Tips by Joe (Proe, Excel...)

Remove the external links from an Excel File.

2010-03-25T09:51:00.002+01:00

Sometimes its so happens that when you open an Excel file, it asks if the External Data needs to be updated or not. But you may not have intentionally given any external links. It’s an irritation then. But How to get rid of it?

Most likely it could be because of a Formula or a Named Ranges, although there are other possibilities as well.

1. How to identify the problematic Formula.

Goto the menu "Edit > Find" ( or press ) and enter as below and click "Find All".

2. How to identify the problematic Named Range.
Look for a Named Range that is linked to an external Workbook.

I do it this way.

go to an empty portion of the worksheet.
go to the Menu "Insert >> Name >> Paste" and click "Paste List".
Now you can manually search or use the method 1 to identify.

For the full info, click here.

Excel Function :TABLE

2010-02-18T16:09:00.011+01:00

Its been a while since I have done some posting. This option in excel is something which I thought would be very useful for many.

Its the TABLE Function in MS Excel. This is especially useful in the following scenarios.

Assume you have a very lengthy calculation to arrive at a value. And you want to see how one (or two) input variables affect the output. One way to do this is to have each calculation in adjacent columns and populate the rows with varying input value. Also, if you want two inputs to be changed, its even more difficult. Using TABLE, you can do this very easily.

I even remember that I had written a whole set of VBA codes to manage what TABLE could do!

Enough of introduction....

(A) How to do a 1D TABLE (one variable is changed).

Step 1: Basic Calculation

Setup your basic calculation with the variable value in separate cell(s).
In the Eg, Input is in [C2] and output is in [C3]

Step 2: Prepare the Table

Prepare the frame for the Table. Different possible values of the variable is arranged in a column ( assume [E3:E10] ). Immediate to the right of these values ( [F3:F10] ) will be the place for the results. Link the result cell of Step1 to the cell just above it [F2] (for eg, =C3).

Step 3: Populate the Table

Select the full table. ( [E2:F3] ).
Go to Data -> Table.
Select the input variable cell as Column Input Cell ([C2])
Select OK.

You are DONE.

(B) How to do a 2D TABLE (two variables are varied).

Step 1: Stays the same.

Step 2: Populate the possibilities of variable 1 in the 1st column and variable 2 as 1st row. The output cell should be linked to the Top-Left Corner.

Step 3: Select the two variable reference cells in the dialog. Click OK and you should be DONE.

If there is some mismatch, please repeat the step 3 with the reference cells interchanged.

Hope its useful.. Any questions?, let me know...

Treeview Structure in VB.Net

2009-11-14T16:56:00.000+01:00

I am using Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition.

In one of my earlier posts, I had explained in detail about Treeview in Excel-VBA. Through this post, I would like to bring the VB.Net way of the control.

1) get the Control:

From the Toolbox (Common Controls tab), drag the treeview onto your form.
For convenience, I have named it - TV.

2) Build the Tree up:

You build tree by adding nodes as child of another Node (or as a child of the TV).

Special things to note for a Node.

You can specify an image for a Node.

You can attach an Object to each Node through the TAG property of the Node. This is something which I found really useful.

Node Object : TreeNode

Adding a node:

You can add a node to the TV.

'--- Start ---
Dim iNode As New TreeNode
Dim iObj as New MyObject

'Define iObj...

iNode.Name = "Name1"
iNode.Text = "Root Node 1"
iNode.Tag = iObj

TV.Nodes.Add(iNode)

'--- End ---

Or You can add a node to an existing Node.

'--- Start ---
Dim iNode As New TreeNode
Dim pNode as TreeNode
Dim iObj as New MyObject

'Define iObj...

pNode = TV.Nodes(0) 'Zero is the index of the Node at that Level.

iNode.Name = "Name2"
iNode.Text = "Child Node 1"
iNode.Tag = iObj

pNode.Nodes.Add(iNode)

'--- End ---

Removing a node:

TV.Nodes(0).Nodes(0).Remove()

or

iNode = TV.SelectedNode 'or Get the Node of the TV as an Object.
iNode.Remove()

Clearing all nodes:

TV.Nodes.Clear()

3. Usual properties of Nodes:

You can refer to a node with its Index.

'Gets or sets the Text
TV.Nodes(i).Text

'Gets or sets the Name of the Node
TV.Nodes(i).Name

'say iNode = TV.Node(0).Nodes(2)

'Gets the Index of the Node at that Level.
iNode.Index

'Gets the No of children the has got.
iNode.Nodes.Count

'Gets the First Child Node and the Last Child Node
iNode.FirstNode
iNode.LastNode

etc....

more, later some time...

search and find all supressed features in proe

2009-06-10T05:07:00.004+02:00

How to find all supressed objects in Proe (Pro Engineer) easily.. Yes, its easy.. no manual search is needed... Thanks to to ProE seach method..

Go to Edit -> Find and the rest is in the picture.

Select all the items in the left list, add all to the right, Click Close.

Now you can do what ever you want with it. Say delete all at once!

This is also applicable for the assembly models. Make sure that the check box "Include Submodel" is clicked. By default it will be checked anyway. Try and let me know.

