Creating Shop Drawings that do not check out the parent model and detail drawing

[ptc-1077260]

Gurus,

WF 4.0 M060 & PDMLink 9.0 M010

We make our solid models and use shown dimension in our drawings. We also like to use shown or created dimensions in combination with other dimensions. Such as showing the counterbore dimeter and depth for a hole using &ad131 or &d43. This works great for our detail drawings. The issue is that our manufactoring engineers use our models to create shop/process drawings. These drawings use created dimensions so that the MEs do not accidently change the nominal design of the part. The issue that we are finding is that when they create a dimension on the drawing, the part is requested to be checked out into the workspace. We find if you choose not to check out the part and select continue, the changes will not always be saved or Windchill will create "new" parts in the workspace. This seems to happen if another person has checked out the part and has made an iteration change to the part.

We have searched around the forums and the googlenet. We have found that we can use this setting in config.pro (create_drawing_dims_only) but we would not like the design engineers since it prevents the early stated advantages. Using this setting you can not use the dimensions parametrically in the drawing details or in tables. It seems to be a one way communication flow from the model to the drawing. I am thinking about creating a config.pro file just for our MEs to use that has this setting in place. Before I do so, I am curious if anyone else has the similar issue and a better resolution to this.

Thanks,

James

This thread is inactive and closed by the PTC Community Management Team. If you would like to provide a reply and re-open this thread, please notify the moderator and reference the thread. You may also use "Start a topic" button to ask a new question. Please be sure to include what version of the PTC product you are using so another community member knowledgeable about your version may be able to assist.

[dgschaefer]

You've figured it out. The reason is that Pro|E stores the information
on created drawing dims in the part file rather than the model file.
Because of the relationship between this setting and the embedding of
dimensions in notes, I'm assuming that there's a software requirement to
keep the dimensional information together to make those relationships
work.

I don't know of any work around nor do I know what the implications of
different users accessing drawing files with different settings for that
option. I'd want to test it thoroughly to be sure that information
isn't lost when switching from one setting to another.

Doug Schaefer

[ptc-1077260]

This solution seems reasonable. Thanks for the quick reply. I am just going to throw it out there that you can only have one active config.pro in session, correct? I haven't tried yet, but it would be a nice feature to load a config.pro that is associated to a specific drawing format. We have specific formats for these shop drawings that differ from the detail part drawings.

James

[dgschaefer]

No, you can load as many config.pro files as you want. They are
cumulative, so one adds to another. If any duplicate options are found,
the last file loaded wins.

The only exception is the config.sup file, which is a special config.pro
file that must be loaded first, from the Pro|E load point. Any options
found in there cannot be overridden by config.pro files loaded later.

Doug Schaefer