Sketcher Intent Manager

[jnelson]

During a recent PTC/USER Technical Committee meeting we had a discussion about the Sketcher Intent Manager.

This discussion made me curious as to if there are still users that find the need to turn off the Intent Manager, which is why I am writing.

If there is anyone that still turns off the Sketcher Intent Manager, can you please respond to the questions below?

1. What are the circumstances that causes you to turn off the Intent Manager?

2. If you are importing data, is this done as a "normal" sketch with the intent to drive geometry with that sketch, or as a cosmetic sketch where you are probably not looking to drive geometry?

Please note that the reason of "Because it is annoying", is NOT specific enough.

In order to present the need for this, I need specific use cases (models and/or written) in which users turn off intent manager and still want to do something non-cosmetic with the resulting sketch.

Thanks....

Joel Nelson

PTC/USER Sheetmetal TC Chair

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[wattsteam]

Hi Joel,

Please do not let PTC disable this feature.

I have been a ProE user since 1993 and found the transition to Wildfire extremely difficult. The sketcher intent manager was one of the key difficulties, and despite two paid training/orientation sessions I still did not get a satisfactory grasp on using it, largely because of the way it was taught. The main problem I have is that I design primarily plastic parts and frequently need to sketch low angles (ie less than 5 degrees). After a few weeks constantly struggling to fight the intent manager changing these carefully constructed angles to 90 degrees, I gave up and just turned it off. This has been how I have been able to maintain productivity with ProE. If I had to fight with intent manager all day I would have a huge productivity loss. Before you say "just use draft tools" I would say you obviously haven't designed complex plastic parts - many can NOT be done with the draft tools alone.

Best regards Jeff Dayman

[bkurth]

Hi,

I disable the Intent Manager in order to access the Adv Geometry tools to join multiple datum curves into a single curve.

Thanks...Brian

[dgallup]

I don't do it very often but once in awhile intent manager just will not accept my sketch and dimensioning scheme. I am usually able to get the same geometry, constraints and dimensions to regen with the intent manager turned off. So please, never remove the ability to turn off the intent manager.

The attached pic is one blend feature that required intent manager to be turned off. Note that the screen shot is just picking the feature and selecting modify. It is a blend feature with 4 cross sections so you are actually looking at the dimensions for all 4 sections at once. I had to turn intent manager off for each each section even though section 2 is exactly the same as section 1 and section 4 is exactly the same as section 3. I did a save & retrieve for the repeat sections.

[brianlynn]

It has been a while since I have turned intent manager off, but there were
several models where I needed to import the sketches and the dimensions
were too small to do it within intent manager. Once I got the dimensions
where I wanted them I turn intent manager back on and made sure that the
constraints I needed were there. At that time I was importing in to a
sketch that was directly driving geometry, but I also tried a stand alone
sketch and Pro/E did the same thing.

Brian S. Lynn
Technical Coordinator, Product Engineering

[rreifsnyder]

Jeff,

You are right in saying that your training must not have been taught correctly. Sketcher intent manager is by far the best sketcher available in a solid modeler. You have as near to complete control as I've seen. If your sketch is snapping to an orthogonal all you have to do is delete the V, or H or other constraint that is holding you in place, then create your own angular dimension. You might need to create a 90 degree dimension first to create a small angle, then delete that and create your small angle dimension. You can also bypass a lot of this by simply making sure that the constraint you don't want doesn't show up while you are "rubber banding" you line. If you still can't get that to work like you want, you can hold the shift key while "rubber banding" hit the right mouse button and a circle will appear around the "H" for instance, release shift and click rmb again. The "H" will now have a line strike through it because you have disabled that constraint for that line. I know this last one sounds a little involved, but if you are truly using it a lot you will get used to it quickly.

That all being said, I am definitely against allowing us to turn off intent manager. I have always strived to fix any features that fail rather than deleting things, and sometimes a sketch can get completely turned inside out in a failure. Turning off intent manager lets me work with the sketch without it automatically regenerating while I try to fix the sketch, I can then regenerate manually and turn IM back on.

Rob Reifsnyder
Mechanical Design Engineer/ Pro/E Librarian
L
Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2)
497 Electronics Parkway
Liverpool, NY 13088
EP5-Quad2, Cube 281

[jonfawcett]

Jeff,



Here's a tip that's usually not taught. When sketching and it wants to snap
in a constraint (like Vertical), just hit the right button and it will
disable the constraint, allowing you to sketch at a really shallow angle. If
there are multiple constraints showing up during sketching, you can toggle
through them with tab. When the one you want to disable is highlighted,
right click. An additional right click will re-enable them. I find this
method really fast and allows you to sketch anything without the constraints
getting in your way, yet still has all the benefits of intent manager.



