cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Community Tip - Did you get an answer that solved your problem? Please mark it as an Accepted Solution so others with the same problem can find the answer easily. X

Manikin save warning

Chris3
20-Turquoise

Manikin save warning

I don't think this was mentioned before so just to warn people before
you loose work like I did:

WF4 has the functionality to assemble in a manikin and move him around.
Just on a whim I decided to play around with this real quick. If you do
not have a Manikin license you can not save. This is explained in the
marketing and documentation.

What is not explained is that Wildfire 4 locks EVERYTHING in session the
instant manikin is assembled in. I had a part that was not in the
assembly and unrelated to the model I assembled the person into and I
still could not save. You have to erase everything from session (not
just the manikin or assembly) before you are allowed to save again.

I called PTC and they said it is intended functionality. In a future
build they are going to update the warning to say save first. Use at
your own risk.

Chris

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.
15 REPLIES 15

It SHOULD be a config.pro option to turn it on and off. That's an oversight (i.e. dumb move) on PTC's part.

Bob

TimMcLellan
6-Contributor
(To:Chris3)

I had kicked off a discussion on this a while back. Here is my initial note
(read bottom up - Additional feedback can be found under the subject:
Pro/Manikin):



Mark,



Thank you for your prompt reply. With all due respect, as you state, "This,
in essence, is the type of feedback we were hoping to receive from users
exploring the free teaser", you failed to mention my other comments. I am a
little surprised.



Here again are my comments regarding the value I perceive:



However, the value of the maintenance paying customer's manikin lies in
initial concept and does not support real world PDS. It becomes a single
event and worse something that would have to be repeated over and over again
as your design/package evolves. SMB's considering this may be better served
to create a simple mock up of a human for the few positions they use
especially if usage is not that often. This solely lies in the fact that
you can not save anything done using the basic manikin unless you have
upgraded to the purchased extension.



PTC misses an opportunity for foundation owners to use this new
functionality (if save was there) over and over again while seeing other
extension options (e.g. vision, reach, analysis.). This will, in my view,
turn people off to the added value from the functionality of the manikin and
thus greatly limit any use/sales of the product. It's too bad.



Also you mention that request for formal demonstrations has been positive, I
have no doubt that this would be the case. However, as a SMB serving some
very large and small companies in Defense, Consumer Products and Automotive
I will be sticking with my static manikin models

for now. The lack of save, re-use and the "teaser" functionality did

not spark me to make a purchase. What is worse is I am not likely to review
Pro/Manikin again for some time based on my testing and

understanding of it release/functionality.



Here is an analogy: If I had an apple pie in my kitchen when I walked into
the room I may be tempted to take a slice. The next time I walked into my
kitchen the apple pie was gone I would no longer think about taking a slice.
However, if each and every time I walked into my kitchen and the apple pie
was still there I would never forget about it and at some point I would
likely take a slice. Good luck selling a disappearing apple pie.



Seriously - best wishes and I hope to hear from others.



Regards,



Tim McLellan

Mobius Innovation and Development, Inc.
TimMcLellan
6-Contributor
(To:Chris3)

Sorry my note was truncated. It is probably better to follow the old posting
here:




&post=71347#p71347



Cheers,



Tim McLellan
Mobius Innovation and Development, Inc.

I recall some software that would retrieve the OpenGL description of
objects as a stand-alone file. It was shown being used to copy
characters out of video games. I wonder if that would work on the
manikin. Something like this:

Would Adobe Acrobat Extended work to save off the assembly as a 3d pdf?
I think it would just like any other assembly saved this way from Pro/E
Wildfire 3 and above.
Just thinking



Don A


campbell
5-Regular Member
(To:Chris3)

Good morning, everyone.



I just want to clarify what is actually in the Manikin warning message
when you try out the new functionality. Specifically, it says:



WARNING: Manikin license not found



You are about to explore limited Pro/ENGINEER Manikin functionality. You
will not be able to save any files in the current session after you have
inserted a manikin. Do you want to save your files before continue
loading a manikin?

