the folder - and all references are pointing there. Any idea ?

Regards
Lots of potential but ......
by: Peter Mort on Tuesday, February 15 2011
Would be great to be able to:
1) Print (as others have said).
2) Enter the Filename & description of each document at the top level i.e include description above/below filename.
3) Generate a top level drawing list that can be used by production staff/other staff without access to CAD software.
4) Launch from within SolidWorks.
Good job keep working at it...
by: george trott on Tuesday, January 25 2011
I like treehouse. It does have some major issues but I do have faith that they will be worked out. I would like to see it interact with solidworks a whole lot more. Printing is a must (according to my engineer). I would like to import just a sub Assembly because there are several drafters working on the same project at a time. The template needs more room to see the template name, Major issue cause our template names exceed the template names shown. I gave it a 2 star rating cause I tested this with real work and it slowed my project down because of these issues. Over all it is or will be a great product once these things get added in. Thank you and keep up the good work. I look forward to using treehouse all the time in the future.
Popular improvement requests
by: maurice bellando on Thursday, January 20 2011
As with many other people, I think we must be able to print from this application to make it worthwhile.
Also, we need to be able to see the full filename.
These improvements would easily earn five stars.
Until then I can't make much use of it, hence the two-star rating.
Maurice
leaks for support and stability
by: Alex Yevtekhov on Thursday, January 6 2011
working on SW 2008.
I was tried to use it with existing assemblies
Randomly pick up parts from loading assembly stating that parts are in 2003 version or eairlier which is not true (all parts are native SW 2008 version)
Always does the same on toolbox parts
(may be because of sharing access - toolbox parts are located over the network)
Manuf Engr
by: Joseph Davis on Wednesday, December 29 2010
Would like to have print(echo above comment) and ability to link other files like thebrain.com does
which i am also currently using. Also if it could be integrated with Solidworks Explorer this would be great also if it had microsoft file save standard menu. I like this tool alot it is cool to see the tree.
Thanks
Build structure
by: Mattias Robertsson on Wednesday, November 24 2010
It would be nice to attach other filetypes than just SolidWorks. Very powerful and easy way to build item structure. Include this in Enterprise PDM
Printing???
by: Tom Helsley on Thursday, November 18 2010
Sure would be helpful if I could print
Great Idea! Needs more integration.
by: Ethan Kay on Monday, October 4 2010
This really needs some more in-depth integration. I'm playing around with Treehouse 2 and it seems to do a lot that works really well. The one thing that I can see is integration as a view option for Solidworks or SW explorer. Having a light weight program that you can view the tree structure is nice but using it as a view without having to create the asmtree file would be great.

As other have said this needs print options for using it as BOM or to just print/export the tree structure.

Configuration specific properties need to be add. Adding the property tab from SW even better.
File Names
by: Jim Byrne on Friday, August 20 2010
Nice product. I wonder if it would be possible to add an option to include a job number as a prefix or suffix each time a tree template is used?
great product
by: Steve Reinisch on Friday, May 21 2010
would be nice to see:

-be able to print to pdf
-be able to see configuration specific custom properties
-be able to import assembly from PDM works
Improvement - Better Part Location inside Assembly
by: Daniel Pegas on Monday, April 26 2010
When creating new assemblies with part templates that contain geometry, these files are located on the center mass point. Couldn't these be switched by Coincident around Origins or similar a Insert New Component to origin?
Jonathan Marsh
by: Jonathan Marsh on Monday, April 12 2010
Great product love the import of existing assemblies but the drawing don't import & there are only custom properties for the configuration could we get general properties too? these additions would be the icing on the cake...
Require Improvement
by: John Harden on Wednesday, March 3 2010
This will be a very useful tool when it is possible to print and/or export the results into another program.

This will permit the flowchart to be viewed by individuals who will not have a computer or the program not install on their computer.

The printout and/or export should have the full filename and configuration name visible.

Print out need to span more than one page if needed.

Keep up the excellent work. Thanks.
Improvements...
by: Ray Attwood on Thursday, February 25 2010
We would have a number of benefits from this tool usage ranging from family tree print outs to phantom BoM's.

The improvement would like to have are

1. Print out or export capabilities
2. User preferences on screen colours
3. User preferences on display custom proporties, comp names, weight etc.

Would be possible to supply timeline and details on future update/releases?

Great tool...
Improvements
by: Alessandro Frattini on Friday, November 6 2009
I see that if the template has Custom properties in it you can use the custom properties... but.. it would be even better if you could select a custom properties tab to use.

For 2D drawing file's best name is same to the source part or asm file automatically.
If not, difficult to find the correct 2D drawing file from the part or asm file in the future or open with RMB from the feature tree.

I would like integration with the PDM.

