SolidWorks with Windchill Question

[mikebuchter]

We have recently integrated SolidWorks with PTC Windchill. Previously, I have used, NX w/Teamcenter and on the feature tree there was columns for the Revision, State (Released,Obsolete), etc.  Do you know if SolidWorks has anything similar to that?  See attached screenshot for an example.

[MikeLockwood]

All this type of info is available in work group manager but not in SW itself.  We also extensively use SW integrated w/Windchill.

[mikebuchter]

I know its in WGM, but it would be really helpful in SW, I think this is a big flaw on their part.  I am pretty sure the other CAD software has this feature.  I know NX and Solid Edge do, and I believe Creo does as well.

[MikeLockwood]

Yes, in Creo can add all desired columns to the model tree - major convenience.

All of us in our group are long-time Creo users, struggling every day w/the limitations of the SW integration.  More and more going to SolidWorks though, so have to keep supporting.

[DmitryC]

You can always create SolidWorks Add-In showing all relevant information in a convenient way (see the attachment).

[jp493]

Hi DmitryC,

How did you make this add-in?

[Clarence837]

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@krogerfeedback wrote:

Hi DmitryC,

How did you make this add-in?

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I think this is a big flaw on their part.  I am pretty sure the other CAD software has this feature.  I know NX and Solid Edge do, and I believe Creo does as well.

[DmitryC]

Hi John,

There are quite a few topics and videos showing how to start. This is one of them. Then it will depend on what you want to do really.

[JHall]

I wonder if this can also be accomplished with Inventor?

James
Windchill 11.0

Inventor 2018

[jp493]

Thanks Dmitry,

Off the top of your head, do you know if it is possible to add a field that will tell the user if the file is checked out or not?

[DmitryC]

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@jp493 wrote:

Thanks Dmitry,

Off the top of your head, do you know if it is possible to add a field that will tell the user if the file is checked out or not?

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Not easily.

You can push this attribute into CAD, but I don't recommend this approach (we did this for a time than backed-out). There are 2 huge issues in this case:

1.  This attribute does not update when you have it opened in SolidWorks. So if you check something out in the background - you are now showing false information.
2. Every attribute that you are pushing into CAD adds overhead on opening those models. The standard behavior of SolidWorks - when metadata of a CAD model has changed, WWGM add-in will do a silent save in cache right after this CAD has been opened. The check-out status will be constantly changing, so opening a large assembly can become a nightmare. 

There is another way to show the check-out status, but it must be very carefully considered, and it's not scalable for larger companies. You can use Windchill rest API to interrogate the check-out status of the active model. This can be done within on-idle SolidWorks event or using a special class with timer, etc. Both SolidWorks and Windchill performance has to be considered if you chose this path. 

[TomU]

Yes, a quick search shows this is possible via "Assembly Visualization".  Just add additional columns for whatever attributes you're interested in.

[mikebuchter]

How did you get those columns to show up?  When I "Add Columns" is only adds Total Weight, Mass, Density, Volume, is does not give me an option for any other columns.