NOTE:
We have used option in some other way as well. We normally rename the dimension symbol to some meaningful text and the same name will be coming in different parts when it represents the same data.

What if we want to change one such dimension in all parts. Use this option. Search for Dimension. In the attribute tab, put the dim name and it gives all such dims. Select all. Close the window. Now you can modify all such dimensions at once. Regenrate and you are done.

Hope this helps....

.

Proe Function / Relation to round the decimal places

2009-05-19T07:52:00.003+02:00

Its strange that ProE does not have a ROUND function. At least I counldnt find it.

It has two funtions.
Ceil will always round it up.
Floor will always round it down.

I have used both to get the ROUND functionality.
here is the relation

X is the original value.
D is the number of decimal places.
X_New is the rounded value.

X = 1.334
D = 2

X_ = X * 10^D
XFLOOR_ = FLOOR(X,D) *10^D
IF X_ - XFLOOR_ < 0.5
X_NEW = FLOOR(X,D)
ELSE
X_NEW = CEIL(X,D)
ENDIF

try and let me know if it works.

How to use VLookUp in Microsoft Excel.

2009-03-28T05:03:00.006+01:00

Tool : MS Excel.
Topic : The function - VLOOKUP.

This is a very useful function to extract data from the table.

Microsoft says..
"Searches for a value in the leftmost column of a table, and then returns a value in the same row from a column you specify in the table."

The format.
VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, range_lookup)

where..
lookup_value = search key for the first column.
table_array = Table where the data is located.
col_index_num = is the column where the data has to be extracted from.
range_lookup = TRUE or omited then finds an approximate match. FALSE then finds an exact match and returns #N/A if there is no match.

Lets take an example. Let the data table be the following one.

From this table, you can find how are you feeling [ :) ] and how many days are left for the next weekend [ :)) ].
it will look something like this..

if you replace TUESDAY with another valve, the other two values will get extracted from the table.

How it works.
the formula for the cell C11 is this.
=VLOOKUP($C$10,$B$3:$D$7,2,0)

the formula for the cell C12 is this.
=VLOOKUP($C$10,$B$3:$D$7,3,0)

where,

C10 is the feed data or the data you want to search in the first column.
B3:D7 is the table shown in the first picture. (the source data)
next is column where you want the data from. Its 2 and 3 respectively,
next is 0 [ equal to false ]

Note (1):
You can ignore the $ symbols if its complicated.
$ sign is to lock the movement of the reference cell when the cell is copied to another one.

Note (2):
You can define a name for the table which can be used in functions.
Insert -> Name -> Define.
Put the name as "Data_Table"
Put the value as "B2:D7"

So the formulae will change as
=VLOOKUP($C$10,Data_Table,2,0)
=VLOOKUP($C$10,Data_Table,3,0)

Hope this is a good introduction for you to start exploring it further yourself.
put a comment if there is anything you want to let me know.

How to Start with VB Programming (VBA) in MS Excel

2009-02-24T15:24:00.006+01:00

The possibilities of using VB (VBA to be precise) is almost endless and it’s not too complicated (to do simple stuff) if you put bit of an effort and with a small programming background.

Step 1. Security Settings

Ensure that the security setting is appropriate.
Go to TOOLS -> MACRO -> SECURITY
Select either MEDIUM or LOW. If you select MEDIUM, make sure that you select the option ENABLE MACROS when you open the excel with VBA.

Step 2. Set Excel ToolBars

In Excel window, it’s better to have the following ToolBars selected. (You can do that at VIEW -> TOOLBARS)

Visual Basic
Control ToolBox

Step 3. VB Editor

Press and you will see the VB Editor.
In that window, make sure that the following are visible. (In View Menu.)

Project Explorer
Properties Window

Step 4. Create a macro.

Enter 10 in Cell A1
Enter 20 in Cell A2
Enter 30 in Cell A10

Click the Cell B1.
Click RECORD MACRO (in Visual Basic Toolbar).
Click OK in the pop up window. Now it will start recoding your actions.
Enter the formula, =A1*10 to Cell B1
Click STOP RECORDING.
Recording is finished.

How to use the macro.

Click on cell B2. Click the RUN MACRO (in Visual Basic Toolbar). Select the macro you have recorded and click RUN. Click on cell B10 and run the same macro.

You can see that the same relation getting pasted in all selected cells.

Caution: This is an example where the macro was applicable for any selected cell. Not all macros are that direct. For most of the macros, you need to manually edit if you want that to use in different places.

To show that effect, you try this. Start recording a macro. Select a cell, apply a Fill Color. Stop recording. Try using the macro for other cells. It fails. That is because the selection is also getting recorded. Now we will see how to modify the macros.

Step 5. Edit the macro.

Click the RUM MACRO. Click EDIT.

Here you would be seeing the subs (functions) for each macro. In the sub for the first macro you would see the following command.

ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=RC[-1]*10"

Note: Ignore lines starting with "'". Those are comments and are not evaluated.

In the second Sub, you would see commands starting with following line or similar.

Range("B1").Select

After that you would see few lines starting with "WITH" and ending with "END WITH". We need that. That is what is setting the color. The number represents the color you have selected.

Copy the lines from "WITH" to "END WITH".
Put it in the first macro so that the sub will look like this.