Hope this helps.



Jon



signaturecard1

[TimothyField]

You can deselect what intent manager will assume under Sketch; Options; You can deselect any of the constraint types in the Sketcher Preferences Constraints Tab if you are having trouble because of assumed constraints.

Tim Field

[pfariello]

I have intent manager off as my default. (config option, sketcher_intent_manager no) I also do not use the preselect highlighter. Maybe I am just an old dog or even the last of my kind, but intent manager was never an improvement for me to switch over to. I use map keys heavily and my sketch sections go very quickly.

I have been using Pro/E since '95. My design work is in surfacing, plastics, sheet metal and electronics packaging. I use top down design with geometry propagated from master models/ skeletons to drive target parts. Even within the master and especially within the target parts sketch dimension are referenced to relative features. I would say the intent manager doesn't really place dimensions as I need them.

On some rare occasions I turn it on, for example the text options in sketch are improved over having it off.

Some of the pitfalls I have seen with intent manger are

* Features that are left dimensioned inappropriate references.

* Dimensions with 100+ place decimal values

* Regen failures that cannot be fixed at all inside intent manager

Just my thoughts,
Regards,

Patrick Fariello

[SteveFowler]

Joel

I work primarily in tool design and almost don't remember the last time I turned off IM. I do however disable constraints as I sketch.

Thanks

Steve

WF-2 M080 FlexC

Win XP SP-2

Dell PWS 690 3GB Ram

Nvidia Quadro FX4600

[vloos]

I've been using Pro-e since version 15 around 1996.



I use IM all the time, however on the occasional time a sketch does fail
and it sends me back into the old sketcher resolve mode, I really have
to hunt and search around the menus to find the old routine to get the
sketch to resolve.



That sometimes scares one as to lost techniques since IM came on board.



Vinson Loos

[PAULKORENKIEWIC]

Ditto... intent manager is fine, BUT don't REMOVE functionality!!!
Pretty much ever... 😉

Thanks...

Paul Korenkiewicz
FEV, Inc.
4554 Glenmeade
Auburn Hills, MI., 48326

[nuheht]

Because it IS annoying. I never liked it, I still don't but am forced to use it at my current position. 99% of the time it does not know my intent and I have to remove constraints and add constraints, while with it off, I only had to add the constraints of my intention.



Joe Ordo

[kwsauter]

I for one am glad to have IM. When I try to use the old sketcher, it
never lets me do what I want, and I end spending more time fighting the
blasted thing than designing anything. It still makes assumptions, and
always the assumptions I don't want. Only if I make dead simple
sketches does it work for me. Anything with more than dead simple
geometry turns making a sketch into a raging battle with Proe. In IM,
right click disables any assumption that shows up, and like someone else
said, you can go into sketcher preferences and disable assumptions. IM
is one of the best ideas PTC has had in a long time.


Ken Sauter
DRS Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition
Infrared Technologies Division
PO Box 740188
Dallas, TX 75374
214-860-6826
- <">mailto:->

[lylebeidler]

Ditto. Not that this answers Joel's original question, but many of the
objections to IM can be laid at the feet of either "old dogs" not wanting to
learn new tricks, or lack of education in the upgrade process. I personally
have coached several longtime users who were dead set against IM, but when I
showed them how to set their references & how quick it can be, they came
around. A bit of education goes a long way.



--



Lyle Beidler
MGS Inc
178 Muddy Creek Church Rd
Denver PA 17517
717-336-7528
Fax 717-336-0514
<">mailto:-> -
<">http://www.mgsincorporated.com>

[dgschaefer]

+1

I'm curious when folks say they simply added the constraints the
actually want without IM. How? Pre-IM it was sketch it and hit regen
and hope Pro|E guess what you intended to do. There was/is no way to
add in a constraint directly that I recall.

Doug Schaefer

[kwsauter]

If there was, I never found it. It just assumed and it wouldn't tell me
what it assumed, it just assumed it knew more about what I wanted than I
did. Now THAT was annoying!


Ken Sauter
DRS Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition
Infrared Technologies Division
PO Box 740188
Dallas, TX 75374
214-860-6826
- <">mailto:->

[wattsteam]

Ken - WRT your statement


" When I try to use the old sketcher, it never lets me do what I want, and I end spending more time fighting the blasted thing than designing anything. It still makes assumptions, and always the assumptions I don't want."



