Creo Parametric Ideas

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Electro Mechanical company. I'm the Windchill responsible and using Creo as mechanical engineer. We just migrated from Solid Edge to Creo 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? 7.0.2.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. As described above we migrated our organization from SolidEdge to Creo and missing certain "basic" functions which were available there. One of the features we are missing is the "Quick view cube" which was available there.     A simple cube in any corner, rotating with the displayed model. When clicking on the cube, the view oriented as selected, so in above example it would then orient to the Front view. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Especially in bigger assemblies you are quickly lost how you are looking right now at the model or you just want to very quick orient it in a certain manner, e.g. looking at an angle of 45° at the back top edge.   Here you see all the available options: 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? Basically it's a matter of effiecency and user friendliness, not needing to save and each and every possible view in a table, but have it in a graphical way available. ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. We're an OEM in the textile industry. Development of yarn winding, processing and handling machines. We work a lot with sheetmetal, often using inserts. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo 9.0.2 Windchill 12.1.2.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. A sheetmetal part cannot have representations or a family table. This makes it impossible to produce a flat instance or flat representation. This makes it impossible to add a flat state to a drawing. 4. What is the use case for your organization? In our ERP system, we assign a partnumber to a bend part, with its inserts and paint. The reason we do this, is to minimise administration during the seperate steps and because inserts are often inserted in the flat state. We're currently switching from Modeling. In modeling we solved this by adding the inserts in a 'container'. Since Parametric doesn't have containers, we would resort to an inseperable assemblies. An assembly, (representing the finished part with inserts and paint) would hold an embedded component,(the sheetmetal part) and the inserts. This seems to meet all our demands, except for the flat state, which we cannot put on drawing... 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? Our work around is using a seperate partnumber for the sheetmetal part, leaving several opportunities for mistakes as assemblies and parts can be mismatched during check-out, copying, release,... ... View more

Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 1. What version of the software are you running? 7.0.2 2. What is the problem? When opening any part within Creo, the context menu looks always the same, independent if an object is in Draft or Approved state. After using an "invalid" option like Check-Out for an Approved object, the user receive an error message, that he isn't allowed to run this operation on this object. Idea would be to introduce a validator which hides invalid operations, as for example Check-Out for approved objects or revise and check-out for objects which are already in Draft stare.           3. Are you using a workaround? If yes, please describe it. No real workaround available. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Describe how your idea would work in context or how it would apply to a practical situation. Simplifies a users life and makes him more efficient as he doesn't need to check for the state of objects, but he is automatically prompted with valid options. 5. What impact does this problem currently have on your organization? (Number of users affected, hours of lost productivity, etc.) All Creo Users are affected, loosing per check-out some seconds, easily adds up to hours during a year. ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Global - All our customers that use the chamfer feature. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo 7.0.8.0 to Creo 9.0.1.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. When you create a chamfer feature Creo automatically selects the Offset Surfaces option instead of Tangent Distance, but this default selection can lead to issues/incorrect chamfer sizes (and thus also to parts being manufactured with the wrong chamfer sizes) because each option uses a different way to calculate the chamfer size - the difference between the two options is explained in detail in article CS149419   So for some companies/projects/products, this option has to be manually changed to Tangent Distance for each Chamfer feature, which (for example) can take a lot of time if you are working with models that have a lot of Chamfer features.   A new config option would allow the user to set the defaul selected option (Offset Surfaces or Tangent Distance)   4. What is the use case for your organization? This would make working with chamfers more efficiently 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? This would be a big help for our customers who use Creo: this config option would allow them to set this default selection so they don't have to change this manually anymore. This would also give them the ability to work more correct and efficient. ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Applies to all industries and all users. I'm a long time admin user of Pro/E - Creo 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo 8.0.5.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. Please add the ability to use the Edit References command on features that have lost their references that are included in a Group who has been patterned.  Currently the Edit References command not availible for Features included in a Group which has been Patterned. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Any part file that has had feature references removed and needs the features references rerouted to new references where a previous supporting feature was removed from the part.  As you go thru design iterations this may be incurred regularly. Currently one has to redefined the  feature and with a hole you have to delete the old reference and select new references and then re-enter the valves for the placement of the hole.  With access to the edit references one would be able to see what the old reference was and select a new reference for each missing reference without having to re-enter the values for the dimensions. Thus saving time and money. 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? Would make the users more efficient saving the company time and money allow use to deliver product more quickly and increasing our ROI.  ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. All industries that create, edit and use sheetmetal parts in Creo Parametric. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo Parametric 7.0.8.0 up to 9.0.0.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video.   In Sheetmetal parts if dependent copy is selected in a new mirror feature, both partially and fully dependent options stay greyed out and are not clickable. Meanwhile in Modeling parts if dependent copy is selected in a new mirror feature, you can select either partially dependent or fully dependent.   Note: this bug has existed since 2014 and has never been fixed: CS166281 - Mirror feature option "Fully dependent with options to vary" is grayed out in Sheetmetal mode in Creo Parametric          Once a mirror feature is created in a Sheetmetal part and you edit the bend position type of the original feature (for example Flat 1 in the screenshot ) then the mirrored feature is not automatically updated:         This can lead to dangerous/costly mistakes if a designer is not paying attention and/or assumes the sheetmetal mirror feature automatically updates its children features!       On the other hand, you can also for example edit the height of the flat/flange feature that is created by the mirror feature (for example "Flat 1 (2)" in the screenshot below) without receiving any warnings about breaking dependencies, while with a Modeling part you receive this warning after changing a parameter in the child feature of a mirror feature:       And lastly we noticed that if we go to the mirror feature after editing a feature that is created before the mirror feature, that the "Reapply mirror" does not appear in the mirror feature in the sheetmetal part. The same procedure in a Modeling part does give us this option in the mirror feature:   4. What is the use case for your organization? To improve the ease of use while creating and editing sheetmetal parts 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? More robust mirror functionality will save time and money ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. All industries that create, edit and use parts in Creo Parametric. I am Creo administrator in my company. All Creo users are conceerned 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo parametric 8.0.2.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. By default the depth option is set to blind to create the first extrusion. For each new part created, users have to change the depth option to "Symetric" to create the first extrusion. It would be good to have the possibility to configure Creo to set by default the extrusion     of a  part as symetric     (or other) instead of blind. Have a config.pro option to set this option. 4. What is the use case for your organization? To improve the ease of use while creating parts 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? Less repetitive tasks will save time and money. ... View more

