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cljones71-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 28, 2014
Question

Drawing Overlays

  • May 28, 2014
  • 20 replies
  • 30536 views
Does anyone have any experience/comments on using drawing overlays in a WC system to combine large drawings (>100 pgs)?



Corey L. Jones
Design Engineering Systems Specialist
Principal Engineering Technology Development Group

ESC - Team QNA
SGT Inc.

Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899




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jschmehl1-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 29, 2014
So since we publish in PDF's I cannot use the overlay function in Creo View MCAD? It can't compare .drw files?



Can you manually publish a file to a PLT?

Is it possible to publish both PDF & PLT? Unfortunately we have processes that rely on the PDF.



The "compare" would be a very very valuable tool! Thanks everyone for any assistance or suggestions you can give.


J
jschmehl1-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 29, 2014
I got it to work finally! I didn't click on the highlighted icon below as Brian pointed out. Thanks, this is great news!

(BTW .drw files opened in CreoView are disaplyed as PLT files. My error)






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rreifsnyder15-Moonstone
15-Moonstone
May 29, 2014
The compare function works on .pvz files you can "Save a Copy" as.

Rob Reifsnyder
Mechanical Design Engineer/ Producibility Engineer / Components Engineer / Pro/E SME / Pro/E Librarian
[LM_Logo_Tag_RGB_NoR_r06]
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kimndave91-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 30, 2014

If you need to do a compare ..


What has worked well for me, and requires little effort in finding unexpected changes, is to overlay a version of the new onto the old images; opening PDFs with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. I make the new version image solid green with a 40% transparency***, the old version solid red with 60% transparency, and a background layer solid black. Every pixel that matches is yellow; non-matching new stuff is green; non-matching old is red****. A-size to J-size, takes the same time to overlay. Typical comparison is done at 200 dpi.



Anything that doesn't match needs an explanation.



It can be saved as a PDF; as many versions of the drawing can be added as you have memory for the layers, so that an entire drawing check history can be kept. And the results can be stored and reviewed using Adobe Reader, so those without special software can access the result.



Using this method has one down-side. It creates a dislike for users who nudge things all the time. Nudge a balloon, a dimension, views, notes; A good nudger will make it look like the entire drawing has changed when they haven't changed anything. It's the sort of thing ink-on-mylar drafters would never do, but some mouse users feel a compulsion. Sigh.



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MikeFoster10-Marble
10-Marble
May 30, 2014
For those out there like us who only have Creo View Lite which comes without the compare function you can compare two drawing versions with the following technique (We have Creo View set up to publish .plt's).

The first snag you'll run into is that Windchill only allows only one Creo View window open at a time so a Save-As on each version must be done first:


1. Locate the drawing and select the desired version using History > Iteration


2. Open its representation in Creo View and Save As a PVZ


3. Locate the version you wish to compare against, open its rep, and repeat the Save As process

Now use the following technique to flip back and forth rapidly between two iterations of a drawing so that differences become very apparent:


1. Open the two saved PVZ's and maximize the two Creo View windows so there are overlaid


2. Set the zoom in each window so they exactly match - For best results use Zoom All, Fit Width, or Fit Height


3. Now to flip from one window to the other hold down the Alt key and while it is down press the Tab key - Release the Alt key and repeat the preceding to flip back to the first window.

With a little practice you can switch back and forth quickly enough to see even minute changes.

Mike Foster
ATK
S
23-Emerald III
StephenW23-Emerald III
23-Emerald III
May 30, 2014
If you go back and read the original post, this was never a question about doing a compare in Creo or Creo View.

Does anyone use the "OVERLAY" function in Creo to create drawings? If so, what do you use them for? Large Assy drawing? How do the references work in PDMLink?

This is of interest to my group also.

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rmees-21-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 30, 2014

We needed to go with .pdf for our output. We looked at overlay capabilities, with a thread here last year about comparing two .pdfs to see what the difference is.



Here's what I learned then:



1. You can compare two .pdfs by opening up two sessions of Acrobat (one for each drawing). Maximize each screen, and by selecting either the CTRL or ALT key (I forget which one), you can "cycle" the view back and forth between each drawing quickly, and you can easily see the differences in both drawings.



2. Or you purchase Bluebeam Software. www.bluebeam.com . They have a CAD extension. Bluebeam compares two .pdfs in two different ways: the first is that it "overlays" both .pdfs on top of each other (in different colors). You can easily see the differences by looking at the different colors. YOu can save out as .pdf for proof of checking.


Or, you can show the differences by "balloon", where the software will draw a balloon cloud around areas of the drawing that has changed.


The software compares pixels, and if it sees something has moved, it registers it. It doesn't cost more than Adobe Pro, but has far better functionality.


- Randy Mees


-


All views my own, and do not reflect views of Edwards Lifesciences.

A
A.DelNegro1-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 30, 2014
Steve,

I had never heard of them but as I was thinking about it, I wonder if it could be applied to the topic I posted about multi-sheet drawings. I for one prefer a drawing for every part. The biggest drawback to that is when I want to print a set of drawings. It would seem you could create an 'assembly' of drawings that has an overlay of each of your part drawings on a different sheet. This way, when you wanted to print a full set of drawings, you could simply open the overlay drawing and print all the sheets. Hmmmm... not sure if it would be worth the effort, but maybe it would.

T
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kimndave91-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 31, 2014

I suppose lack of familiarity with it is the lack of seeing a need for it; lack of imagination rather than lack of intrinsic value. 99.9% of users would understand overlay as a way to compare drawings. Perhaps if PTC called it drawing UDF or live embed?



I can see a minor reason why Drawing Overlay isn't often used, in bold - from http://www.mcadcentral.com/creo-tips-tricks-drawing/7042-copy-drawing-into-another-drawing.html (apparently copied from PTC Help)


Using overlays, you can superimpose selected views or an entire sheet of one drawing over the current drawing sheet. This functionality is available for drawings, layouts, reports, and diagrams; each can reference objects of these four types, as well as formats.
When working with overlays, keep in mind the following:
?Overlays are read-only in the current drawing.
?The system updates overlays to changes in the source drawing.
?Overlaid views appear with all detail items.
?You cannot select overlays for any drawing procedure.
?If the size of the current drawing is different from the size of the source drawing, the overlays brought into the current drawing maintain the same screen size (that is, they occupy the same portion of the graphics window) as they had in the source drawing. <- this is the part that would slow people down. Why does PTC perform so many operations in drawings as based on a ratio to drawing or view size when users view drawing operations in absolute size?


It doesn't look like there's any insurmountable problem, though the same question in the Windchill section may turn up some differing opinion for data management. Is the Windchill TC any help? I guess it depends on whether the Windchill guys paid enough attention.


These are some results I found for "drawing overlay" here.


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=3&post=27744#p27744 Detail splines wander about in Overlay


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=24&post=19487#p19487 Weblink, JLink, Toolkit don't add Overlays


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=3&post=56280#p56280 Font changes for no reason


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=14&post=99936#p99936 RSD & Creo no longer overlay together


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=24&post=18252#p18252 Drawing overlay scale problem


http://portal.ptcuser.org/p/fo/st/topic=3&post=29058#p29058 Drawing overlay scale problem


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kimndave91-Visitor
1-Visitor
May 31, 2014

Sorry - didn't notice you'd posted the Overlay help; on the website the text of your help posting is spread over about 200 vertical lines; about 3 screens high, so I didn't recognize it until later.


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