Copy Drawing Sheet/Views Should Also Copy Dimensions

[lhoogeveen]

In Creo Drawings, please add the ability to duplicate a sheet or views AND also copy the view dimensions, annotations, balloons, etc.

Here's everything I've tried:

• The 'Move or Copy Sheet' command creates a new sheet EXCEPT it removes all dimensions from all views. Please keep the dimensions.
• You can backup/rename the current drawing somewhere and then try to 'Import Drawing/Data'. Sometimes the dimensions are kept on the new sheet(s). Sometimes not. Please keep the dimensions.
• Creo doesn't seem to support copying views
  • You can try to select view(s) and copy/paste - nothing happens
  • You can select views and try 'Move to Sheet' but there's no option to copy to sheet. Please add this option.

A use case would be using 'Replace View Model' on the copied views to then swap by by Family Table, Simp Rep, etc. without having to redo all the dimensions.

[AJ_701]

Hi, could you please elaborate the following with some guided steps...

"A use case would be using 'Replace View Model' on the copied views to then swap by by Family Table, Simp Rep, etc. without having to redo all the dimensions."

Thank you.

[lhoogeveen]

We sometimes want to copy view(s) with dimensions of Family Table Instances or Simplified Reps within a drawing (sometimes on the same sheet or on different sheets). Usually 90%+ of the dimensions are the same with just a couple of differences. Currently, there is no way to preserve the dimensions when copying view(s) within the same drawing. Not copying the dimensions leads to lots of manual work adding the dimensions back to the new views.

Proposed steps:

• Use one of the 3 steps above ('Move or Copy Sheet', 'Import Drawing/Data', or a new copy/paste view) to create a copy of the view(s) in the same drawing. Currently dimensions get removed but the idea above is to keep them.
• Now that there's copied view(s) with dimensions preserved, you could swap the Family Table Instance or Simplified Rep using the 'Replace View Model' command which preserves dimensions when swapping. Now the user doesn't have to manually dimension everything in the new view(s). The user only has to add or remove dimensions to show what is different with the Family Table Instance or Simplified Rep.

[TomU]

The problem you're running into is that Creo doesn't allow any dimension to be displayed more than once on a drawing.  To do what you're requesting would require a fairly significant paradigm shift (and probably significant re-coding), though it certainly would be handy.

[Atlas_8850]

I'm a little confused: "Creo doesn't allow any dimension to be displayed more than once on a drawing", but my Creo (4.0) does seem to allow this, on the same drawing, and even on the same feature on the same view on the same sheet (shown below). And yet, when I try to create a new copy of a sheet that has views and dimensions, as @lhoogeveen described, the views copy over, but the dimensions don't, and I need to manually recreate them. 

Well, as it turns out, some of my dimensions do copy over: the zeros of my ordinate dimensions, and the GD&T surface feature control frames. Everything else does not get copied over. 

[StephenW]

@Atlas_8850 If you move you mouse over each dimension or look at the properties for each dimension, you will likely find that they are different dimension symbols for each, or at least should be different dimensions.

[Atlas_8850]

Yes, each dimension does have a different "behind the scenes" name, but surely Creo could just make a new copy of each dimension, and know to give it a new name? Like when you duplicate a file in Windows, it knows to name it "FILENAME(copy)". I'm fairly certain that this is what Solidworks does when making a copy of a drawing sheet, since Solidworks too has "behind the scenes" names for features, which cannot be duplicated. 

[StephenW]

If you are showing a dimension from a model (not creating a dimension), you can only show it once on a drawing. If your dimension has 2 different id's, d12 and d13 (for example), it means your model has both those dimensions. If you tried to show them again, you would not be able to, even on a different sheet. 

Creo does not make "copies" of shown dimensions.

[kdirth]

In general duplicate dimensions on a print is frowned upon.  I have often duplicated a view to dimension different aspects of the view (e.g. shape vs. holes). 

What would be nice is to be able to bring a page from a different drawing into a composite drawing file.  With this you could copy the drawing, change the model, and add that drawing page to the original drawing.  I have not been able to find a way to copy a drawing sheet into a different drawing.