This is exactly my feeling about IM. If two people have exactly opposite feelings about a given feature, they were either trained differently or are doing different things with it. I learned the original sketcher and probably sketch largely by instinct and experience, so I rarely have a sketch fail without IM. With IM it is a constant fight for me. I will however definitely try and gain experience with the various IM techniques and tricks others have mentioned - thanks to all for those. I truly would like to be able to learn to use it better.



Does anyone have a list of the benefits of IM? I have lost the release notes from way back when that denote the pluses.



+1 for the argument never to disable features!



Jeff Dayman (definitely an old dog, but a productive old dog)

[pauldelong]

My 2 cents.



First, a little background on my ProE experience. I started using ProE on
rev 4. I worked for PTC as a Senior Applications Engineer and have taught a
ton of ProE classes from basic to all sorts of advanced topics.



Sure, when IM first came out, I found it difficult to use. mainly because it
was lacking functionality and robustness. however, these days I find IM to
be a very powerful, easy to use tool. That said, I see users everywhere
that struggle with it, and from what I can tell, they never really learned a
logical, tried and true, systematic approach on how to use it. after all,
isn't it difficult to work with something you don't really understand? The
first time I attempted to do so plumbing around my house, I struggled and
struggled. it wasn't until I really learned and understood how a plumbing
system works, the various types of plumbing components and tools, and how
they're designed to interact, etc that doing plumbing around the house
became easy, quick and kinda fun!



Let's face it. typical Instructor led training is a wonderful, cost
effective way for a group of users to learn the concepts but to really learn
how to apply the concepts, techniques and methods, you need to apply the
them with users on a day to day basis until they've reached and can
demonstrate a proficiency threshold - you'll know when they have reached
this level with Sketcher and IM because the frustration level will drop
substantially. isn't this the goal of 'training' anyway?



To that end I suggest Sketcher and IM as frequent topics for your user group
meetings etc. or if you'd like, I can conduct tailored workshops with your
users and provide them with the mentoring they so badly need and deserve.



Regardless, having used other CAD applications, I have yet to see a Sketcher
tool come close to PTC's - keep it up, PTC!



Paul

[kwsauter]

A couple of things: I was never able to put rounded corners on a sketch
in the Old Sketcher (OS). I was forced to add rounds later. OS would
never show me any constraints, like IM. It just assumed. I remember
one day when I was bound and determined to make OS do what I wanted. I
was trying to sketch a rectangle with a very simple squarish ear on each
corner. I wanted to make the whole thing in one feature; no separate
features added later. I spent seven or eight hours fighting that
@#%#$%#%$# thing to try to get my relatively simple shape. I could get
two ears one size and two ears another, or three ears one size and one
another size, or all four ears different sizes, but I could never get
all four ears the same size, no matter how hard or what I tried. I
finally gave up. Proe won that battle. When your software prevents you
from designing what you want, there is something very definitely wrong
with your software. At least that's my opinion. I dread being thrown
into OS when a feature fails for some reason. At least let me add
constraints in the old sketcher. I hate trying to second guess the
software and hoping it works out.

If you're using the old sketcher, you must:
1. make simple sketches
2. follow a philosophy of creating more, simple features rather than a
few complex features.
3. Intuitively understand the assumptions OS makes (I never did).
4. Have a high tolerance for OS deciding things for you.

My company is paying me to design things, and paying for Proe to do what
I want it to do--not the other way around. Software that tries to tell
me how to design things gets me PO'd--bad. It should either do what I
tell it to or just let me know it can't do it. Being forced to
positively fight the software to get what I want is not something I want
to pay for. I bought a seat of SW for myself partly as a result of
those battles. After two years on SW and going back to Proe, the old
battles rise up in my face again, even with IM.

I normally have very good blood pressure, but I remember one day I went
to the doctor after a particularly harrowing battle with Proe, and my
blood pressure was 153 over 94. Even with IM I have those battles
sometimes, but I will never, ever go back to the old sketcher.



Ken Sauter
DRS Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition
Infrared Technologies Division
PO Box 740188
Dallas, TX 75374
214-860-6826
- <">mailto:->

[dgschaefer]

Before IM, I had to sketch the approximate shape and hit regen. Pro|E
would apply the constraints it thought I wanted. If I was a good
sketcher, it would guess exactly what I had hoped it would. If not,
well I had to delete or unregen or something, I can't remember

With IM I am in complete control over my sketch intent. I simply sketch
the right number and type of entities. It doesn't really even need to
be close. pro|E will slap some constraints on the sketch, but I don't
care what they are because I can pick them and delete them, even apply
specific constraints that I want. If I want two lines parallel, I just
tell Pro|E to make them parallel. Even if they aren't close to
parallel. If I want two segments equal, I don't have to draw them equal
so Pro|E will guess that they are, I just tell it that they are. Even
if one is 3x as long as the other, they become equal.

