Managing Single Part Drawings

[MORECREO]

If someone were to not have access to the WindChill batch tool, but still wanted to be able to manage and easily print out several single part drawings to a project, what other ways are there?

I recently ran across a post where someone would create a top level drawing and was "overlaying" each individual part drawing inside that (1) file. However if that process can not be automated or batched, then its really no faster than opening each individual drawing and printing it.

Just want to make sure I'm no missing anything.

Thank You!

[Hidetaka]

At our company, we can achieve similar thing without using batch tool, but it requires a little regulation.
As long as the files are named according to a rule, we can easily print the drawings we want.

The rule: 
Each component (and its corresponding drw) must be named with prefix pertaining to its upper level assembly.
Examples: 
Top assembly:
AAAA-0000-0000
Sub assembly 1:
AAAA-1000-0000
Sub-sub assembly 1:
AAAA-1100-0000
Component 1 of sub-sub assembly 1:
AAAA-1100-0001

So, if we want to print the drawings of the first 10 components of sub-sub assembly 1, we just run a script that automatically find the drw named in the range AAAA-1100-0001.drw to AAAA-1100-0010.drw. The printing process may take time, but does not require human intervention, so we can just do some other tasks or go somewhere to have a coffee and then go fetching the prints at our printer.

[MORECREO]

This sounds great! Are you using a third party software to write/run the script, or is that some feature in CREO?

[MORECREO]

It appears you can write scripts when recording mapkeys? If that's what your using, what are the chances you can share an example of what sort of syntax I need to use to open/print multiple pages?

If not I'll just have to do some more digging. This is exactly what I was looking for!

Thank You!

[Hidetaka · Accepted solution]

I wrote the script in Autohotkey v1.
I think you can use python or any other scripting languages, but from my experience, Autohotkey is best for this purpose.
With the script, you can do something similar to what demonstrated in this video:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1aoyWNBkDHNF8t2T9

I can give you the actual source code (data_export.ahk), please find it in the attachment. Note that it is just a file in a larger and much more complicated program called CreoAutomation. Because I think Creo is a little bit difficult to use, I created CreoAutomation. That program provides over 200 new or improved functionalities for Creo users. 

What the script does is to send mapkeys to Creo, then control mouse and keyboard just like someone is interacting with Creo. Other scripts may generates trail files and run the newly generated trail files in Creo. With that approach, we can automate almost anything in Creo. Each function has a hotkey assigned to it. For example, to create a list of component in txt format, I just need to press pl (stands for part list), to print every file with name written in a txt file, I use Right Control + P.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

1.]

You can select Creo Parametric Distributed Computing Extension option during Creo installation. Then you can run Parametric\bin\ptcdbatch.bat tool.

2.]

You can develop script (input = drawing file list, output = trail file) and play generated trail file.

[MORECREO]

Option (1) is not available to me.

Could you provide an intro into what this script would look like?

Thanks!

[MartinHanak]

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@MORECREO wrote:

Option (1) is not available to me.

Could you provide an intro into what this script would look like?

Thanks!

---

Hi,

if Parametric\bin\ptcdbatch.bat file does not exist in your Creo installation, then you did not select Creo Parametric Distributed Computing Extension option during Creo installation. You have to reinstall Creo..

You can watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ps1ttVNAJM