Export to SolidWorks is very slow, even with simple structures.
I don't understand how it can be slow because exported files are empty, apart from referenced files texts strings included.
Improvements
by: Alessandro Frattini on Saturday, October 31 2009
I see that if the template has Custom properties in it you can use the custom properties... but.. it would be even better if you could select a custom properties tab to use.

For 2D drawing file's best name is same to the souce part or asm file automaticly.
If not, difficult to find the correct 2D drawing file from the part or asm file in the future or open with RMB from the feature tree.
don't work in 64 bit..
by: andrea mazzucco on Friday, October 30 2009
don't work in 64 bit..
RE: still Windows 7 64-bit error w/ Treehouse2
by: Charles Parez on Friday, October 30 2009
Marcus,

Treehouse 2 is compatible with Windows 7 x64 and SolidWorks 2009/2010. There must be something specific to your configuration that causes Treehouse to fail. Please send an e-mail to labsfeedback@solidworks.com and we will further investigate your problem.

Thanks,

Charles
SW Labs QA
still Windows 7 64-bit error w/ Treehouse2
by: Marcus Monaghan on Thursday, October 29 2009
Same messages as below... really wanted this to work, looks interesting. Maybe Treehouse3?
Great job ... Looking forward to the next installment.
by: Kelvin Lamport on Monday, October 26 2009
Adding existing assy and config propagation is an excellent addition to TH2. Hopefully Configuration Specific properties is slated for the next version.

This is shaping up to be a very useful tool.
Great Tool
by: Akiva Litinsky on Sunday, October 25 2009
A nice capability would be a tool for printing the assemly layout.
Treehouse 2 rocks!!!
by: Lou Gallo on Thursday, October 22 2009
Nice work guys! This is a great rev of the previous "idea" and made into a very powerful planning tool. The ability to use existing data (ordered parts or common stock) is key to planning. The planning is now extended to pay attention to the SolidWorks file with config planning, nice touch! Keep the tools coming!
Windows 7 64-bit error
by: Marcus Monaghan on Thursday, September 24 2009
With SW2009 SP4.1 active in background, on "Export to SolidWorks Documents" function, I am getting a message:

"An older version of SolidWorks is running. Please exit it before exporting. Version running: 17.4.1".

If I close SW2009, nothing happens (no files are created in my destination folder).

If I have SW2010 PR1 active, I get the following error:

"An older version of SolidWorks is running. Please exit it before exporting. Version running: 18.-5.0".

Any suggestions?
Good concept, needs a little honing
by: Nick Biancalana on Friday, April 17 2009
We deal with some pretty complex structures here, and oftentimes I make myself tree views of an entire machine's assembly structure just like this. This definitely would be a great tool to use, however there are some major issues with the current version (internal exe version 1.0.0.0).

1 - Long names. Typically our file format for major assemblies without our machines are "number station description", so naming something "123 456 B0 STA 01 LOAD COMPONENT" is a pretty typical filename. Problem here is that the tree view shows me the first 9 characters and some dots indicating that the name is longer than it likes to show. Frustrating when you're trying to see what you've already done and have to click each individual filename and scroll through with the arrow keys to see the rest.

2 - Linking to existing files. Pretty much the only way to survive in business, even in custom machinery, is to use standard subassemblies that do common things. Not being able to drag an assembly of a common component into the tree is pretty hindering.

3 - Export feature. Each custom machine we build uses a machine-specific assembly template for top level assemblies, and standard assembly templates for the rest. Obviously, this is not possible in the program's current configuration.

Other then all this, it seems like a great start. I very much hope to see this progress, as I definitely would put it to good use.
perfect to supplement SW explorer
by: Jamie Hogan on Thursday, April 2 2009
this would be great to be able to view existing SW files inside SW explorer in a tree view (i.e. select a file and see where it is used and where it is references graphically; currently this this information is on 2 separate tabs (where used/references).

Do this and this would make SW explorer much easier to use.
Nice demo, now make it useful
by: Brian Park on Thursday, March 19 2009
Nice demo, but it needs a lot of development to be useful in a production environment. We already use a similar concept in Powerpoint for initial top down design and documentation access. Needs the following;

Existing parts, assemblies, drawings easy to include
Ability to add custom icons for vendor purchased parts
Ability to add stuff like glue, pipe, cables, wire, etc
Ability to reshape the layout more to my liking - horizontal lines instead of diagonal, etc.
Ability to switch subassemblies and other icons on and off (explode and implode BOMs)
Ability to reference other trees without showing them
Ability to change color, shape etc of icons for specific requirements.
Tie ins to Parts and Vendors and similar. i.e. if I create a part in P&V, it creates an icon in Treehouse - and vice versa.
Hyperlink capability for each icon to other drawings assemblies, images, spec documents, test procedures, ECNs, etc.
Hyperlink icons to web addresses
Autocreation of part numbers to our standards
Auto add parts created with bottom up design in S/W

The final requirement is that the finished S/W assembly and Treehouse should match exactly. i.e Treehouse IS the BOM.

