Difference between thingworx and thingworx navigate

[Jamal8548]

Hello,

   What is the difference between thingworx and thingworx naviagte. I am working on thingworx but thingworxnavigate is also a platform or how does it works. Would anyone clear my confusion please

[BenLoosli]

My $.02 worth.

Thingworx Navigate is an application for viewing drawings from Windchill. It is built on the base Thingworx platform which itself is built on Windchill.

Much like Windchill PDMLink is an application built on the Windchill development platform.

We looked at Thinkworx Navigate to replace/supplement CreoView, but after looking into it and our usage, we dropped the support after 2 years and took the hit for the cost and maintenance fees paid and never used.

[Rocko]

Small correction on this: ThingWorx is not built on Windchill.

ThingWorx is a platform you can create applications on, mostly IIoT apps, but it is not tied to IIoT. Navigate is one product that is built on the ThingWorx platform and focuses around Windchill use cases. Navigate provides a framework for role-based apps, and viewing drawings is one of them. You can create your own Navigate apps when your license allows.

While ThingWorx licensing comes from IoT side (SCO or SCP licenses), Navigate licenses are driven from Windchill.

More on Navigate's capabilities is here: https://www.ptc.com/en/products/thingworx/navigate

[Jamal8548]

Thanks @Rocko for further information but have you ever come acrossed the usecase that "We want pvz (ilu) file directly from windchill to vuforia studio " so we dont have to upload this file again and again in the vuforia studio instead it works dynamically. In  windchill we save pvz file after making animation so i want kind automation that these group of files belong to this experience and then we can choose from drop down in vuforia studio. Now i know that it needs to be working with thingworx platform. I got different answers like as below ...for this use case as it is huge area... 

Vuforia Studio---> Thingworx Navigate ---> Windchill (Rest Api)

Vuforia Studio ---> Thingworx (Single Sign On)---> Windchill

As the Thingworx Navigate just use the Windchill RestAPI and it is Thingworx aplication that use SSO authentication with Windchill..

So one can write own function and use the restApi without Navigate but there u just need to connect the Thingworx to the Windchill. 

And yes it can be easier to you if the Navigate is installed because there are many examples how to get information from Windchill.

What can be the feasible/straight solution here? I am confused and please also mention about the usecase that even is it valid or not. In the next year.

In my company we will have automation in windchill like if  ASM/PRT file would be updated then the whole process runs itself like it creates itself PVZ source file then i think if pvz ilu is there it would be also updated automatically ..so like a process.. 

my goal is to make our experiences dynamic and these pvz(ilu) files would be fetched and run dynamically in the experiences. Any insights?

[Rocko]

I can't help with the SSO topic, but if licensing is not an issue, use Navigate if that solves the SSO problem for you. Remember, anything you can do with ThingWorx, you can also do with Navigate.

If you don't have Navigate licenses yet, you can use plain ThingWorx and talk REST to Windchill to get a PVZ, using a system account with the proper privileges.

As you mention the pipeline, you could also think about addressing this from the other side, whenever a PVZ file is created, you also push it into a (Thingworx) file repository so TWX wouldn't have to talk to Windchill in the first place. This repository could become quite large, though.

[Jamal8548]

Thanks @Rocko I also have few queries in this regard:-

Query 1

So if i talk about Thingworx and REST thats quite clear for me to use but when you have mentioned about pipelines in the windchill which can bring automation and stores the pvz files in Repositry --> for this automation do we use POST PUBLISH concept

 https://support.ptc.com/help/windchill/plus/r12.0.2.0/en/index.html#page/Windchill_Help_Center%2FWVSPublishRulesPostPublish.html%23

OR

 what is the standard way you can recommend to bring an automation in windchill to upload the pvz in repositry with pipeline concept? any keyword for this purpose?

Query 2

As far as i understand the thingworx navigate it brings the models etc in app and user can see it but how can i picture in my mind that NAVIGATE bring the pvz file into vuforia studio from windchill. how does this work.? OR  in vuforia we use api of thingworx navigate which hit and bring pvz file from windchill API?

Query 3

If i use thingworx and use REST api of windchill to get the data. should i get it directly from windchill and show it in experience but i think this approach is not good as it takes alot of time to bring the data(PVZ) from windchill. it takes even further time to get it in vuforia .

The better is to save the file in repositry and then simply get them in vuforia studio? right?

[Rocko]

I can't tell you how this is done in Windchill, but I guess it would be an Info*Engine task to send a POST request to TWX. You will have ot ask in the Windchill forum about that.

In Navigate you can have your own mashups, things and services. If the PVZ was acquired from Windchill you can put it into a FileRepository and pass the link to Vuforia which can get it from there. Or you write a service in TWX delivering the PVZ Blob if Vuforia can consume this.

The repository can also work as a cache. TWX tries to get it from cache and if it's not there, it retrieves it from Windchill and puts it into the cache.