Whad does the yellow dot mean?

[michaelpaul]

Okay, I know what he red dot means. it means that an edge is gone. I get it. but WTF does the yellow dot mean? If I pick the edge with a yellow dot, the edge being rounded is highlighted. If I do nothing (which is always the case) the model regenerates fine but the yellow dot's don't go away. the only way to get the yellow dots to go away (that I've found anyway) is to delete the reference and pick it over again. So, generally I just leave it alone.

My logic is that if there really is a problem the model won't regen properly. If you have a round set with edges that have this yellow dot, the only way to see this is to redefine the feature and look at each edge in the round set. So, to me, it appears that the yellow dot doesn't really mean anything. Am I wrong? and if so, if it really is telling me something important, why is there no other symbol or notification that there may be a problem?

Thanks.

Michael

 

[design-engine]

the surface that the draft edge was using went away.

 

[michaelpaul]

the surface that the draft edge was using went away.

but the round gets created so Pro can obviously figure out what to do. so, is it really a problem? I'd never even see the yellow dot if I didn't also have lost edges in the round set so if my surface went away but I didn't lose an edge I'd never even know since the feature wouldn't fail.

Michael

 

[kdem]

If you have missing references you may see a warning in the message area that says something like: Feature has missing references. Using old placement. The yellow dot is telling you the original reference is not part of the geometry but an alternate reference is being used. I'm guessing you changed your model in some way that caused one edge of the draft to remain unchanged, one edge tobe removed(red dot) and ProE could not find an alternate edge, and one to be modified in some way (yellow dot) with the new edge being in the same location as the original so ProE uses it as an alternate reference.

 

[michaelpaul]

If you have missing references you may see a warning in the message area that says something like: Feature has missing references. Using old placement. The yellow dot is telling you the original reference is not part of the geometry but an alternate reference is being used. I'm guessing you changed your model in some way that caused one edge of the draft to remain unchanged, one edge tobe removed(red dot) and ProE could not find an alternate edge, and one to be modified in some way (yellow dot) with the new edge being in the same location as the original so ProE uses it as an alternate reference.

That makes sense, however........I can roll the model back and regenerate the feature that now has yellow dots and I get no message in the status window. If I edit the definition of the feature I still see yellow dots.

So, this is my big question here. Does it even matter? Pro E doesn't fail the feature, there's no symbol in my model tree indicating there's a problem with the feature, and there's no warning about a possible problem with the feature in the status window. There's absolutely no way to know that I have yellow dots unless I purposefully go into the edit definition menu and physically look at each edge in the set to see if they have a yellow dot or not.

I can only guess how many models have yellow dots because the feature never failed (no lost edges) but maybe something changed for force Pro to guess.

Michael

 

[kdem]

I would say no unless it doesn't satisfy your design requirements.

 

[dgs]

Pro|E can't find the original reference but it has found a similar alternative. I'd say you should fix them. At some point if there is no suitable alternative, then Pro|E will fail the feature. This can happen a long time from now when modifying some unrelated part of the model. Most of these things just sit there in the shadows doing no harm, but it's sort of a failure waiting to happen.

Pro|E needs to do a much better job at dealing with this. It's not communicated well to the user and I think many folks have models in this state because you simply don't know it's happening.

 

[audctrl]

Yellow dot is Pro/E guessing which edge to use because it can't remember the orginal ha ha. If you hold your cursor on that line item, you should see the edge highlight in the model. Simply hold control and select the highlighted segment to de-select it and select that same segment again.

 

[dr_gallup]

Yellow dot is Pro/E guessing which edge to use because it can't remember the orginal ha ha. If you hold your cursor on that line item, you should see the edge highlight in the model. Simply hold control and select the highlighted segment to de-select it and select that same segment again.

That's the usual PTC FUBAR user interface. Make the user do three things rather than just offer a menu pick to accept the new edge.

 

[audctrl]

You would think that by hitting the green check mark that it would accept the new edge that it forgot about. Isn't that included with the module Pro/Forgot.

 

[michaelpaul]

You would think that by hitting the green check mark that it would accept the new edge that it forgot about. Isn't that included with the module Pro/Forgot.

not that I'm trying to start another us vs. them thread, but I will say that what you suggest is exactly how a rival CAD package addresses this issue. It tells you that edges are lost and it is using substitutes and by clicking OK, you accept those edges and all is well in the world.

Not only that, but you get a symbol in your model tree telling you that there may be a problem with some edges so you know right away which features are affected. In Pro-E, as I've already stated, you get absolutely no feedback that ProE is guesstimating the design intent unless you manually edit each feature definition and look at each round in the set one at at time. very efficient!

Michael

 

[dgs]

I actually like the old way where Pro|E would fail the feature and ask you to fix it. Actually, the using alternate edges/refs is good thing, but not telling the user and not providing a simple way of permanently accepting those new refs is not good.

 

[audctrl]

What I think would be nice is to have the feature fail, like the old days, but when you went into redefine thats where you'd see the yellow dot. Sometimes its just hard to remember what rounds went where. In some cases I pull up an older version of the same part so when I get the failure, I can see which egdes were used to create the failed round. Of coarse the dual monitors is a plus when doing that.

 

[kdem]

You can use the reference viewer to determine if a feature has missing references and what features are parents or children if alternate edges are being used.