Sub Macro1()
'
' Macro1 Macro
' Macro recorded ---------- by -------
'

'
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=RC[-1]*10"
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = 6
.Pattern = xlSolid
End With

End Sub

Now close the VB editor.

In Excel delete the column B.
Click on Cell B1 and run the first Macro.
You should find that the Formula is placed and Cell is colored.

Step 6: Link the macro to a Button.

From the Control ToolBox, click and place a Button on the sheet. Once it is placed, you are in Design mode. Double click the button and place the following line in that Sub.
Call Macro1 'or with the correct name.

Close the VB Editor.
On the Visual Basic ToolBar, click EXIT DESIGN MODE.

Now verify it by clicking a cell and clicking the button.

Now you have a rough idea how it works. Play with The macro like changing color index. Say put a number in the cell D1. Modify the Sub so that the colorindex is taken from that cell like the following.
.ColorIndex = Range("D1")

Record more macros to understand how to code is doing things..

Have fun!!!

Basics of Excel functions and relations.

2009-02-22T17:42:00.013+01:00

Through this post, I would like to introduce the Built in Functions of Microsoft Excel to a beginner. Let me put some excel functions that could be of use to those who what to make a start.

Before touching upon some of the functions, some introductions. The first thing that I would recommend for a beginner is to browse through the list of functions and its uses. At this stage, forget how it to be used, but keep an eye one what all you can do using functions. For that, go to INSERT -> FUNCTIONS. You will see the following dialog. Here you can either select ALL, or a specific category like TEXT. Now select a function and at the bottom, you will see what it will do. To find more detailed explanation, click HELP ON THIS FUNCTION.

Note: Click the cell with Function(s) and press F2 and you will be able to see the references in different colors.

Some simple functions:

1: Sum.
To find sum of a few numbers.
Eg: SUM(A1, D5, G1:G15)

2: Min.
Minimum of a list of numbers

3. Max.
Maximum of a list of numbers

Some more functions:

4: Concatenate:
Joins several strings into one single string.
Here each string can be a reference to another cell (like A5) or a manual one (like "Hello"). Note that the manual entries should be encapsulated in double-quotes.

NOTE: there is a simpler way to achieve this. just type & in between each string entry. So..
=Concatenate(A5," is the son of ", A10) is equivalent to
=A5&" is the son of "&A10

5: Left, Mid and Right
Left function allows you to get a specified number of characters from the left side.
Right function allows you to get a specified number of characters from the right side.
Mid function allows you to get a specified number of characters from a specified starting position.

Eg:
Assume A5 => "I am not a fool"
Assume A6 => "Joe"

Left(A5, 5) => "I am "
Left(A5, 5)&": "&A6 => "I am : Joe"

This following is an exercise for you.
Left(A5, 5)&Right(A5,6)

6: Substitute
Replaces an old text with a new one.

Assume you have to change a part number format.
What have is 75423.5638.6453 and what you want is 75423-5638-6453. (Replace all .s with -s)
=Substitute(75423.5638.6453, ".", "-") => 75423-5638-6453

Also,
=Substitute(75423.5638.6453, ".", "") => 7542356386453

7: Replace
Replaces a text with another one.
The difference from Substitute is that here you are specifying the positions of the text to be replaced.

8: Upper, Lower and Proper.
Changes the case of the string to the respective ones.

Upper(AbcD) => "ABCD"

Some Special Functions:

8: VLookUp
Searches for a value in the leftmost column of a table, and then returns a value in the same row from a column you specify in the table.

VLookUp(Value In Column 1, Range of the Table, The Column number of the data to be taken)
based the feed value, the row will be selected and the data from the correct column is extracted.

VLookUp(0.675, A1:C10, 3) => 250

Also..

A15 => 0.946
A16 => 2

VLookUp(A15, A1:C10, A16) => 2.17
is the viscosity for a density of 0.946.

NOTE: Alternately, you can use HLookUp to fix the column and get the data from row.

9: IF
Gets a value based on whether a condition is true or false.

If(Condition, command if condition is true, command if condition is false).

A1 => 10
A2 => First
A3 => Second

If(A1>5, A2, A3) => First
If(A1<=5, A2, A3) => Second

10: SumIf
Adds the cells based on a given criteria.

SumIf(Criteria Range, Criteria, Sum Range)
if Sum Range is not specified, Criteria Range is taken as Sum Range.

SumIf((A2:A5, ">160000", B2:B5) => 63,000
Add cells in column B if corresponding cell in Column A >160000.
SumIf((A2:A5, ">160000") => 900,000
Add cells in column A if corresponding cell in Column A >160000.

NOTE: A similar function COUNTIF counts based on condition.

11: ISBlank
Checks if a cell is blank or not.

A1 = ""
A2 = 10

IsBlank(A1) = TRUE
IsBlank(A2) = FALSE

If( IsBlank(A1), "", 100 / A1) => ""
If( IsBlank(A2), "", 100 / A2) => 10

What if you don't do that check!!!
100/A1 => #DIV/0!
100/A2 => 10.

See the first one returns an error, which you normally don't want to happen. So the check helps to prevent that.

Enough of the functions. You can browse the remaining yourself.
Couple of other related points also.

Relative motion of references.

