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pimm15-Moonstone
15-Moonstone
December 5, 2017
Question

Can there not be a family table in a template?

  • December 5, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 3789 views

I built a new template model that included 4 variations for machined, non-machined, holes removed and simulation states.

 

After submitting the template I wanted to cross check it.  When I go to open the template I see that all family table instances are available for picking.

 

I chose the generic.  I went to family table to check the other instances.  There was no family table in the model that once had a family table.

 

By any chance is there a way to get the family table to work in a template?

 

The work around of course is to save the file to a specific location and do a file save as, but the template interface is more streamlined.

3 replies

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DaveMartin16-Pearl
16-Pearl
December 5, 2017

Does the Family Table in the template have any columns? I wonder if that makes a difference.

 

Is there a reason you're going with a Family Table instead of Inheritance Models for the non-machined and holes removed versions? Inheritance is a lot "lighter" when it comes to CAD data management. And I'm partial to Part Simplified Reps for simulation models.

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    pimm15-MoonstoneAuthor
    15-Moonstone
    December 5, 2017

    Dave;

    It would certainly work in using Inheritance Models but from our experience this doesn't integrate well with changes.

     

    There are a lot of ways to attack a problem.  Sometimes a specific method would work well with a certain type of model but not another.  Sometimes holes in the learning process leave opportunities for better opportunities.  For instance I've not even touched simplified reps that you mentioned.

     

    I personally love the family table when applicable, I like copy geom for copying extensive quilts, and only grudgingly use inheritance modeling when we have to integrate a solid model into another.

     

    What I hate about Inheritance Modeling is that once you change the name of models (as in revisions) it can't find the model and you have to reinsert the model and hope the downstream feature history doesn't go haywire.

     

    In this application Merge Inheritance would work well with one of the parts, but not with the others as there would be requirements for going backwards in the original model to get to the level necessary, and then you don't have the feature tree to do adds and subtracts.  I also don't like having multiple models if not necessary.

     

    I like adding and subtacting features as needed as in the family table.

     

     

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    lhoogeveen17-Peridot
    17-Peridot
    December 5, 2017

    I don't believe part templates work with family tables. There would be a lot of file name management that the Creo New command just isn't built to handle. Here's some ideas:

    • Create a mapkey to add the desired family table. You may have to manually input the new instance names since mapkeys usually aren't very good at using copy/paste.
    • If you have Windchill, do a Windchill (not Creo) Save As when creating new parts instead of the Creo New command. This allows for family tables to be copied with new unique names. Using the 'Set New Name' command during the Save As would allow you to quickly replace your start part name with the desired name for all the desired instances.
    • Use one of Dave's ideas for inheritance models or simplified reps
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    pimm15-MoonstoneAuthor
    15-Moonstone
    May 6, 2020

    I forgot about the road block here that I encountered earlier.

    I just put a considerable amount of work into creating a new template file that has a family table.

    Today I went in to use the template file and was confused why the family table did not come across.

    When importing the template model I can see that every element of my family table is in there.

    I see the generic with all of the sub sets.

    FromTemplate.png

     

    If I tab over to "by column" I can see that all of the differentiation is accounted for.

    TemplateColumns.png

    It would really seem that you should be able to bring in a template model with it's fully functional family table as everything seems to be there to bring in.

     

    I just want to revisit this topic to see if there might be a way to bring in the complete template model.

     

    Once again; I can save the above needed model file in a specific location but using the template insertion interface is a lot more streamlined.

    Patriot_1776
    Patriot_177622-Sapphire II
    22-Sapphire II
    May 6, 2020

    The issue is probably that even if you change the name of the generic when you copy it from the template, the INSTANCES in the table remain the same name and Windchill will not allow that.  You could use parameters to change the "NAME" and "NUMBER" parameters but I don't know if there's a way to change the actual filename that way.

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    pimm15-MoonstoneAuthor
    15-Moonstone
    May 6, 2020

    We don't use Windchill so I'm not exactly sure how that would work.

     

    When you do a File Save As however it does allow you to copy the entire structure even if the family table item names remain the same.  Granted; things become unhappy if I'm in the same directory and haven't changed the file names of the family table members.  I do eventually rename all the members to correlate to the job number of the main file name.

     

    So perhaps there would be complications if used in conjunction with Windchill yet you can do essentially the same thing with a File Save As. 

    Patriot_1776
    Patriot_177622-Sapphire II
    22-Sapphire II
    May 6, 2020

    If you're trying to save in the same directory as the template Creo probably still knows it's a duplicate filename.

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