Expressions

[Pretengineer]

Running NX 6.0.2.8

Is there a way to reset the pvalues in NX?

I have a saveAS model from TeamCenter and the pvalues are on p1600 and I want them to be reset and continue from p20.

Thanks,
Pretengineer

 

[cowski]

I am curious why you are concerned with the pvalues?

Anyway this thread may be of assistance: thread561-220545

 

[Pretengineer]

I'm creating a template model and wanted the pvalues to be at lower numbers. I'll take a look at the other thread.
Thanks,
P

 

[Pretengineer]

The link and freeware didn't work any others?

 

[jerry1423]

If there is a way to do what you are asking, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

 

[cowski]

Try searching the forum. I'm sure this has come up more than once, I just linked to the first useful looking post I found.

 

[jackley]

The program from Sea4ug will reorder them. Sounds like that is what you are looking for.

Is it not?

Justin
Designer

 

[Pretengineer]

The dll file from Sea4ug didn't work, only for NX4 and NX5.
I'm running NX6.

Yes I would likt it to renumber the expressions but also if I start a new sketch it would be the next pvalue after reumbering say to p25. My first dimension in the new sketch would be p26 not p1700.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes, I verified that as well. SEA needs to update their utility.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JonSelby]

Whilst the O.C.D. in me thinks this is a great idea, is there any technical benefit to re-numbering?

It may be clutching at straws, but I guess my models that are getting on for p18000 might take a little less disk space?

 

[Pretengineer]

Whilst the O.C.D. in me thinks this is a great idea, is there any technical benefit to re-numbering?

No not really.

It may be clutching at straws, but I guess my models that are getting on for p18000 might take a little less disk space?

The idea was to have an existing drawing to become a template to reduce time and make all these type of models/drawing consistant (same notes, same layout.etc..). Renumber expressions from p0 to p35. With that said it would be nice to have the expression counter to start from the last expression number (p35) and not from the previous saveas model which is on p1700.

Maybe this can be added in a later revision along with a spell check.

-Pretengineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

No, there is technically nothing to be gained in terms of disk space or performance for having sequentially numbered 'p-named' expressions or even low numbered ones. The 'gaps' in the name sequence are just that 'gaps', but they not taking up any 'space', it's just a number.

A classic example of this is creating one of the new Hole features introduced in NX 5.0. When the user selects the Hole function the software does not yet know for sure how many expressions is going to be needed for the feature since there are so many possible combination of options and characteristics, some of which will require more expressions to capture the parameters than others so a sort of 'worst-case' assumption is made. So what happens is the system checks to see what is the last expression 'p-name' that has been assigned in this part file and then starting with the next number, the software 'sets-aside' the maximum number of expression names which could possibly be needed if you ended up with the most complex (or at least expression 'heavy') hole configuration. Now once the hole is created and the actual needed expressions are created, the system does NOT perform an automatic recovery of all of the 'p-names' which were pre-assigned temporarily but then were unneeded. They just get 'deleted', but their 'p-names' are also lost since the next feature will take whatever the NEXT unused 'p-name' is on the stack. It may sound like a poor approach, but since there is no penalty to pay, other than something which looks odd, why should we WASTE compute cycles for something which is NOT going to gain us anything in the end. Besides, what happens when you open a part file and start deleting features you created yesterday? What do you do with all of the expression names which have been deleted when the feature was deleted? Granted, I guess we could look at all of 'gaps' in the 'p-name' sequence of used expressions and try to reuse them, but even that would require extra compute cycles and more complex code which would need to be tested and even then it still produce odd results as features with multiple expressions would end up not having sequential names anyway since you couldn't always find a string of unused names long enough to cover all that was needed so you'd have to keep going to the NEXT unused name, and so on. I think you get the picture.

Note that I'm not saying that a utility which a user could execute which would resequence the names wouldn't be handy to have as a 'housecleaning' tool, but in terms of actually delivering anything MORE than 'smaller' numbered-names with no gaps, it would be hard to justify implementing something this as part of our effort to enhance and maintain NX.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[wecurb]

Pret. Wait until you see the garbage appear via an imported model! I am in your camp on the reordering. It just appears very sloppy and unorganized to they who aquire your data. Very similar to the disorganization on drawings with view letters that look haphazard after deleting and regenerating views.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Are you referring to the 'hashed' names of the Expressions copied from the part being imported?

This is done so as to assure that there are NO conflicts between the expressions names in the original part file and any of the expressions from the imported part(s). This is rather common in situations like that.

However, that being said, I've written a simple GRIP program (attached below) which, after you've finished your import operation, you can run against the current part file and it will remove the 'hash' marks from any Expression where this would not result in a duplicate name being created. It does not change the base name of the expression, but only removes that addition 'hashing' was added to guarantee that there would be possible chance of there being a conflict with an existing expression.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Please note that my previous discussion about there being no basic problem with renaming expressions in an attempt to fill in the 'gaps' requires a caveat.

Generally it's not a problem if someone uses a program to rename expressions but only IF NONE OF THE EXPRESSIONS ARE BEING USED AS INTERPART EXPRESSIONS!!!!

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.