Part Familes - Puzzle!!! 1

[man2007]

I have a part family member (say a.prt). Unfortunately, we have lost the template file (master.prt) which created this member. I don't know which are the other family members that master.prt has created.

Is it possible to get the information (from a.prt) of all other members (at least names of members) of master.prt?

Note that we can get the information i.e. file name and path of the master.prt from its member a.prt. To do so we have to open a.prt and select Tools->Part Families. But I have to carry out this procedure to almost more than ten thousand library components!!

 

[hudson888]

Oh what a beautiful mess....!

Step one take a backup!

Okay! Presumably there are nuts bolts washers and other fittings in the 10,000. Not all from the same part family, so there is more than one master part and you have all but the missing one. I don't know this I'm guessing. If I'm wrong stop me here try something else.

There will be a single part family directory if you're working in Native. Move all the files out of there to another directory temporarily and copy that data to a third directory as a backup. Open the master parts in the part family dialog and generate all part family members for each. This will fill you part family directory with new files.

Next you run doublekiller.exe which is easy to find on the internet over the directory where you copied the files to against your part family directory. Allow it to delete the double ups. The files that are left came from the missing master.prt. QED.

At the end of the process move the original files back overwriting the newer output ones or your assemblies will object to what you've just done.

Kind of involved but the best least worst option I know of.

Good luck with it and please let us know how you fare.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm sorry, but there is no way to derive or recover the master template from one of the children files. Nor does the 'child' carry any information about what 'siblings' there might have been created.

While this won't help you now it's a good practice for the future, but for every Family Table template part that I've created (and I've created hundreds over the year) I add a part attribute that will be included in each 'child' part that contains the name of the master template file. So in your situation, a simple program could be written which could read the part attributes of all your archive parts looking for this particular attribute and recording those that belonged to which master template file.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

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

 

[man2007]

Thanks John/Hudson for your immediate reply.

The question I asked is on behalf of our client. Basically the database at our clientside is not organized, that is why we are facing this problem. All library files are not in a single folder, nor they are classified.

John,
I can take your suggestion as "Best practice", but right now it will not solve my problem.

Hudson,
I will try your suggestion in the end, because I am thinking of writing a UFUNC program (preferably an External program) to automate the procedure of Tools->Part Familes and collect the message text in a file, so that I can search for the word "master.prt".

 

[hudson888]

Man,

If you take any part output by a part family master it should represent the same parametric construction set used by the original. I would in fact make an ideal template for a new master. Not the same but equivalent.

You could generate lists by manipulating data in excel to also do what I described above. I just spouted what I'd do because it seems easier that way to my way of thinking.

If you arrive at the point where you can isolate the orphaned part family members drag and drop the lot onto an empty drawing and create a part list with a bit of mucking about you'll be able to practically re-create the part family spreadsheet by exporting the part list to excel.

Good Luck with it. I think it will likely be a painful but hardly insurmountable problem.

Regards

Hudson

 

[man2007]

Thanku very much Hudson,

Your comment "If you take any part output by a part family master it should represent the same parametric construction set used by the original." almost solved my problem!! because, we use user defined expressions to call them in the part families spreadsheet and the member I am talking about does not contain any such expressions, which means that this is the only member of the master.prt!! Let me tell you that we create part family for a single member also! That is because all part family members are read-only (by nature) and thus we can use Master model concept by calling this member into other files for Drafing, Assembly etc. so that there is no chance of modifying the master.prt.

 

[hudson888]

Well I guess you just reverse engineer that process then. It all seems to happen in file management rather than what you'd normally expect to mean by using part families.

When is a family member not like the master?
When it doesn't come from the Master! Right?
Do you get to stop paying the alimony if the Kid's adopted?

In the meantime I'm struggling to see what you have lost into the mix?

Yours Confusedly?

Hudson