This is a very interesting aspect of how you can use the functions effectively. And interestingly, less commonly used.
The normal references that you take move with the copying. I will explain.

let B2 is A1 + A2 + B1
If you copy B2 to B3, the relation will automatically be changed as A2+A3+B2.
If you copy B2 to C2, the relation will automatically be changed as B1+B2+C1.
This is the normal way it functions. If copy one cell to the right, all references move one cell to the right. If you copy 2 cells to the bottom, all references move 2 cells to the bottom as well.

You can control this movement. In the sense, you can restrict some or all the movement by putting a $symbol.

a reference that is A1 is free to move in both directions.
a reference that is $A$1 is prevented from moving in both directions.
a reference that is $A1 is allowed to move up or down but not right or left.
a reference that is A$1 is allowed to move right or left but not up or down.

I will take the original example again.
let B2 is $A$1 + $A2 + B$1

copy that to C2 and you will get this.
$A$1 + $A2 + C$1

copy that to B3 and you will get this.
$A$1 + $A3 + B$1

If Row-1 and Column-A are the heading elements, this relation will give you the sum of the heading cells + A1.

Note:
Pressing F4 repeatedly will cycle through each type.

I hope that this will allow you to jump start your excel learning.
Excel is a vast ocean. But don't let that bother you. Keep it simple, Make one step at a time and don't forget to make one new step each day. After sometime, you will be amused at what you are able to do.

Let me know if you have any comments / Qns.

Pro/Animation: Step 1 - A simple animation.

2008-10-26T12:12:00.004+01:00

This post is to get you a very basic Animation that you can use if you are new to animation.
Proe Version : WF2

Quick Introduction:

ProE Animation is a typical ProE Module in the sense that sometimes its not easy to start with. But once you get the grip of it, its so easy and powerful. Most tend to think that it’s a hard think to crack but that’s NOT the case at all. I would try to post a few to get you started.

An Animation can made in few different ways. Main options are...

1. Come to Animation. Create few snapshots. Make a Key-Frame-Sequence. Animation is ready.
2. You can assemble the components as Connections (instead of Mate/Align/…). Come to Mechanism. Define Motors. Start the motors and you have the animation.
3. Further to step 2, you can come to Animation and add these motors appropriately and have an animation.

Option 1 is a simple, quick and easy method. But if the movements are complex, don’t use Option 1. You'll may go mad. In such cases go for Option 2 for a good animation, without any frills (without view manipulation, transparency manipulation etc).. If you really want a complex animation with all (or some) of the extra effects like view manipulation, then Option 3 is the one.

In the coming posts, I would post some of the things related to the Not-So-Simple animations. But today lets have a look at the option 1.

A simple animation:

Before starting, you can download the assembly, see and use, if you want. Link is at the bottom of this post.

Here I would bounce a box.

1. Make a normal assembly.

2. Come to Animation. [Application -> Animation]

3. By default, all parts would be part of the body "Ground". In order to have relative motion, all objects that move together should be defined as a body (one or more parts or sub-assy). Here you need to make the Box as a separate body. Click on the "Define Bodies" Icon. From the new window, select New, select the Box and say OK. You can name it appropriately if you want. Now you should have two bodies - Ground, Body1.

4. Create Snapshots. You need to create three snapshots in this case. At positions 1 2 and 3. Click on the "Define Snapshot" Icon. Drag the bodies to the positions that you need and take a snapshot (Camera Icon at the Top-Left to take a snapshot). Here you have few options to help you. (1) Advanced Drag. You can move or rotate along a specific axis. (2) Advanced Drag. "Packaged Move" help you to move multiple components together. (3) Constraints Tab. You have a few options here as well. You can Mate/Align bodies + others. I have used the mate option to place the box touching the surface for the 2nd snapshot. (4) Update. In Snapshot Tab on the left side you have an yellow triangular icon with a + inside. This is used to update the existing position to the selected Snapshot. Explore the remaining yourself. Use these options and make the three snapshots that we want. It’s a good idea to keep the snapshots organised with appropriate names.

5. Create a Key Frame Sequence (KFS). Click on the "Define KFS" icon. Select the correct snapshot and key in the time and press add. This eg, we have three snapshots. Default duration is 10 secs. We put the 1st @ 0, 2nd @ 5 and 3rd @ 10. Press OK. Now you can see that the KFS has come in the Animation Task Bar. In this, each snapshot would come as a triangle. You can select and drag these as well. To redefine, select the KFS, Right Button and select "Edit KFS".

6. Click "Generate Animation" and say OK if prompted.

7. Click on "Play the Animation" and you can Run the animation. You can use "Capture" and the animation would be saved as a MPG file in your working directory.

8. Additionally, you can optimise the duration by specifying the frame rate / frames. To do this, right click at the time scale at the bottom of the Animation Task Bar and click "Edit Time Domain".

Let me know by comments your suggestions and doubts. Have fun animating!!

[Sorry, I'm not able to upload the ProE files. Please check later for the ProE files].

Wheel Rolling and falling. Made in ProE Mechanism.

2008-09-26T23:06:00.006+02:00

This is the continuation of the previous post that I had.