I never had that kind of control before IM.

IM also shows you what Pro|E is assuming in real time instead of
sketching a shape and hitting regen to see what Pro|E will decide. As
has been said, I can RMB as I sketch to disable constraints as I sketch.
Even if the assumptions are all wrong, I can delete them and apply my
own.

I can see how it might feel like you're fighting IM as you sketch and it
makes assumptions, I've felt that at times too. I've learned that I
need to sketch an exaggerated, inaccurate sketch first. Get the right
number of entities in there, then go to the constraints dialog and apply
the ones I want, deleting those that I don't. I can quickly get what I
want that way.


Doug Schaefer

[kwsauter]

One thing to remember with IM, and probably with the old sketcher, is if
you zoom in real close to something, some of the constraints just go
away and you can do what you want. There is something about the screen
size of the sketch that makes constraints happen or not happen.


Ken Sauter
DRS Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition
Infrared Technologies Division
PO Box 740188
Dallas, TX 75374
214-860-6826
- <">mailto:->

[ashu_proe]

I think Sketcher Intent Manager is still available in Wildfire 5.0(Some one pointed out that its no longer available in WF 5.0).

The config option 'sketcher_intent_manager' has been made a hidden option. May be moving forward they have plans to remove it completely.

~Ashu


Your Mail works best with the New Yahoo Optimized IE8. Get it NOW!

[wfalco]

This is absolutely correct.



On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Sauter, Kenneth W (SA-1) wrote:

One thing to remember with IM, and probably with the old sketcher, is
if you zoom in real close to something, some of the constraints just go
away and you can do what you want. There is something about the screen
size of the sketch that makes constraints happen or not happen.

Ken Sauter
DRS Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition
Infrared Technologies Division
PO Box 740188
Dallas, TX 75374
214-860-6826
- <">mailto:->
<">mailto:->

[TimothyField]

You can create the same effect by changing the sketcher accuracy. Sketch; Options; change the accuracy to a lower value. Maximum is 1.000. It is a relative scale

Timothy

[pauldelong]

Yep, ProE sees what you see.. if a line looks close to horizontal, then ProE will assume so… of course, what it looks like is dependent on your zoom factor



Paul

[wfalco]

I'm sure you can. But I don't think it is the same.

[wfalco]

I refer to it as pulling off pro/e glasses.

[JonathanHodgson]

Again, not really an answer to Joel's question, but:

I'm a relative Pro/E newbie(!), having started about 7 or 8 years ago
with 2000i^2. I've never used Old Sketcher (although a handful of times
I've had to give up on a sketch with IM and start it again), and our
config doesn't ever seem to drop us into it.

I think Doug makes a good point about making your initial sketch
exaggerated - that's definitely key, particularly with small angles and
similar - but I was also taught the tab & right-button disable/lock
constraints techniques very early, and with these approaches IM works
just fine.

If I ever did find myself with IM disabled, my response would probably
be "what the %^&* do I do now?" - perhaps a bit like our newer team
members (who've learnt on WF) when faced with the pre-WF menus or sketch
plane definition!

Jonathan

[ptc-2032585]

I've been reading most of the replies to this thread and thought I'd chime in...

I started on Pro/E with version 19 as a PTC AE. When IM came out, in version 20, I HATED it. I called many of PTC's developers by names that don't belong in a Tarantino movie.

But, since I was young and naive, I sat back after maybe 2 days and literally thought: who am I to think I know better than guys who develop Pro/E....I had a few months on Pro/E at the time.

So I gave IM a try and after another 2 days, I was convinced...the ability to change an assumed constrain, alone, was more than enough to convince me. At the time, we had a long-time customer who started on V20 and also hated IM and turned it off. I made a bet with them that after 2 days they wouldn't look back and won.

After teaching a few handfuls of training classes, especially during the transition, I've established 2 rules that, till now, have worked for me:

KISS (I never used complex sections before and still don't unless absolutely needed). IMO a complex sketch is easier to handle with IM than without.

Then I follow a sequence: first the SHAPE (no scale, no relative size, just shape); then CONSTRAINTS (NO changing dimensions); and finally DIMENSIONS and changing to correct value. On occasion, I will change the first dimension using the "scale" functionality.

I'm truly curious to see sketches that people say they cannot handle with IM, so please e-mail me some if you can. I just like to learn.

HIH

Rui



On 03.03.