Pro/ENGINEER FAQ 2008

OK, you’ve got yourself a hot new 30″ monitor to go with your screamin’ Quadro card, but you’re only getting 1280 x 800 graphics?

Problem: ONLY ONE of the DVI connectors on the back actually supplies Dual Link DVI. They may look the same, but they’re not! I normally put my cables into the connector at the top of the card, but the #1 connector on my two cards, (a 560 and 3450) is actually the bottom, and seems to be the Dual Link DVI connector.

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I’m going to attempt to summarize the “Best Practice” information I’ve collected over the years in a couple of pages over the next few months. If you have something to contribute, please post - but don’t expect to see your individual post; it will be combined with others in the summary pages.

Let the fun begin.

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Over the years I’ve had several Contour Design mice. The last one was kinda disappointing, but I was desperate for a new mouse and I went back to Contour. They still offer an “ergonomic” 3-button mouse in several sizes, as well as left and right hands. The neat thing about their latest mouse is the scroll wheel above the thumb. Now you can keep the soft action of the middle button and have the scrolling at your thumb tip. Contour has updated the optical tracking, so this mouse is ready to go.

It’s kind of pricey, but I’m back in “like” with Contour’s Perfit Mouse. If you get tired of “clicking” a scroll wheel, give this a try.

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This post probably won’t make me any friends, but here goes.

I read something on the exploder the other day that seemed like a good idea: Create a strikethrough font for drawing notes. I thought about doing that myself once, but then I remembered something and checked the PTC website for confirmation:

Remember that Pro/ENGINEER files using these new fonts (.drw, .lay, .frm, etc.), which are transferred to other systems that do not contain these customized font definitions, will be retrieved using the Pro/ENGINEER default fonts. As a result, for consistency, include the font source, compiled, and index files when sending Pro/ENGINEER files referencing the new fonts.

The problem I had before was that a customer created a custom default font that looked like their old 2D CAD font and every time I plotted a drawing, I got complaints because I didn’t have the custom font. Realistically, this wouldn’t be the end of the world because the content of the drawing did not change, but it was annoying!

But, what about a strikethrough font? What happens if it gets replaced by the default font? Right — the drawing changes. Scary, huh? Using this font is a commitment for life. If it works for you, great.

I hate drawing lines through notes as much as anyone and I don’t like creating draft groups, but, even though I don’t have a better solution, I don’t think I can recommend adoption of this particular practice.

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Google Trends search for Pro/E, SolidWorks

Notice the regions showing the most interest? Is SolidWorks the tool for the emerging economies?

India is, of course, high for PTC because of operations there. It’s also second on my Google Analytics, but China doesn’t show up at all. Hmmm.

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I’m just getting caught up on some exploder reading, and I can’t believe how many guys seem to be battling sketcher constraints. It’s real pretty simple:
Read the message, guys!

Right click to disable, Shift-Right click to enable (AVI)

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<whine> Most of the time, I’m forced to work on some bloated corporate machine on an underpowered network. </whine>

I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to buy a SUN PC, a remanufactured Ultra 20 workstation. After a few hours playing with Solaris whatever that came pre-installed, I loaded Windows 2000!  Think about running W2k (not really that bad in its mature state) on newer hardware with PCI Express x16 graphics, SATA drives, and Opteron power. And, believe it or not, PTC actually supports Windows 2000 workstation for Wildfire 3 and Intralink 3.x server and client! What fun! What speed! Running Pro/E on your Intralink server? Obviously not a production idea, but a great learning environment.

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I guess I opened a can of worms with my reply to a previous post, so here’s my attempt at defining the traits of a good Pro/E operator.

