Dealing with duplicate models

[nhanratty]

Hi all

We have two vaults of ProE data that we would like to merge into one.

We have a big issue with duplicate filenames existing in either vault and I know the pain there will be if we just copied one vault into the other and overwrote the duplicate files. In some instances the geometry in either file will be the same but in the vast majority there will be differences.

Opening each model and fixing the issues because of duplicate parts being different geometry wise is the very last option...most likely not an option.

Has anybody experienced something like this? Did you come across a workable solution? Is there software that could help?

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks.

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[GavinBRumble]

Neal,



I sure hope you inherited this mess and weren?t part of the creation of it.
There is no easy fix for this...how large are the vaults? If it is hundreds
of models, hire an intern or contractor to help clean it up. If it is
10,000?s of models you may be able to engage a data management/migration
firm to come up with a tool. Talk to I-Cubed in Raleigh, NC...they deal
with large data sets all the time.



That?s my 2 ¢



Gavin B. Rumble, PE

Solid Engineering

336-224-2312

[PrashantChandan]

Hello Neal,

Are you talking about duplicate parts? Or too many similar parts? I hope I understand it correctly.

To reduce the duplicate parts or identify them we do have a solution called http://3dsearchit.geometricglobal.com/

Do let me know if you are interested and we shall arrange for an online demo.

Thanks and Regards,

Prashant Chandanapurkar

prashant.chandanapurkar@geometricglobal.com

Geometry Technology Solutions

Geometric Limited

+91.8600.144.188 (M)

+91.2040.284.489 (D)

[HugoHermans]

We had a merge to do with a hugh number of duplicates, over 10000 models and drawings. Our VAR together with PTC tried to shift iterations into eachother. And succeeded to do so! Although they did a great job,the result was absolutly inreliable. So, we finally decided to rename either duplicate, and now live with it.

Regards, Hugo.

<< ProE WF3 - PDMLink 9.1 M060>>

[proed]

Hi Neal

What kind of vaults are these? There's no mention if they're Intralink, another PDM, or simply server folders? We have a similar issue, though we have 13 Intralink 3.x dataservers here, and I'm whittling down the duplicates lists ahead of migration to PDMLink.

I've used a few methods and tools* to report and compare items from pairs of servers, to identify what files are in the overlap, how likely they are to be the 'same' file, and how often they're used. This helps us narrow down same-name-same-geometry files that can be merged, as opposed to same-name-different-geometry files that should be renamed.

If you want to carry on the discussion offline, ping me a message.

Cheers,
Edwin, CAD Manager, Weatherford

* Methods & tools: Intralink UI scripts to auto-report full contents of dataserver and all where-used reports, Relational database to compare/filter results, UI script to remove unused duplicates. Main overlap currently sitting between a few to a few thousand per server - summed duplicates on main down from 75k to 34k so far.

In Reply to Neal Hanratty:

Hi all

We have two vaults of ProE data that we would like to merge into one.

We have a big issue with duplicate filenames existing in either vault and I know the pain there will be if we just copied one vault into the other and overwrote the duplicate files. In some instances the geometry in either file will be the same but in the vast majority there will be differences.

Opening each model and fixing the issues because of duplicate parts being different geometry wise is the very last option...most likely not an option.

Has anybody experienced something like this? Did you come across a workable solution? Is there software that could help?

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks.

[DeanLong]

Neal,

I am confident you will find third party apps to identify differences within duplicate filenames. However,in my experience with such things,when the rubber hits the road there is no magic that will take the place of good old human eyes, and more importantly human effort, to make sure the data is correct androbust.

If you wish to talk offline please contact me.

Dean