I modified the previous mechanism a little bit, and I got this. I removed the slot-follower connection and instead I added an additional pin connection which makes the wheel rotate about the vertical. That plus the manipulation of the tilting angle resulted in this. I think the rendering also is a bit better. It took almost couple of hours to capture the rendered video! But worth the effort..

Here is the video...

I will upload the assembly later, so that you can try it out yourself and see the mechanisms.. come back later and have a look.. its almost midnight and I need to sleep, because I have lot of stuff (not ProE) to do before I shift back to Bangalore.. Yaa, after a short stay here in Germany, I am raring to go back :)

bye for now..

Link for downloading the video:

Wheel Rolling and tilting. Made in ProE Mechanism.

2008-09-25T22:19:00.006+02:00

This is a Mechanism (with Animation) of a wheel rolling along a guide curve, tilting on its way..

I was browsing through the PTC Forum and found a requirement. He wanted to simulate a wheel rolling along a curve with a possibility of tilting as well.

I have been playing around with mechanism options for my other task. So I thought of giving it a try.

It was not easy for me. Basically I needed three independent drives. One for the Rotation of the wheel on its axis. One for the translation of the wheel along the guide curve. and a third one for tilting. One of the issues was to keep the wheel touching at the ground and on the guide curve during tilting.

So I had to make multiple assembles.

1. The wheel part.
2. An assy with wheel as its part with Pin Connection.
3. Next level assy, with the assy in step 2 inside it so as to get the tilting as a Pin Connection.
4. Top level assy, where the assy in step 3 inside it. Here I used Cam-Follower arrangement and a drive for the translation.

Then take it into the animations and capture with rendering enabled.

(As you can see, my rendering skills are very primitive. ProE doesn't make it any easier also.)

Here is the output.

Now that this was possible, I like to extend it a bit and make it bit more interesting.. Bit busy these days, but I hope I can post that soon..

Bye..

Link for downloading the video:

Proe Files - Handling Old Versions.

2008-09-25T17:42:00.009+02:00

This is typical view of ProE files saved in a folder. For a beginner this can be bit confusing and sometimes will lead to some problems.

What is it
Each time you save a ProE file, it creates an additional file (instead of overwriting it). file.prt, file.prt.1 etc. Next time you save and it will create another file with next higher serial number

When you open a ProE file through ProE, (File -> Open), it will only show one file for all such cases, in the normal mode. When you select a file, ProE will automatically open the latest one.

[Forget about the file type names that you see in windows explorer TYPE column. it doesn't matter]

How to open a previous version
But you can open the previous version, if you want to. In WF2, in the open dialog box, you will see an arrow at the top right corner. Click that and select all versions. (in WF4, i think its in the context menu). Then you can see all versions. Select the version that you want. and Open.

If your session is clean, you can also drag-and-drop the exact version that you need.

How to remove old versions (PURGE) of a file
If you are sure that you don't need previous versions of a file, then you can remove the backups. File -> Delete old versions.

How to remove all old versions (PURGE) from a folder
If you want to do that for all the files in a folder, then first set that folder as the working directory. Window -> Open System Folder. (dont know if I got the text correct). Then the dos prompt will come. type PURGE. close it.

Be careful
Because of this, beginners may face some problems. Sometimes the problem happens when you copy some files manually using windows explorer. That's a dangerous thing to do and unless you know what you are doing. The problem happens if you copy a latest file into a folder which has the same file (older version with a higher serial no). Then ProE takes the higher serial number as the latest, which really is not!

If you want to save a file(s) to another folder, always do it through ProE. You can use File -> Backup. That's always safe.

Exploding FootBall made and animated in ProE - Step 02

2008-09-24T19:53:00.008+02:00

Hi Guys..

Well, I have the next one.. This time I have uploaded it in youtube.

It was bit time consuming to get a decent sequence!! Its looks primitive, but its getting better..

Hope you like it..

Link for downloading the video:

Exploding FootBall made and animated in ProE - Step 01

2008-09-20T12:42:00.008+02:00

This is one of the fun I had the other day and thought I would share with you. Its not finished yet, but I thought of keeping it updated here as I progress. Check this out.

Steps:

I had to model a Football in ProE. This is an assembly which has only two unique parts. One is a Hexagon and the other is a Pentagon. Both of these has the same edge size. As you can observe, every Pentagon is surrounded by 5 Hexagons and every Hexagon is surrounded by 3 pentagons and three hexagons.

The catch here was to get the correct size of the edge for a given ball diameter. I am sure you would be able to find a mathematical relation for that. But I wanted to derive that by geometry. That was interesting.

Then I had to assemble the whole ball in mechanism. Each part is driven by a servo motor. I can control each part by driving the motor.

So this is the first capture that I made.. Further I want to move each element sequentially and rhythmically.. or kind of bouncing like music bars.. or kind of Matrix style..

I will keep posting all the interesting outputs.. Hope i get enough time to work on this.. Keep watching for more on this..

bye for now..

Link for downloading the video:

Printing the Books, the Old school way.

2008-09-18T17:36:00.016+02:00

[Edited on 23 Sep 2008]
I got the same in You tube.. See the second one..
[End of Edit]

[Edited on 23 Sep 2008]
The video seems to be missing now.
Please check if it has come back.
Meanwhile I will have a look if thats available somewhere else!
[End of Edit]

I have this video of the The Old School Printing Method. Interesting, to say the least. Check out.

http://special-videos.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-found-this-very-interesting.html

The 2007 Results of Design Salary Survey. Indians are the highest paid !