YES / IGNORE



Then there are two buttons. "Yes" and "Ignore". The default option is
"Yes" so, if you simply hit the space bar or Return ( without ready the
warning message) it will not load the manikin and you will be able to
save your files.



I'm not sure that I would consider this an oversight, and I think the
message is pretty clear. It does in fact say that "Wildfire 4 locks
EVERYTHING in session the instant manikin is assembled in ". OK. It
doesn't say exactly that, buy that is what is meant by "You will not be
able to save any files in the current session after you have inserted
the manikin."



That said, I am open to your suggestions on how we could make this
clearer. I'm not sure what kind of a config option you are proposing,
Bob. What do you want to "turn off"?



Thanks, and have a great Friday.



~ Mike



Michael M. Campbell

SVP Product Management, Desktop Products

PTC

781.370.5039

We would like to be able to NOT even load Pro/Manikin Lite... not have
it show up in the menu. We pretty much would never use this, so it
would be nice to be able to not even give our users the chance to have
this problem...

Paul Korenkiewicz
FEV , Inc.
4554 Glenmeade
Auburn Hills, MI, 48326-1766

Hi Mike,

The way I see it... If you can't save or if the file becomes locked as a result of even exploring this module, then I would just prefer to turn it off all together and remove the icon from the screen altogether. Furthermore, I would do the same for all my users here, so that their CAD models would not be in compromised in any way - or their time wasted.

I believe it would have been a better choice if PTC had offered the Manikin option as a "Limited Time Tryout" edition or an evaluation license that wouldn't allow saves and that the user would specifically order from PTC. These users obviously have a need or desire for this module and would be more supportive of it's "intended functionality" limitations.

Having a config.pro option like:
enable_promanikin yes/no

IMHO this would be a useful option.

very small, flame off !

Thanks,

Bob
Chris3
20-Turquoise
(To:Chris3)

For the record I like the functionality and have no problem with not
being able to save or the fact that it is integrated. My problem was
with saving other files that had nothing to do with the assembly the
manikin was in. My message does not explicitly say what you have below
though. Maybe you are using a newer build. Here is mine:



It says "you will not be able to save your PRO/ENGINEER session" which
is not quite what you have below. Yes it is similar but it would have
been better to say what you had below "You will not be able to save any
files in the current session after you have inserted a manikin." It
would also help if that was bolded.

I know Pro/E keeps track of interdependencies it doesn't make any sense
that I can't save something that doesn't have a Parent/Child relation to
the manikin.

Chris

In Reply to Chris Rees:
I know Pro/E keeps track of interdependencies it doesn't make any sense
that I can't save something that doesn't have a Parent/Child relation to
the manikin.
I assume PTC locked out all saving because feaures/components can be copied between models (directlty or with UDF's) without having a relationship to the original models. Copying & saving would easily defeat the license restriction.
dgschaefer
21-Topaz II
(To:Chris3)

<rant alert=">

The clarity of the message isn't the issue, it's clear enough (at least
your version is, Chris' is less so), it's that this functionality was
approved at all. I'm certain that this was the easy way to implement a
no-save version of Manikin, but at what cost? You've already cost one
customer lost time and productivity because of this decision. Whose
ease of use is more important, your programmers' or your customer's?

This is yet another example of UI and functionality decisions made in
Pro|E that defy logic. In what universe does having a change to item A
necessarily prevent the save of unrelated items B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I
and J? If Microsoft changed Word so that inserting an image in a
document prevented the save of any and all other documents open if the
user hadn't purchased the full version of the 'insert image' module,
we'd ridicule them until the end of time, and rightfully so. Regardless
of the message's clarity, some (many?) will still assume that it only
applies to the assembly in question, since that's logical, and not to
unrelated objects.

