CAD-data rename tool

[geertdaenen]

Hello,


in our companywe receive every month a lot of CAD-data from our customers (iges, step, catia,... -files).
This CAD-data contains info of car-bumpers, dashboards, petrol-tanks, seats,...
The problem is: somethimes we receive some updates from older CAD-data. To be sure that we use the latest update, we try to give the data a unique name with the date of the day of the CAD-translation in it.


Example:
Original name: CD345_FSB
Translated Assembly name:
CD345_FSB_20090824.asm
Translated parts of the assy (date + part serial number in it):
CD345_FSB_20090824_001.prt
CD345_FSB_20090824_002.prt


But often the CAD-data contains a lot of parts, and renaming all of these parts brings a lot of work with it.
Does anybody know ifthere a program exists to rename all of these parts automatically?
Using the tool "Save A Copy" of ProE, is no solution. Because of it doesn't work fast and it doesn't generate the names automaticaly with a serial number in it.


Does anybody have a solution for this problem?


Kind regards

 

[eddie57]

If you are using XP I would use DOS to batch rename the files. If you did not need the serial number you could do the following otherwise you will need to a batch file with a little programming to increment the serial number.


ren C:\*.asm C:\*_20090824.asm


ren C:\*.prt C:\*_20090824.prt


Your path obviously will be different.

 

[dr_gallup]

If you rename all the parts outside of Pro/E you will break all the assemblies.

 

[eddie57]

AH! Very true. That is an excellent point!

 

[AdamRE]

If they're all imported from universal data formats, I don't see why a batch renaming utility would cause any issues... Unless you've got native ProE assemblies that reference imported data. I know SolidWorks includes an app called "SolidWorks Explorer" that let's you rename files and maintain references. Give your local PTC reseller a call and see if they've got something along those lines -- and if not casually threaten to switch to SWX

Good luck!

Adam

 

[fiebigc]

If you're really ambitious you could create a J-Link program that could do this. I think Pro/Toolkit could do this as well, however I've never used it.

J-Link is a built in Java API that provides very deep access to Pro/E functionality. However it's not for casual use. Also I've had some stability problems with it. I'm not sure how focused PTC is on maintaining it.

 

[rpmcneal1@comca]

PTC does have a tool to maintain relationships and rename files with the functionality you describe. It is called Windchill.

 

[rcamp]

You should be able to do "save a copy" of the top level assembly, and when it bring up the dialog box, use the wild card naming tool to rename all components (or reuse existing).


rename* to *_20090824


or CD345_FSB* to CD345_FSB*_20090824