2008-09-18T17:36:00.007+02:00

Read the complete survey from cofoflot.com...

Quote from the survey.
Previously known as "Designer Rock-osity," this chart compares what the average designer makes in various countries. The salaries have been equalized in a way that allows comparison of earnings in an "apples to apples" manner. So we can see where designers are "living large" - India!

There is a catch, though. Its not the actual salary. Its the Big Mac PPP index. If you are not sure what it is, please read this. This would give you what is PPP. Big Mac PPP, is one of such methods.

Foot Note:
Sky rocketed Property prices in Bangalore will make these PPP calculations irrelevant, though.

Anyway, not bad!

Answer to the ProE Puzzle 001

2008-09-15T18:05:00.005+02:00

Here is my answer for the proe puzzle_001.
I must admit that, I could not fully solve my Qn. I will come to that later.

First the simple answer:

Here is the sequence that I followed.

1. I created two points, one on X-Axis and the other on Y-Axis. (I used Offset_Co-ordinate_System Option. Insert -> Model Datum -> Point).

2. Created a pattern of these points. I select the X-Axis distance of first point and Y-Axis distance of the second point in the Direction1 of the pattern. This is the KEY point of the puzzle. This way both dimension would be incremented to get each item of the pattern. The result would completely be different if the second dimension is part of Direction 2. Anyway try it out yourself if you are still not clear. This can be very useful as any dimension can be included in this way.

3. Create a curve (using Thru Points option) between the first two points that you created in Step 1.

4. Pattern this curve with the option, Ref Pattern.

5. Create a point on the curve you created in step 3 at the mid point.

6. Pattern this point with the option, Ref Pattern.

7. Now you have a set of points that you can use for creating your final curve.

Here you can change the no of pattern elements, increment in X-Axis and increment in Y-Axis in the pattern of Step 2.

Here is a problem. If I increase or decrease the no of pattern elements (of step 2), I need to redefine the curve of step 7. I don't know how that can also be made dynamically updatable. Hope some one has a suggestion.

You can download the puzzle_001_a.prt file from the link at end of the post.

More options:

Now, I use this to show you another option of ProE pattern. That's is to use Relations in pattern. The modification is in the Step 2. Instead of having a constant increment, I can have a variable increment, controlled through relation.

In the picture you can see that X1 is not equal to X2. what I did was this. I control in increment in X-Axis by relation. Select the dimension you want to control through relation and click Edit (refer the picture).

the relation I used is this.
memb_i = -2 * (idx1*idx1)
where memb_i is the increment and idx1 is the instance no.

for eg...
the distance between the 1st point and second point will be -2 * (1 * 1) = -2
the distance between the 5th point and 6th point will be -2 * (5 * 5) = -50
and so on..

Other option are...
you can use memb_v instead of memb_i. memb_v will be the resultant dimension instead of the increment.
If you have Direction 2 also, then you have the option of using idx2 also in this relation.

Download the part with constant increment:

Download the part with increment controlled through relation:

Compress ProE model beyond what a zip can do.

2008-09-05T19:22:00.011+02:00

This is a something I noticed in the past and it an come handy sometimes. So here we go.

When you are in an urgency to send a BIG (in file size) ProE model over e-mail and the zipping is good enough then what would you do.

One possibility is to zip and split into multiple files and send as multiple mails. Then when you receive, you can combine and unzip it.

There is another way. For this you need a small tweaking of the model in ProE. What you do is to make insert mode at the beginning (you can leave one or two features at the beginning in resumed status) and the file size come really down. Don't ask me why. I don't know. In both cases you have the full information needed in the file. But one is very small !! Strange, isn't it.

Anyway the sequence is explained below.

* Open the model in ProE
* Make the insert mode at the beginning of the model. (you can spare one or two features)
* Save the model.
* The file size would have reduced drastically.
* Now you can further do a zip and it will reduce further.

* When you receive the file. Unzip it and open it in ProE and resume the last set by (Edit -> Resume -> Last) and you have the transfer job done.

I did a small study for you to get some idea. Here are the statistics of it.

No of features in the test model :200

Before doing the Insert Mode	-	% of Original Size
ProE File Size	2,674 KB	100.00%
Zip File Size (without insert option)	1,517 KB	56.73%
-
After doing the Insert Mode
ProE File Size	1,627 KB	60.85%
Zip File Size (with insert option)	995 KB	37.21%

Instead of getting a 44% (100 - 56) compression, you get a 63% (100 - 37) compression. Almost 50% extra compression. Nice incentive for that little effort. In fact, PTC could have used this as an optional feature to allow people to compress the models through the ProE interface. The only difficulty would be that it takes little bit extra time to compress and decompress.

So thats it. Hope it could come handy for you as well some time.
Have a nice weekend.

PS: Today, one of my blog post was listed in core77dotcom and some more guys were able to reach my site boz of that. Thanks core77dotcom. Checkout their site.

How to dimension the arc angle in ProE Sketcher

2008-09-02T18:59:00.006+02:00

How to add an angular dimension for an arc in ProE Sketcher Mode.

