Automatically suppress multiple features at once with a rule

[sbrown-2]

Can I automatically suppress multiple features at one time within Creo? For example, can I define a rule that says to suppress all holes with a diameter of 6mm or less?

[DeanLong]

Pretty sure you can do that through Pro/Program (Program). An IF THEN ELSE statement(s) should get you the results you want.

[Jose_Costa]

Explore the search tool.

For example:

You can create a search with two rules, the first select all the hole features like shown above:

the second rule select the ones that have the pretended dimension:

You can save this query too for later use.

Explore a little this tool to see how powerful it can be.

Another option is to create a layer with the previous rules, then you just have click on the layer, "select items" and "supress".

I found recently that is possible to copy layers from one model to another, this is really handy because you can have a model with all these layers with associative filters and just copy paste it to another.

Jose

[TomU]

Jose Costa‌,

Can you please confirm that "AND" works correctly is this specific case?  In Creo 3 M050 it seems to be ignoring the "AND" and treating the compound query like "OR".

[Jose_Costa]

Yes, the "and" condition is working. The problem is that this filter selects all kind of dimensions, not just diameters.

Creo 2.0 M110

José

[Jose_Costa]

After some more tests, I realize that the "and " operator doesn't always work, sometimes the results aren't the expected...

Anyway, for this case, I played a little more with the tool and isn't easy as I expected. I could make it work but not in a very elegant way....

First create a new layer (example "holes"), create rules for it and make them associative.

I had to create 3 rules to make it work:

The filter is on, now select only the features in layer tree (don't select the dimensions), switch to feature tree, RMB-> Suppress

There might a cleaner way to do this, but this is the best I achieved.

Jose

[TomU]

Not easily, and not without advance planning.  If this is a model that you have full control over and want to build automation into, then yes.  If you simply want to open anyone's model, locate fasteners by size, and create a rule to suppress, then no.

• Pro-Program works fine to suppress and resume things, but you have to manually create the logical statements to do so in advance.
• Rules can be created to find certain types of objects, but to the best of my knowledge Pro-Program cannot make decisions based on them.

Here are the steps to automate with Pro-Program:

1. Create a parameter to represent your minimum hole size.  ex. MIN_SIZE
2. Edit Pro-Program
   1. Add an IF statement before each hole feature based on the parameter and the hole's dimension.
   2. Add an END IF after each ADD/END ADD block.
   3. Save the Program
3. Control which holes are suppressed by editing the value of MIN_SIZE (and regenerating).

Example (d18 is the hole diameter):

IF D18 > MIN_SIZE

    ADD FEATURE (XXX)

    .....

   END ADD

END IF