Bulk export of CAD files from Windchill with automatic reassignment of file names

[AF_mechdesigner]

Version: Windchill 12.1

Use Case: Bulk export of file according to customer requests

Description:

Hello everyone,

I searched on Windchill helpcenter, but coudn't find a complete answer.

Does anyone know if it's possible to perform a "bulk export" operation of CAD files from Windchill with automatic reassignment of file names?

This is the scenario:

1) I have .asm files (Creo) and Catproduct (Catia V5) files stored in Windchill commonspace, each one having their file name according to company rules.

2) All the files (.asm, .prt, Catproduct, Catpart) also have designated Windchill parameters that include the appropriate number defined according to customer rules (hence differing from the current file name)

3) Ideally, I would export a selection of .asm and Catproduct files, including all the "Dependent" items and save them to a local folder for subsequent transfer to the customer's PLM

4) Before sending the files to the customer, I would need a bulk rename operation which modifies ALL FILE NAMES making them equal to the "customer part number" parameter which is visible in Windchill. This is mandatory before uploading them on the customer's PLM and cannot be done via Windows CMD, because this would break any asm/prt relation

5) Of course I would need Creo and Catia assemblies to maintain their structure, so that the customer can retrieve the assemblies (.asm / Catproduct) without "retrieval failure" errors.

Is this available in Windchill out-of-the-box or did someone create their own script to perform this task?

Thank you, regards

[d_graham · Accepted solution]

Yes, I wrote a utility to do it that runs from a Windchill shell.

It took about 3 hours to export ~400 GB of data.

It also puts the cad files in a Windows folder structure that mirrors the Windchill folder structure the CAD Docs are in.

It worked great.

I also have a utility to export an assembly or assembly drawing with all dependents.

[AF_mechdesigner]

@d_graham Thank you for your reply.

I was expecting that this functionality is not available out-of-the-box, but it's good to know that you succeded in creating a custom Windchill shell.

Processing time is not a problem, as this could run overnight without overburdening the server while users are checking in/out CAD data.

[avillanueva]

Does this handle the case of renames? If a component is renamed but the parent assembly had not picked up on it, there is a potential in the export that the rename event was not persisted into the assembly file and it would be looking for the component by the old filename.

[AF_mechdesigner]

@avillanueva Exactly, I assumed that @d_graham 's utility takes care of preserving assembly structures (i.e. when opening an assembly, it would not show retrieval failure errors due to file names that have changed after the last "save" operation). I hope I understood correctly...

[d_graham]

@avillanueva  and @AF_mechdesigner 

I have a few tools to do this.

One does the export simply by copying the files from the Windchill vault into a Windows folder that mirrors the Windchill folder structure.  This tool includes a file that prints out the complete re-filename history of any object that ever had its filename changed.

Additionally, this tool creates a sorted search.pro file that includes all of the folder paths that the cad files were exported to.

This tool exports ONLY the latest rev.iteration of the cad doc.

Second tool does not require a re-filename history as it compensates for any re-filename that occurred AFTER the CAD Doc that references the renamed file was stored. This tool requires a CAD worker.

I also have a tool that will supply a list of all CAD Docs where the content file of the latest rev.iteration was stored BEFORE a referenced CAD Doc was re-filenamed as these are the cases that could be a problem re: Missing Component when opening in Pro/E, Wildfire, Creo Parametric or whatever you want to call it.  Me, I've always liked the name Pro/ENGINEER.

There are other ways to do this as well, but what I have outlined above are my recommendations.