I'm using Creo 8.0 and currently in ECAD it is not allow to create a board with different thickness, or use multibody features in the ECAD environment, since I can create only a board for assembly .    I would like to have the possibility: -to create a board with different thickness -to create more than one board in such a way that I can use multibody or can create different board to unite between them self. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. 4. What is the use case for your organization? 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. I work in collaboration with a design for manufacturing group. My task is to list some rules established in order to avoid some manufacturing problem when we design particularly in sheet metal. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? I am currently running creo parametric 7.0.2.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. My goal was to automate sheet metal rules in creo parametric in order to have some errors or warnings displayed automatically when we don't respect rules established. I have already searched some sheet metal rules in model properties in the sheet metal module but the verification is manual through the window "model information" where we have design rule-violation check.  I have also found the tool "check rule" in files>prepare after previously added relation like MC_MODEL_TYPE ='sheetmetal' but it only display some added rules. Those rules haven't any effects in the model. So I suggest the automation of the sheetmetal rules through "Model check " or a mapkey to create automatically the verification of rules. Furthermore, if it is possible you can add other rules or let user add other rules. You can also categorize some existing rules like  minimal distance between rectangular hole and bound , between circular hole and bound etc... For example of rules I want to add: "if the length of a rectangular hole is superior to 15*thickness, the minimal distance between hole and bound is 5*thickness"  4. What is the use case for your organization? This allows some designers to apply some design rules established inside the organization in sheet metal. 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? This represents the design quality ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. We design and manufacture high-end electronics. I am the CAD Manager / PTC SME. Stakeholders for this idea include our Creo user community.  2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? 8.0.5.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. Reference: Case: 16087371 SPR: 13261009       In our PCB Board start-part, we have ecad areas for the annular rings around PCB mounting holes. These ecad keep outs are on the top and bottom of the PCB. We create an ecad area on one side, referencing the hole. Then we create the ecad area on the second side and reference the first ecad area. We group the 2 areas and reference pattern it to the PCB holes. This works great in the regular part mode. However, in the ECAD module (which is using the sheetmetal code), it doesn't work! According to PTC and R&D, ECAD areas that use projected curves cannot be reference patterned. This seems like a full-on bug to me. If it works fine in one module, yet it doesn't in the other, that can cause frustration and confusion with the user-base. Can we get this fixed? See attached for sample files.  4. What is the use case for your organization? Our organization designs hundreds of products a year, all with PCBs. We are trying to extend our usage to the ECAD module, but we keep on hitting bugs, like this one, that prevents us from using it the way we need. 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? This would get us closer to use the ECAD module, which would bring benefit to our organization, whether through the IDX collaboration standard, or it's ECAD capabilities.   Thank you   @Alex_Y  ... View more

