Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Insert ID on all dimensions

Søren Spætte

New member
Hej,


I need to do some drawings for QA who wants every dimension to be individually numbered.


My first thought is:Isthere any way to show thePro/E ID number at the same time as the dimension value?


Or do someone have anothersuggestion how to automatize this?


mvh


S
 
I am sure that your QA wants the numbers to go 1,2,3... so that they are in sequence. If you try to use the pro/e id the numbers would be speratic and hard to follow. I do not think that there is an automatic way to do this.
 
Here's a partial hack. The attached zip file contains 3 files. A mapkey that somewhat works, a text file for a counter, and a visual basic script.


2011-09-08_190539_id.zip


Load the mapkeyinto your config.pro. Use notepad to edit the id.vbs file. You'll have to update a couple of paths to the counter file (I didn't try to get all cute and make it easy). Also edit the format of the ID text that gets added to the dimensions. It currently inserts the format "@[ID: 101@]"


Here's how to use it and what it's trying to do. Select a dimension in your drawing. Then execute the mapkey. It edits properties of the dimension and launches a system shell. You'll have to manually execute the id.vbs file (just type id.vbs and hit enter). I spent too much time trying to get the mapkey to do this automatically. Maybe you'll have better luck.
smiley18.gif



The VBS just reads the number out of the id.num file, increments the counter, and writes back the next number. It then closes the system shell and writes the ID number into the Dimension Properties window. I originally had the mapkey closing the properties window, but found there was a delay in the process that the mapkey didn't wait for. You can edit the id.num file using notepad to reset the counter for a new drawing.


Ugly but possibly a start to a solution...


<tg>
 
PS. I just noticed some remnants of a loop in that 'read' piece of the ID.vbs. It doesn't affect anything. I was cobbling together pieces from elsewhere and overlooked it. For some unkown reason, this was my first endeavor into visual basic. I once did a lot of perl scripting, batch files, etc, but never fiddled with visual basic. Go figure.
 
There is a software product available called InspectionXpert that will automatically do what you want. It will work directly in Pro/E and other CAD systems or from PDF & TIFF files. I have not used it but it looks like something our QA department could really use. Unfortunately the QA head is a twit & is more impressed by 5S and a clean desk than improving workflow.
 

Sponsor

Back
Top