Solidworks and Windchill

[Matthew2323]

Our company is in the unusual position where we are using Solidworks (currently 2009) and Windchill (a PTC or Pro/E product for our PDM.

Does anyone have any experience with this configuration? More specifically, we need a macro to rename a batch of files (that is to say, many parts and assemblies).

Any help in locating an existing macro or a programmer that would be for hire would be most helpful. (As you may suspect, if we purchased a marco, this would require management approval, which isn't me, by the way. However, to have the information to submit is the first step.)

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[ShaggyPE]

Matthew2323,

I happen to be in the same boat as you. I don't think there are many of us out there. We began using WindChill 7 in 2004. We skipped upgrading to Windchill 8 and are now on Windchill 9 with SolidWorks 2009. Windchill 9 is much much better than 7.

I created some macros back in '04 to help with our migration of files. At that time, our filenames had already been manually renamed. The macros added a custom property to the file based on the filename. The custom property established the link between the SolidWorks file and the Windchill Part Object (WTPart). While I am not able to assist you with your macro needs, I can help to answer your questions.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

 

[SBaugh]

I know that we to have Windchill and SW. I can't tell you when we first started using either of hte 2 software, because I just started here less than a year ago.

We are presently running SW 2010 with Windchill M060 and waiting for the release from PTC so we can move to SW 2011... sounds like it won't be until the later part of Q2 before that version is released.

As for any windchill information you need to join the PTC forum on Windchill. I know our PLM admin spends some time out there looking for solutions. Also there is a Conference in Las Vegas coming up in June that you might want to attend to help you with your Windchill/Solidworks combination.

I don't have an answer for your macro issue though other than checking out the PTC\Windchill Forum.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer
GEASWUG Greater Evansville Area SWUG Leader

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[ytsemike]

As Scott mentioned, our company is running Windchill 9.1 M060 (the latest version). We're anxiously awaiting the release of M062, scheduled for "Q2 2011" so we can move on to using SW2011.

We began using Windchill 9.0 in the Summer of '08. When I came on board, the first big project I undertook was moving us to 9.1 M020 (latest release at that time), as 9.0 was so darn buggy. Anyway...


Matthew, your question made me think of 100 (exaggeration) questions to ask about your situation.

Since some of them may not be relevant, I'll ask the obvious one: You stated "we need a macro to rename a batch of files". How many is a batch? 100? 1,000? 10,000?

It sounds as if you have too many (however many that is) to work with them manually via SW Explorer. Or perhaps the number of parts in an assembly is too many to handle manually...which is where I thought Clone feature in PDM Workgroup was really cool. But that only works well if there is a consistent naming scheme employed up-front to specify what needs to be globally replaced with another value.

Guess that's the other relevant question...is there a consistency to the current names that can be leveraged to the new names?

When we originally implemented Windchill, we considered going to strict serial numbering of our CAD files. Windchill didn't support Auto-Numbering of SW files on creation (at the time, anyway), so my predecessor had our SW VAR supply us with an Add-In (really just a complex macro) that would "intercept" the 1st Save action in SW to grab the new WC# from WC and change the File Name to that WC#, and not let you change it.

From what I remember, it worked well enough to implement, but the power user team he was working with at the time did not want to implement an auto-numbering feature, so it was canned. I can't locate the documentation that went with that little project, but my recollection was that it was low-cost from our VAR.

Anyway, that's not the same thing that you're looking for, but it sounds like its worth a call to your SW VAR to discuss what your needs are...I would go to the SW VAR first, unless your PTC VAR just happens to also have a lot of experience with SW products as well.


Michael Marshall
PLM Administrator