ModelCHECK ModelUPDATE: Exciting or Terrifying?

[LawrenceS]

At first appearance, I was excited to find out that ModelCHECK (MC) could automatically update things using ModelUPDATE (MU).  After I turned it on and tested it, I am terrified of it.  From what I can tell, MU puts all applicable features through the same blender without giving any say on the admin or user side. 

For example, if you check for the following it will automatically update the model, and neither the Admin nor the User has any say in which one it will automatically do (regardless if set to Error or Warning):

• EXTRA_LAYERS
• EXTRA_PARAMS
• STARTPARM
• STARTLAYER
• BURIED_FEAT
• etc...ModelUPDATE Checks (ptc.com)

This means if I have MC check to see if things are missing or provide a warning that there may be layers that are not needed, MU will auto-delete them.  But what if they are useful?  I cannot warn the user to look at them and see if they make sense!

Even worse, it will delete buried features automatically just because I want a user to look and verify if that buried feature is appropriate or not.  Yes, buried features are sometimes appropriate (and even desired) for things like finishing operations that need both rough and finish dims called out on the same drawing.

An obvious use case for MU would be to automatically add layers/parameters but not auto delete them.  I wouldn't mind it auto deleting if in the extra_layer/param section, but it also auto deletes when we are warning the user that certain layers/param are not in the StartLayer/StartParam.  Just because they aren't a predefined layer/parameter doesn't mean they aren't useful in a specific model, yet we cannot have MU auto add a layer and not auto delete other layers.

Questions:

It appears, by this forum and PTC support, that there are many people using MU.  So I ask

• Given these apparently severe limitations to how MC/MU works, how can one configure MC/MU to work in a way that is useful and not terrifying?
• Am I missing something about how this feature works and we have the ability to automate for certain settings and not automate but warn users for other settings?  e.g. Can you set up MC/MU in some way to do the following: 
  • Use MU to automatically apply the following settings:
    • (Remove) EXTRA_LAYERS
    • (Remove) EXTRA_PARAMS
    • (Add) STARTPARM
    • (Add) STARTLAYER
  • DON'T use MU to automatically apply the following settings but still DO display/warn users to decide what to do:
    • Warn of non-Start Part Parameters (STARTPARM)
    • Warn of non-Start Part Layers (STARTLAYER)
    • Warn of Buried Features (BURIED_FEAT)

[Chris3]

It works as you say. We only use it to do some basic checks and to add parameters to old models. We don't delete anything. Having no warning to the users is a common complaint.

The key to making it work the way that you want is to setup the condition.mcc file with the IF statements to narrow down what gets applied automatically and what doesn't.

If you don't already own a copy you may want to look at buying Re-Use Your CAD: The ModelCHECK Handbook.

[LawrenceS]

@Chris3, 

Yes, I recently purchased that book, and agree that it is very good.  That is actually where I read about the MU capabilities, but so far I have not found anything in the way of implementing MU or tweaking it.  The rest I found out using MU/MC documentation from PTC adn then testing it in our environment.  If this book delves further into MU and I missed it, please let me know the chapter as I have already gathered that the page have changed between editions (I received the 4th ed.)

Correct me if I am wrong, but when you are saying that you don't use it to delete anything, you specifically mean that you use MU only to auto-add stuff, and then you cannot even use MC to notify your users of the other things.

My understanding of the condition.mcc file is that it will decide what to run based on the cad file (name, attributes, etc), however, can it specify to run only certain commands using MU and other commands using MC?

[DomenicLaritz · Accepted solution]

When using ModelUPDATE, you usually never want to use all of the possible checks in UPDATE mode.
For this purpose there is the setting MC_SKIP_CHECK_UPDATE.
With this you can exclude single checks from the UPDATE mode, so that they are treated like normal checks!

[LawrenceS]

I was not aware of this so thank you for sharing.  I will have to give some thought on how to implement in our current system but think this will at least help us harness some low-hanging fruit!  Thanks for sharing!