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: (9)
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 2 Enhancements

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