Pro E viewer

[bcolley]

I am looking for a viewer to open, look at and print Pro E drawings. Does anyone have any ideas? I have tried the Product View Express available on the ptc site and I cannot get it to work. I have also tried AutoVue, but a "Save Display" option has to be enabled to read the drawings and our customer is not willing to do that. I am trying spinfire by actify right now but it doesn't seem to work either.
Help!!

 

[Like2Strike]

I have seen the 3D View program by Actify work very well.
You may want to have your customer save his files to IGES format, if all you want to do is view the file information.

Live Aloha

Frank M.
Tradewind Resources

http://www.tr-usa.com

 

[mloew]

bcolley,

Try the free version of Pro/DESKTOP. It can be downloaded at:

http://www.ptc.com

You will have to see if it can handle the drawings and not just the solids.

Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew

 

[metalonis]

We simply save ProE drawings as .pdf files, then they can be viewed in Acrobat.

 

[bcolley]

Pro Desktop/Pro Desktop Express does not open drawing files. I called PTC and they said it does but then after alot of messing around they admitted that it doesn't. The customer I am dealing with is not willing to save the files as anything other than Pro E drawing files. I cannot get the actify program to open Pro E assembly or drawing files. I have an email and call in to tech. support there but they have not gotten back to me.

 

[pascual]

I think good idea is translate the drawing to pdf, so it's easy to see with acrobat reader. It works ok.

 

[bcolley]

How can I translate the Pro E drawing to pdf? Our customer that is sending us the Pro E drawing is not willing to translate it. Is there a way to translate it without opening it?

 

[metalonis]

Sorry, I misunderstood your situation. I thought that you were trying to help your customer view one of your ProE drawings.

Both ProE and Adobe Acrobat must be installed on the same machine (or network). Isolated ProE drawings can't be directly converted to pdf without the ProE software to open them (at least not that I know of).

 

[bcolley]

I just discovered that even though I was told that Spinfire by Actify could open ProE drawing files it can't.
I am still on the search for another program/viewer. Has anyone out there ever had success getting the Product View Express to work? I emailed PTC and they suggested using it but I cannot get it to work. Two other co-workers have tried as well as a few people at another company that I've talked to.
I've talked to someone who said they'd send me a trial version of something called Full Function Review by PTC. Has anyone heard of it?

 

[Hayden]

Are you getting the models as well? Perhaps all your viewers need the models to be able to open the drawings.

I'm not sure if you are arare, but this is Pro-E drawings are an equivalent to Paperspace in AutoCAD. The models are stored in a seperate file.

Good luck, I know how frustrating this problem can be.

 

[bcolley]

Yes I have all of the relating files - parts, assemblies etc. I got a folder off of an ftp site from our customer with about 700 files in it. I have asked a friend working at another company to open a few of the drawings with his ProE and save them as dxf's for me so I could get this project quoted. So I know there is nothing wrong with the files. I use solidworks so I am familiar with what files are needed to open a drawing etc.
What I find the worst is when a company tells me that their product can open the files and then later I find out that it actually can't.
Brooke

 

[KVision]

If the drawing creator turns on the config.pro option
save_drawing_picture_file and set it to both then P-View express will show it. Pro will create a file like filename.pic.1 and will also embed it in the drawing.

 

[KVision]

Just to be clear. If you set the option to embed the picture is embedded with the .drw file and can also be viewd with P-View express. This is the functionality that allows the preview of drawings in the Open dialog box.

 

[npsingh]

One more viewer is available. HoopsGranite viewer can be tried. They claim that it open all type of Pro/E files. N P Singh

 

[prohow]

Hoops Granite only views parts & assys, not drawings.
Ed

 

[bcolley]

KVision,
The people we receive the drawings from are not willing to do this for us. We had planned on buying autovue but the save display option has to be turned on to open the drawings. Our customer unfortunatly would not turn it on for us. The situation is that our customer has two vendors. The other one, our competition, did the drawing package, so they are the ones who initiated the whole Pro E thing. So you can see why they would make things difficult for us and they are so unwilling to help us.
I appreciate all of the suggestions, hopefully I'll find something!

 

[Padlofski]

Have a look at

http://www.ptc.com/community/collaboration_center.htm

Not sure, but it might solve your problem

 

[jdsmi]

bcolley - I feel your pain and from my experience with customers like the one you're describing, you have a problem that is solved by one of two ways (both of which costs money). 1 - Purchase the native program (in this case, Pro/E) or 2 - Have the drawings converted for you by a third party. There are some sites on the internet that I'm sure would be able to translate the Pro drawing into a readable format for a nominal fee.
BTW, I've tried PTC's free stuff and had ZERO success. A waste of time IMO.