Add a way to prevent views from moving after changes

[slapha]

We rely heavily on drawing compare to keep track of changes to a drawing and validate what hasn't changed.

We have found an issue where if you have a drawing and skeletons, components, or geometry changes such that the view border or model border changes the view will shift.

This causes drawings to drastically change when skeletons update, and countless hours have to be taken to fix the drawing views.

So there should be a function/preference to either prevent views from moving and/or to prevent hidden items from affecting view locations.

• If you have the origin set to view center, the view will shift to re-center based on the new outline. This means shifting views and related annotations.
• If you have the view set to base off an unchanging item, like CSYS, the view will stay put, but only if you change this when you make the view initially. If you change this afterwards it will shift and you'll have to fix it anyways. Annotations will still move based on the size of the new border.
• If you have a partial view, it will shift the view based on the theoretical view boundary for the entire model, not the boundary of the partial view.

There is "lock view movement", but this only prevents you the user from moving it, if the models change, or origin changes it will still shift the view.

Here's another extreme example that I used to test the results from a PTC support ticket and verify how the views were changing. The response from them was "Works as specified". (Case 12653660)

On the following sample part- All the Red Flags are related to the view. All the blue flags are not related to the view. Dimensions are all model dimensions.

I added a large piece that would alter the size of the view so it would be clear what would move. Original part is marked in grey.

It’s a bit difficult to see, but the blue flags are all lined up in their original orientation around the view center. They’re not lined up with the original view geometry.

The view stays centered relative to the overall center. it’s not based on say the CS0. Even if the view movement is locked it will still re-center because it doesn’t see that as a move.

The red ones and dimensions moved proportional to the size of the view and also moved with the view based on how the view changed. If the view expanded to the right, the flags expanded to be equally spaced along that side of the view.

So I’ve found the following

• View associated symbols, and dimensions will scale relative to the overall size of the view, even if those individual features didn’t change
• Views will adjust so that the center point is still at the center of the original view, this includes some changes to the skeletons
• Non-associated symbols or annotations will remain in the location that they were placed (though everything around them could change)
• Datum features on a skeleton will not update view size
• Shapes and sketches on a skeleton will update a view size even if not visible
• Changing View Origin from Center to a picked location will move that picked point to the center location, or sometimes off the page
• Lock view movement only locks manual user movement

[TomU]

You mentioned placing the view off an unchanging item, like the default CSYS.  If you do this (every time!) and then create snap lines off the actual geometry (instead of the view outline), do you still have the same problems?

[slapha]

It depends. I did a test with geometry snap lines, when the view expanded the snap lines expanded as well. The annotations expanded as well even though the original geometry didn't change.
The movement is stable if you pick the CSYS, assuming your design doesn't move relative to that CSYS. Though a lot of what we're dealing with is older legacy drawings that now have to have a lot of rework to get them to look like they were.

Though for view snap lines they also scale based on the size of the view and the annotations move with the lines.

Did a quick example:

[TomU]

Yikes!

I realize this isn't your use case, but I wonder if the same behavior occurs in 3D...  What if you created the dimensions, annotations, etc. in 3D and then simply displayed them in the drawing on a combined state?  Do they still go nuts?

[slapha]

So in most of our newer stuff we do use model dimensions and annotations. Tried it out. In both the model and the drawing the symbols remained in about the same spot, no real shifting identified. The dimensions however did move. A real odd one, I changed the model to expand in the X direction, the dimension measuring the width of the original geometry actually moved in the Y direction. The model's overall Y height didn't change. Appears to be a small bug.

The symbols didn't move because they had 3D dependency still active. If you move them on the drawing before the change they move around, but "restore 3D dependency" brings them back to their original spot.

Combined state views for TOP and FRONT

Added additional geometry.

The dimension on the left doesn't look too bad, but if you notice the dimension in green moved when it shouldn't have. Though the symbols stayed, which is something.

Move any of those symbols before making the changes and they move.

However you can move them back with restore 3D dependency and they go back to the view just above this one.

[dhermosillo]

Creo needs another setting that prevents the views from being scaled.  If a view has it's origin set to a csys, all of the view related objects should reference that csys as well.

PTC, this is causing massive numbers of hours of lost productivity; can we get a comment from you on this?

[sramavat]

To prevent the view from moving out of template due to change in model size can be avoided to some extent by using "drawing_scale_factor" in your model relation. It makes the drawing template scale dynamic which change as the model size changes, thus keeping the view size same with respect to template.

Pls go thru the below link:

Using the "drawing scale factor relation" to automatically resize views - EAC Tip-of-the-Week - YouT...

[olivierlp]

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