I have seen people creating radial construction lines at the beginning and at the end to insert the angular dimension. But thats not necessary. There is an easier way.

1) Click on one end point. (Left Button)
2) Click on the other end point. (Left Button)
3) Click on the Arc. (Left Button)
4) Place the dimension. (click with middle mutton)

See the result below.

Next time you could save couple of center-lines and get more clean sketch.

Select the ProE default options without clicking

2008-09-02T18:52:00.005+02:00

Most ProE users may know this. This one is for those who missed out.

In ProE, the Middle (Scroll) Mouse Button acts like a Default selection.

In most commands of ProE, you will find one option in Bold. The straight forward option is to go there and click it. But pressing the middle button will select the default option automatically. You do not have to move the mouse at all. This also applicable in many Dashboard Commands and other like File-Open.

Save your precious time ! If you have not used it, get used to it now on.

Footnote:
You can configure ProE to have your default option changed as well.. Thats another post coming later..

Setting the ProE model on its tolerance limits (MMC or LMC) using Dim Bound option

2008-08-28T16:59:00.013+02:00

What is in the cards...
* What is a DIM BOUND and its use?
* How do I access it?
* What are my options?
* Maximum Material Condition (MMC) and Least Material Condition (LMC)
* Dim Bound TABLE

What is a DIM BOUND and its use?

We will have a look at the possibilities of using the ProE option "DIM BOUND". With this option you can set the model dimensions on its tolerance limits and the model will get changed to that limit, without manually modifying the value. Thus, you can have a model, that is on a tolerance limit. This is useful in tolerance stack-up analysis or worst case analysis.

For Eg, if you have a dimension "50 (+5 / -2)" and set it to its upper limit using this option and measure the length, you will get 55. But the Dimension Value remains the same as 50 and the model gets modified to its limit value (55). We will have a close look at it now.

How do I access it?

Here is the command
Edit menu -> Setup -> Dim Bound.

What are my options?

Options on limit

With this option, you can set single (or multiple or all) dimension(s) to the following possibilities.

* UPPER Tolerance Limit
* LOWER Tolerance Limit
* NOMINAL
* MIDDLE of the Tolerance Limits

Note: if you have not set the tolerance, it will take the default tolerance.

Options on dim selection

A) You can set all the dimensions to any of the four choices.
B) You can set a selected list of dimensions to any of the four choices.
C) You can use "DIM BND TABLE"

Options A and B are pretty straight forward. Select the option - Select one or more dimensions and say OK/Done. Model would have got changed.

The Option C (DIM BND TABLE) allows you to save, retrieve and edit (in a table) the setting that you want. We will see this later in the post.

Maximum Material Condition (MMC) and Least Material Condition (LMC)

On a simplistic level MMC and LMC are achieved as....
MMC => Maximum Diameter of shaft and minimum diameter of hole.
LMC => Minimum Diameter of shaft and maximum diameter of hole.

If the increase in dimension increases the material, then for MMC it should be on UPPER limit and for LMC it should be on its LOWER Limit. vise versa.

For "Maximum Material Condition" (MMC) and "Least material Condition" (LMC), you have to set the dim limits manually. ProE, as far as I know, does not have the functionality to automatically identify the dim limits for MMC or LMC condition. Hence what you have to do is to identify yourself the dimensions that are to be set at its UPPER limit and that are to be set on LOWER limits in order to simulate the MMC or LMC. On a simple logic, for an MMC, all external dims should be on UPPER and all internal dims should be on LOWER limits. vice versa for LMC.

DIM BND TABLE

The "DIM BND TABLE" is very useful if you have to repeat certain tolerance bounded conditions. Assume you have 20 dimensions that you need to set on MMC and LMC. Using Dim Table, you can define the limits of each dimension in a table and you can use that to set the model to a certain state.

As you can see there are few options for DIM BND TABLE.
* You can save the current configuration with name.
* you can Apply a set thats previously saved.
* You can go into the table and edit the configuration.

In edit mode, you have each dimension as a column and each set as a row. comments are there at the top of the Edit window which is descriptive enough.

So don't forget to DIM BOUND the dimension(s) when you need to set the model on its limits.

Footnote:
In ProE WF 4, there is a provision to do the statistical tolerance analysis. This is achieved by using CETOL of Sigmatrix. CETOL was compatible with ProE earlier as well, but now it can be initiated from Standard ProE menu. But you need a special license for that.

How do you find this post. Let me know by comments here or you by rating this posting.

ProE Puzzle 001

2008-08-26T18:19:00.009+02:00

I thought it would be nice to learn if its put in the form of Puzzles. This is nothing but a modelling requirement. How would you do it?

Puzzle No: ProE_Puzzle_001
Puzzle type: Basic.

Here is the Qn. See the diagram. We have 2 sets of points. each set has 4 points. they are A1 to A4 and B1 to B4.

The puzzle is to create a curve through the mid points of the lines A1-B1, A2-B2, A3-B3 and A4-B4.

The Modelling method should be such such that the values of x, y and the no of points in each set can be parametrically controlled.

How would you solve it? Leave your answer as comment.

I will post my answer in three weeks time.

