Ordinate dimensions are "purple" in some family table drawings

[gandytable]

Some of my ordinate dimensions turned "purple". Can they be re-referenced? My situation is that I have a large family table of sheet metal parts. I am trying to make drawings for all the instances. It was going well, until I reached a group of instances that are significantly different from the parts drawings that have been okay. I save the generic drawing to the instance name and replace the parts as usual, but I lose my y-direction "od" and "ad" ordinate dimensions on the flat pattern. They turn "purple". I could redimension the drawings, but besides the time to redimension, I would lose relations that are set up for the part. The "ad" ordinate dimension for the x and y directions are relations that are used to automatically calculate blank size and weight in a table used on the drawings, so if I change "ad", I lose this relation and the table. The "purple" dimensions appear in the correct positions to attach to the proper places on the part. Is there anyway to do this?

 

[3dlogix]

From PTC KB (see below);

Description
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When deleting the first ordinate dimension created with the ordinate base, then reverting to the model window and back to the drawing again, the base looses its references and it is incorrectly displayed in magenta.

Alternate Technique
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This behavior is due to the current functionality of Pro/ENGINEER.

An ordinate dimension base line is created by switching a linear dimension (which has two references) to ordinate. The linear dimension has the references necessary to regenerate the dimensions, but the baseline dimension does not; it is updated by the linear (now ordinate non-base-line) dimension. Additional ordinate dimensions can be made off this baseline by:

1) Insert-Dimension-Ordinate. In this case, the dimension is 'from the ordinate base line to the referenced
geometry'. Thus, the new dimension does not know where the ordinate base line is, but it is instead
driven by this base line. Thus, this sort of dimension cannot regenerate the base line, and if the base
line fails, this dimension also fails.

2) Insert-Dimension-New References (linear), Lin to Ord-Set Base. In this case, the dimension has two
references (from its creation), and can be used to regenerate the base line dimension. It is in fact
essentially the same as the original dimension in this matter.

In general, Ordinate dim's in flat patterns are tricky escpecially if you redefine or recreate the flat patern, then you generally loose the ordinate baseline references. One trick is to create an ordinate baseline from a real or driven dimension, rather than a created dimension.

Steve

http://www.sprdesign.com