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MR_105593921-Visitor
1-Visitor
January 23, 2023
Question

Converting from 15 to Prime 8 breaks things

  • January 23, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1850 views

Hey there y'all, 

 

I'm having difficulties updating a MathCAD 15 file to Prime 8 in that we're losing functionality of the file. I didn't write the original file, and I've got two weeks experience with MathCAD anything. Lots of Googling and time in the PTC support section. 

 

I can get some plotting done in the Prime file by taking "xx" to "x" (you'll see it near the top in the Live Load Moment and Shear Influence Factors section) but anything beyond the first two plots is broken. Fun! 

 

Attached are the original file as given to me, the file the converter in Prime spat out, and the XML log. 

 

 

 

2 replies

L
LucMeekes23-Emerald IV
23-Emerald IV
January 23, 2023

Welcome to the forum.

You should realise that Prime is a completely new development (?) by PTC of a great tool called Mathcad. It's underway now for more than 10 years, and in many respects Prime does not meet the capabilities of Mathcad. On a few points Prime is better than Mathcad. To name one: Prime allows multiple dimensions/units in a single array. Mathcad doesn't.

 

I would not call the conversion from a Mathcad file to Prime format an update. It's just a conversion, As long as the Mathcad file uses none of the features that Prime still lacks, the conversion may end up with a workable file.

 

In your case the converter for some reason failed to label all units (ft, kip etc) as units. That causes unit mismatch which results in error messages.

 

Success!

Luc

    M
    MR_105593921-VisitorAuthor
    1-Visitor
    January 25, 2023

    Thank you for the clarifications, Luc. I'll be diving in deep on the unit labeling. 

    W
    Werner_E25-Diamond I
    25-Diamond I
    January 24, 2023

    The Mathcad 15 sheet also contains errors.

    The first one in the area "JBridge - 2 Axel Truck" because Space.2 is not defined

    Werner_E_0-1674522222971.png

    The in "Summary Set-Up", again because the red flagged variables are never defined

    Werner_E_1-1674522295677.png

    Next errors in "Wheel Locations"

    Werner_E_2-1674522346436.png

    and the last ones here

    Werner_E_3-1674522407377.png

    Again because the used functions are not defined.

    All these errors do not affect the plot at the end of the sheet, though

    Werner_E_4-1674522467352.png

     

     

     

     

     

      W
      Werner_E25-Diamond I
      25-Diamond I
      January 24, 2023

      The Mathcad sheet uses a quickplot in the first plot and the values shown are meter because the unit system chosen is SI.

      Werner_E_5-1674523651977.png

      I guess that the plot rather should use feet as base unit.

      To do so, you should use (in the Prime sheet) the already defined range p instead of x (not xx), put ft in the unit placeholder on both aaxis and also change the expressions at the axis ends from "Span" to "Span/ft" and from "Span/4" to "Span/(4 ft)".

      Werner_E_6-1674523689592.png

      Of course you first will have to manually change the label of all units to "Unit". To do so you click on every single unit and type Ctrl-U.
      The converter did a really bad job by ignoring all non-SI units - really bad.

      BTW, to get the first plot done I had chosen a different was by defining

      Werner_E_7-1674523844235.png

      On the left hand side normal variables and on the right hand side units.
      This was just a quick hack to get a result but I would strongly advise against doing so. Do manually what the converter should have done and change every single unit in the sheet to label "unit".

       

      Forgot to also mention that in Prime you have to attach a unit even if the value of a quantity is zero. This was not necessary to do in legacy Mathcad. So you may need to change some functions which normally return a quantity with unit but sometimes simply return zero. You have to manually add an appropriate unit there as the converter, you guessed it, didn't do so.

      One example at the top of the sheet:

      Werner_E_0-1674524230758.png

      I have not looked through the sheet but its likely that other functions will have to be treated similarly.

       

      So thanks to PTC you now have quite some work to do to postprocess the converted sheet. Hopefully at the end the downgraded sheet (going from real Mathcad to Prime is a downgrade) will work as expected. Good luck!

       

       

       

        M
        MR_105593921-VisitorAuthor
        1-Visitor
        January 25, 2023

        Thank you for your time looking at this mess, Werner. I appreciate it a lot. I'm hoping to have some good progress updates sometime next week, juggling a few other tasks at work. 

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