1. You have to be a decent designer
   • The implication here is that you understand that CAD models are mere representations of an imperfect reality. Surfaces are not perfectly flat. Tubes are not perfectly round.
   • You need to understand the implication of tolerances and choose real values for your features. Don’t go off creating dimensions to 4 places unless your process is capable of controlling features to that level of precision! Remember the cost and reality of the precision you can afford.
   • You should have a basic understanding of the processes involved in making your parts. Choose features relevant to the actual manufacture of your parts. Sheetmetal parts are driven by one surface offset by a thickness - don’t go extruding solid holes. Screw machine parts are created on a lathe - try using revolved features. Injection molded parts are fun, but remember - if it’s supposed to thin, use a thin feature.
   • Use some logic in the assembly of your machines, and the order of feature creation.
2. You need to be a decent drafter
   • There’s more to creating a model than making pretty pictures. Drawings at some level of detail are still required in a lot of companies. Be careful to avoid creating dimension schemes that can’t be inspected; symmetry constraints are a common pitfall - try writing a relation instead. Creating drawings with parametric dimensions can save time and money. Separating the modeling and drafting functions is inconsistent with the parametric nature of Pro/E - fixing bad dimensioning schemes just to create an acceptable drawing is expensive, usually results in shortcuts, and sometimes creates errors.
   • There’s more to creating a drawing than slapping down views and showing dimensions. Drafting has a certain aesthetic component that a lot of people aren’t exposed to anymore. A drafter should have a little respect for white space, alignment, dimension placement, etc. It’s too bad that a lot of the best examples of drafting “art” are buried away in dusty flat files!
3. You need to be a programmer
   • Writing a CAD application is a huge undertaking. As a user, you don’t necessarily need to know all the math behind surface equations, but understanding some of the programming requirements will help you understand tangency, continuity, trajectories, etc. I think of Pro/E as a multi-level database: drawings depend on assemblies which depend on parts which depend on features, etc. Thinking in terms of a database will help you figure out why you can’t create an intersection curve between two part surfaces in an assembly, or a geometric tolerance from a part datum. With experience comes a better understanding of the database.
4. You need to be consistent
   • I don’t want to imply that CAD operators are robots, but consistency makes it easier for you and others to understand your work. Good work is always easy to recognize.
   • Pro/E is a complicated program. Consistency avoids mistakes.
5. Attention to detail
   • If you don’t have it, you’re probably not collecting a paycheck.
6. KISS - take pity on the next guy
   • Learn to control layers, relations, geometry checks, warning messages.
   • Simpler is better. You may be proud of it, but don’t wind up being the “goat”.
   • Don’t booby trap the model with unused features.
   • Avoid complicated sketches and clean up weak dimensions and constraints.
7. Finally, persistence and learning
   • Pro/E is a complicated program. There’s always more than one way to solve a problem. An experienced Pro/E user will have multiple solutions to most problems and be able to choose according to the specifics of the situation.
   • Expect more. Pro/E can do a lot of cool things. You just have to look in the right place.
   • Learn from others. That’s how most of the REALLY good users earn their credibility.
8. Why 2-D experience can be a hindrance
   • I don’t want to pick on AutoCAD (that’s where I started), but the biggest criticism I have of 2-D (and created dimensions, by the way) is that the schemes are often times incomplete and sometimes circular.
   • A problem for 2-D drafters is that they may have learned to rely on shortcuts that don’t deal with 3-D reality. Pro/E won’t show or create a dimension that’s not actually true!
   • Another problem will be that 2-D drafters may find Pro/E’s drawing tools too easy to use. I hate draft entities with a passion. I can usually solve most of my drafting problems with parametric capabilities in symbols, cosmetic features, proper GD&T, etc, but I’m afraid a new user might want to re-create the old 2-D solution.
   • Finally, I’m not sure 2-D drafters will understand the power of Pro/E’s 3-D drafting capabilities. They may not be accustomed to adding sections or detailed views because they were too much work!

OK. Just remember, this is my 2¢, nothing more.

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Here’s a link to an old topic that came up at work this week. I finally got a chance to solve the problem using Behavior Modeler and it seems pretty slick, but simple relations work just as well, and make for a simpler model.

 I have had problems in the past with the new mass property parameters, but hopefully these have been resolve. Just to be safe, I would double-check these relations against the info in the Model Analysis (old, but reliable). I wouldn’t assume that these relations are “set and forget”!

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