Components Module

The second module is the Component Module which can be found below the Project Module on the left-hand bar. The Component Module is the place where the user defines the system.

Components are elements of your final product (it can be a physical part such as a structure or a logical part such as orbit, operations, etc) that are represented with hierarchical relationships in a component tree. The top component is usually your product, for example, a car, satellite, or any other element. Then, the top component is further broken down into subcomponents such as chassis, seats, wheels, etc.

An example of what the components tab looks like after the completion can be found below:

The left side tab (1) shows the components which are the system, subsystem, and its elements in a hierarchical manner and the right side (2) shows the Valis (properties) related to the component. Within Valispace, every component has its details (3) section. You can use the drop-down arrow to view the information related to the component. Users can add a description, image, tag, and part number and also assign an owner to the component. Note that if the copies are connected copies, the information will be displayed here. To know more abore about connected copies, refer to the link here.

Note: The Id is a unique numerical identifier assigned to every object in Valispace and it is used by the database.

Each component further contains Valis which gives the component unique characteristics. For example, below we observe that the component Cabin has five Valis: Cost, Mass, Power Consumption, Seat Pitch, and Volume.

In the next article, we’ll learn how to create a Component.