I'm being hard on PTC here, but I've been a fan and supporter for years
but I'm getting sick of decisions like this that are hostile to your
customers. The UI continues to show a lack of attention to detail and a
lack of understanding of user's workflow. To top it off, maintenance
costs are high while return for that dollar is low (tech support is
frequently painful, releases only come every other year instead of 2 per
year like it used to be).

You are free to make your own product decisions and I understand the
idea of providing a tease of the Manikin functionality, but if that
tease costs me money and lost work, when I had no reasonable expectation
that it would (even if I was warned), I'll never sample again and I'll
certainly not consider buying.

Now I have to educate my users on the proper way to use Manikin to avoid
loosing work. Probably easier and less risky to simply disable it, if
that's possible.

Doug Schaefer
--
Doug Schaefer | Experienced Mechanical Design Engineer
LinkedIn
Chris3
20-Turquoise
(To:Chris3)

they could just as easily have prevented copying features or made parts
read only that had relationships to the manikin. They already have code
that does that for other things.

Chris
ehill
1-Newbie
(To:Chris3)

In my opinion, the real problem here is that the save restriction stays
even after the manikin models have been deleted AND erased from session.
The software needs to be smarter than that, it can't be that difficult
to determine if there is a manikin *currently* in the assembly, and/or
in session.



Best Regards,
proed
1-Newbie
(To:Chris3)

Hi folks

When I first saw the Manikin functionality, I realised it would have no benefit to our general users, so removed it from our installer files and deleted Manikin from our menus via config.win... so we've gladly avoided these issues, though there are several other Wildfire 4 "bugs" that we're still not happy with, mainly the inadvertent(?) removal of Wildfire 3 drawing functionality.

I agree with Doug, PTC seems to be getting sloppy lately in software quality and tech support... and our maintenance payments are not justified in my humble opinion, following a number of issues, calls, SPRs, contacts direct with PTC.

Regards
Edwin Muirhead
CAD Manager, Weatherford

In Reply to Doug Schaefer:

<rant alert=">

The clarity of the message isn't the issue, it's clear enough (at least
your version is, Chris' is less so), it's that this functionality was
approved at all. I'm certain that this was the easy way to implement a
no-save version of Manikin, but at what cost? You've already cost one
customer lost time and productivity because of this decision. Whose
ease of use is more important, your programmers' or your customer's?

This is yet another example of UI and functionality decisions made in
Pro|E that defy logic. In what universe does having a change to item A
necessarily prevent the save of unrelated items B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I
and J? If Microsoft changed Word so that inserting an image in a
document prevented the save of any and all other documents open if the
user hadn't purchased the full version of the 'insert image' module,
we'd ridicule them until the end of time, and rightfully so. Regardless
of the message's clarity, some (many?) will still assume that it only
applies to the assembly in question, since that's logical, and not to
unrelated objects.

I'm being hard on PTC here, but I've been a fan and supporter for years
but I'm getting sick of decisions like this that are hostile to your
customers. The UI continues to show a lack of attention to detail and a
lack of understanding of user's workflow. To top it off, maintenance
costs are high while return for that dollar is low (tech support is
frequently painful, releases only come every other year instead of 2 per
year like it used to be).

You are free to make your own product decisions and I understand the
idea of providing a tease of the Manikin functionality, but if that
tease costs me money and lost work, when I had no reasonable expectation
that it would (even if I was warned), I'll never sample again and I'll
certainly not consider buying.

Now I have to educate my users on the proper way to use Manikin to avoid
loosing work. Probably easier and less risky to simply disable it, if
that's possible.

Doug Schaefer



DaveEngel
5-Regular Member
(To:Chris3)

Has PTC come up with a way to shut off this Pro/Manikin in Wildfire 4.0? Unless you have bought the license it is completely worthless. It puts a menu at the top and another button in assembly mode. It makes a distraction for the users and disables their ability to save.

I’m not sure what advantage this gives Pro/E over the competition. Maybe we should call it “Pro/ManCan’tSave”? This like buying a car with no headlights and when you flip the headlight switch the engine shuts off because you didn’t get the “headlight option.”

Dave Engel

Top Tags