We have conic Sheet metal parts that are a combination of areas that are developable( can be flattened onto a plane without distortion-"stretching"/"compression") and areas that are non-developable. Naturally, if we remove the areas that are non-developable the rest of the part has a Gaussian curvature(value=0) and hence 100% developable and can be unbent. We do not want to remove the non-developable surfaces because they are essential to the manufacturing process for the final product. We also have parts that are completely round with no flat surface that we would like to unbend. We need the ability to unbend conic parts that have  a combination of surfaces that are developable and surfaces that are non-developable as well as the ability to unbend conic parts without any flat surfaces. both to flat (sheetmetal parts) ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Power systems, Product design engineer, power network operators 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? 6.0.6.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. Making a sheetmetal part. Create a flat from the base Planar feature. Mirror that flat to create a U-channel. Need to make a small adjustment to the original flat to increase relief, change bend position, etc. Mirrored part CANNOT UPDATE. Forced to delete mirror feature, and recreate tens of features because subsequent features were reliant on now deleted geometry.  What a terrible software experience considering the cost of Creo, and how widely used it is. This is basic functionality, but you can't even handle updating a geometry feature. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Reducing suffering experienced while doing my job. Helping PTC accelerate their product innovation. 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? Making people less frustrated with your software. ... View more

Reference Case: 15655921 Reference SPR: 11246232 Although we design in English units for most parts, we are using metric sheetmetal thicknesses. We have therefore changed the unit for the SMT_THICKNESS parameter and set it to be calculate. When we update the thickness dimension, it does not flow back up to the SMT_THICKNESS parameter and convert to the metric value. This parameter would be used in model-based-definition annotations (like 1mm thickness, 1.2mm thickness, etc). We want it driven from the english dimension so there are no inconsistencies.    Thank you! ... View more

In Sheetmetal unbending creates bend notes. Currently it is possible to modify: - symbol for type and direction of bend note. - add inner or outer radius - angle   It is not possible to define which angle is shown in Bend Note - supplementary or complementary.   It is quite simple in some other softwares.   Suggestion for PTC:  - Current config:   smt_bend_notes_order &type&direction&angle - Modified config: smt_bend_notes_order &type&direction&angle (&type&direction&comp_angle) ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. I am a Mechanical Engineer and I am working as technical support engineer in GMMSPL for PTC Creo 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? Creo 8.0.3.0 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. This is regarding the sheet metal flatten dxf file creation for laser cutting. Currently we have to do lot of steps to create the dxf file starting from flatten to place the proper view and then remove the non required edges, lines then export.   But when we compared it to solidwork then it has the capability to export the flatten sheet to dxf right from part, and in very easy manner. Do we have any road map for this in future to have the feature in flat pattern preview option to create the dxf file as required 4. What is the use case for your organization? Save a lot of time and steps tends to save money 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? TIme saving ... View more

In sheetmetal a user can create a bend order sequence. This means setting up a bend order sequence in the sheet metal part that can later be accessed by the drawing and displayed with Show Model Annotations to display a bend order table. In that report there is a line item referring to the number of bends.  It would be very useful to have a sheet metal parameter that has the total number of bends in a sheet metal part, that can be referenced without the need to create a bend order table and manually inspect the table to report the total number of bends. Could a sheet metal parameter be added that updates automatically and lists the number of bends in a part as an integer eg. SMT_PART_BEND_QTY  ... View more

Reference case: 15640004 Reference SPR: 11255994 Some parameters, like smt_dflt_bend_radius do NOT update when you change the unit of the model. This is potentially a big issue. Either: The model fails and the user takes precious time to investigate and fix the issue - Not ideal The model doesn't fail and the user visually noticed the geometric differences and investigates and fixes the issue - Risky The model doesn't fail and the user didn't realize that the internal bend radius is much larger than before - Spoiler alert - It happened!. This is an issue as it impacts the model and the design.   Please fix!   Thanks! ... View more

PTC Creo should implement conversion, compatibility or even method switching in terms of Bend Allowance calculation and table. Both Creo Parametric and Creo Elements Direct Modeling Sheetmetal Shop should be 100% compatible to each other and to bending machines terminals. Today Creo Elements Direct Modeling Sheetmetal shop is, while Creo Parametric is not.” ... View more

1. Describe your environment: What is your industry? What is your role in your organization? Describe your stakeholders. Metal stamping company, we develope metal stamping tooling. 2. What version of Creo Parametric are you currently running? 7.0.4 3. Describe the problem you are trying to solve. Please include detailed documentation such as screenshots, images or video. Scale bodies and quilts, should be enhanced. Scale the whole body or quilt, as a scale factor for all axis, or special scale factors for each axis. 4. What is the use case for your organization? Create some deformation, for bodies and quilts 5. What business value would your suggestion represent for your organization? ... View more