[Edited on 15th Sep 2008]
Click here to get the answer for the puzzle.
[End of Edit]

my blog logo

2008-08-19T23:44:00.003+02:00

Hopefully the logo will be up-and-running from tomorrows e-mail subscription onwards.. I'm waiting..

BTW, how is it?

Unleash the power of Surface selection by seed-boundary option

2008-08-19T18:09:00.014+02:00

Lets have a look at how the surface selection by "Seed and Boundary" works and possible benefits.

What are the general methods of selecting surfaces?

The main classification of surface selection is..
> Individual Surfaces
> Bounded set
> > Neighbouring surfaces
> > Surface between anchor and boundary (or seed-boundary)
> > All surfaces
> Exclude surfaces

Before going into the main topic, we just have a look at other options.

Individual surfaces : Select all necessary surfaces one-by-one.
Bounded Set -> Neighbouring surfaces : ProE selects all neighbouring surfaces of the anchor surface.
Exclude Surfaces : Individually select surfaces that has to be removed from the selected ones.

What is seed-boundary surface set?

In this option the user selects one surface as anchor (the seed) and one (or more) surface(s) as boundary surface(s). ProE then takes all surfaces starting from anchor (seed) and bounded by the boundary surfaces.

How do I do it?

(Option-1)

Assume you want to make a copy of a surface set by this option.

Step 1:
Select the surface which will be the seed. In part level, if the selection filter is "SMART" then first click will select the feature and next click will select the geometry (surface, edge..). Or else you can change the filter to "GEOMETRY" and then select the surface easily.

Step 2: Edit-Copy (Ctrl+C)
Step 3: Edit-Paste (Ctrl+V)

At this stage it will look something like this.

Step 4:
Click "Details" and Click "Add".
Now select the anchor and boundaries.
Then it should be looking like this.

Step 5:
Click OK and your surface is ready.

In case you see one more entry here (single surface), right click and remove.

(Option-2)
I prefer this one, as this is easy!

Step 1:
Select the Seed surface.

Step 2:
Click SHIFT Key.

Step 3:
Select the boundary surface(s).

Step 4:
release the SHIFT key and the ProE will display the the surface set.

Now you can rotate the model.
Again you click SHIFT and continue the boundary selection. Releasing the SHIFT will update the surface selection.

Note:
You can do the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V to create a copy of this surface set.

Steps 1 to 4 can be followed in other surface selection situations. Like, you wanna apply the colour to all the surfaces in a pocket. Its easy with this as you don't have to go and select all surfaces one-by-one.

But the real power of this some things else.

What are the advantages?

When you make a pattern of a group of features, this comes really handy. In fact this is better than the feature pattern in terms of performance also.

Consider the model that I showed above and I wanna pattern the pocket.
Normal options are
1. make a group of the Cut-Extrude and the Round. Pattern it.
2. Make a pattern of the Cut-Extrude. Make a Ref pattern of the Round.

Here I will make a surface copy (selected with seed-boundary option) and make a pattern of it. Then make a soldification of the surface and make a reference pattern.

Now I want to change the pocket. I not only want to change the dimensions, I want to add some features in the pocket.

You just have to go to the inset mode above the copy feature, add your features and remove the insert mode. See what happened! The new features are updated in all pattern elements.

This option is so very useful in ProE when you have to deal with complex geometries and features. This is more important because if you do a GROUP and pattern, its almost impossible in ProE to add or remove some features from that. By this option these hassles are more or less avoided.

Have a look at the model tree. I just added the three features in between and the pattern gets updated automatically and easily!!

Things to be taken care of

1. Be careful with your selection. Take the references in such a way that there is least possibility of failing with its design intend.

2. Understand the how this works and select the boundary surfaces accordingly. For eg, if there is a chance that the pocket may get opened to the side when you modify it, then include the side surface also in the boundary surfaces, so that the feature will not fail when you make such modification.

(these two points has not come out the way I expected to put it.. but I hope you got what was trying to communicate...)

Explore yourself further..
Update me if I have missed out some thing...
Comment what you feel...

Thanks...

Love letter by a ProE Designer

2008-08-15T19:52:00.005+02:00

Dear Missing Component,

Life has been really hard and I cant get out of this RESOLVE MODE since you have left. I have been trying to LOCATE the missing element and cant SUPPRESS my feelings. I just cant REGENERATE without you. Without you, I'm like a PACKAGED ASSEMBLY. My heart is like a STEP file gone bad with MISSING SURFACES. I am haunted by the thought of you going into another assembly.

I have been keeping my feelings in HIDDEN LAYERS all these while. I liked you for your SIMPLIFIED REPRESENTATION. Your STYLE DEFINITION is the best. I cant forget the RENDERED IMAGE of yours. Your face is like Class-A surface made out of a perfect BLEND. Your body is like a ideal VARIABLE SECTION SWEEP. I have your COPY GEOMETRY with me in my mind and I have defined it as READ-ONLY to protect it forever.

I assure you that if there are conflicts in the RELATION, we can MODIFY THE RELATIONS. If the PARENT-CHILD-RELATION is a problem, we can REROUTE that as well. The PARAMETERS are modifiable. And all problems can be RESOLVED for a perfect regeneration.

My SEARCH-PATH will always be looking for you....

Your Ex neighbouring part...