I can do most of this in Powerpoint now, so you've got to come up with something really special to make me change!

bp
Add a function please!!
by: Edisonstein Shea on Friday, February 20 2009
Dear Sir,I look forward to see the treehouse can link my compents that I have model to the subjects in the treehouse..And then I can open my sld files by double click the subjects in the treehouse..Can we do like that???
Visual Document Planning!
by: Lou Gallo on Sunday, February 8 2009
I love this approach to planning out designs. Having this intuitive interface to doc plan is very useful. I would like to see this work on an existing document structure as well as have connections to the true file properties within each document and maybe the config specific info as well. If it worked on existing docs then maybe an interface to the Custom Property Builder interface that we have in SW for entering properties as well. I have covered this in a podcast back when the product launched on SolidWorks Heard: http://solidworksheard.com/podcast/49-sw-labs/53-swh-ep187
It may be a superb tool....if....
by: Aditya Soni on Wednesday, February 4 2009
Off-course this is well attempt...but as all said it must access the existing files....
One more important point...after exporting it to solidworks templete, there is no linkage between tree & the files.....the gateways should be in both ways....just like the design table in SW.

Waiting for the updation of this toool....
Great potential!
by: Tony Foster on Thursday, January 29 2009
I liked what it did, but like others it needs a few more capabilities. One thing I would like to see is the ability to print the tree out to be used as some documentation.
Ideas
by: Mike Konyak on Wednesday, January 21 2009
I have to agree with Albert on this one.

"What would be REALLY sweet is if you could add existing Parts/Assemblies to the tree."

Taking parts/assemblies for existing designs to create a layout structure for New designs.
RE: epdm 2009 sp0.0
by: Charles Parez on Thursday, January 15 2009
Rodney,

SolidWorks Enterprise PDM Client creates a "Vault View" in the location you specify, which behaves like a virtual folder. It is our experience that using Treehouse to create SolidWorks documents directly in an EPDM Vault View works very smoothly.

Thanks!
good idea, but for 2D drawing file's name policy need change
by: homer huang on Monday, January 12 2009
good tool for top to bottom mode.

but for 2D drawing file's best name is same to the souce part or asm file automaticly. if not, difficult to find the correct 2D drawing file from the part or asm file in the future
Nice product, great for new projects
by: Jack Sala on Tuesday, January 6 2009
This is a handy piece of software for organizing NEW projects. It runs outside of S/Ws, and is light and quick.

During a test run this morning, I created a top level assembly with parts and several levels of sub-assemblies under it. Drawings were defined for all assemblies, subs and parts. Treehouse found all my templates without help, so it's menu already included my part/metric part template as well as the various drawing templates - ASME a,b,c, etc..

I assigned unique names to all documents in the tree. The tree was then sent to Solidworks with a one button click. On opening the top level assembly in S/Ws, the feature tree showed (as expected) the entire structure with all names in place. Drawings were linked.

This is NICE. There will surely be more files added as a typical projects moves forward, but this is a great organizational start.
epdm 2009 sp0.0
by: RODNEY PETERSON on Friday, January 2 2009
works fine outside of enterprise pdm 2009 sp0.0

Is there a way to get it to save in a epdm vault folder directly?
This can be the answer to the master / derived design need
by: Shaji Shereef on Sunday, December 28 2008
Many companies have standard design of their machines or sub assemblies which need to be customized per sales order. If this tool can duplicate an existing assembly by copying all (parts identified to change or replaced or new design) parts and drawing required would be great. Flexibility need to use exiting parts/drawings in the new derived assembly.
Great idea
by: Kevin Holbrook on Thursday, December 18 2008
This really goes hand in hand with organization that need to set the structure of the assemblies before the project begins. Things I could see expanded are the ability to input custom properties and let us structure a file as a virtual component.
Top Down Design approach
by: Oleg Shilovitsky on Thursday, December 18 2008
I like this product. It will be beneficial to have ability to run it on computer without SolidWorks installed and after sync results into SolidWorks.

Oleg Shilovitsky
www.plmtwine.com
http://plmtwine.com/2008/12/09/top-down-plm-approach-…-from-solidworks-labs/
Great product.. here are some more ideas..
by: Albert Whatmough on Monday, December 15 2008
I love the idea of the product... what would be REALLY sweet is if you could add existing Parts/Assemblies to the tree.

Also, I see that if the template has Custom properties in it you can use the custom properties... but.. it would be even better if you could select a custom properties tab to use.

Al in all great work... I see this being a VERY useful tool!!

Treehouse Update for SolidWorks 2011

Wednesday, January 5 2011
Treehouse version 2.1 released.

Treehouse 2 Enhancements

Thursday, October 22 2009
As always, we thank you for your feedback and have updated Treehouse to version 2.
Treehouse 2
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