-
Brian Schanen joined Autodesk in 2005 as a Product Designer and currently is a Customer Success Engineer for Autodesk’s Data Management products. Brian has taught at Autodesk University numerous times and has authored white papers on Vault and Productstream. He works with customers to implement a complete digital prototyping solution specializing in Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Vault and Productstream. Brian lives near Detroit, Michigan.
-
Autoloader and AutoCAD Library Folders
December 18, 2008 05:17 PMby Brian SchanenAutoloader is a great tool to load large amounts of design and other data into Vault. Data inside the Vault is structured in normal (project) data and library data. The latter is used as reference and should not be modified. This article describes how to use Autoloader for AutoCAD DWGS so you can put data that you do not want to be modified into library folders. Typically data in the library is brought into other drawings as XREF.
Steps to get it going
So if you have DWGs that are located in a folder that you want to go into a library folder in Vault use the following steps.
- Set up a library folder in Vault. This should be directly off of the root ($) of the Vault and named the same as the folder containing the images or xrefs.
- Edit the folder properties and enter the folder where your library data is currently (!) stored in the field “Map to Shared Server”. This can be a local folder, a mapped drive or a UNC path. This setting applies to all clients so bear this in mind when uploading from several clients! Either make sure all users have the same local setup, or truly use a server location. The latter however is not recommended for performance reason. Fastest results are always achieved when loading data from your local drive.
- Start Autoloader and select the folder you want to upload. In this case a project data folder was selected. The files contained reference other files in a library folder.
- During the Scan process it will pick up the files in the library folder.
- Map your project folder against the desired folder in Vault. The Library is mapped already – this is a result of the previously configured setting in “Map to Shared Server”.
- The Upload result should look like this: project data goes into the folder you mapped during the Autoloader session, the library data goes into the library folder as defined in Vault Explorer.
- Upload the files and you are done!
Conclusion
One easy setting in Vault and using Autoloader lets you add project and library data in the correct folders in Vault with a breeze!
-
Raw Material Library with Productstream and AutoCAD Mechanical Bill of Materials
December 18, 2008 05:15 PMby Brian SchanenThis article is for you if you manage raw materials as sub-entities of your items in the bill of material. I’ll describe a way for you to build a library containing raw materials which are then easy to pick from. This will allow you to completely build your bill of material in AutoCAD Mechanical and offer it to downstream users via Productstream.
So how is it done?First of all you need a library of raw materials. This is achieved by creating a drawing that contains the following for each raw material: a part reference that contains the data – make sure to use the PSEQUIVALENCE value if you want to map to pre-existing items in Productstream. Also include a “Type” field to map against the TYPE property in Productstream – this will allow you to generate raw material items when they are used and map to the correct item type. See this blog post on how to setup custom types and drive from AutoCAD or Inventor.
Then place a border surrounding the part reference. Each border must contain one part reference only. Create a BOM for each border, and edit the assembly properties. Here you can assign the name you want to appear in your raw material selection lists later on.
And how do I use it?When you want to add a raw material to any AutoCAD Mechanical part reference simply click on Attach in the Part Reference dialog.
Then select the drawing containing your raw materials library.
You can select the materials from the Table Name drop down list. The names correspond with the BOM names in your raw materials library drawing. Make sure to update your BOM after each insert of a part reference with raw materials, to keep the item number of the raw material adjacent to the part itself.
What does the result look like?
The raw material will appear as a child of the part reference you’ve inserted. This shows the dependency “Generator base plate is made of material Steel, mild”
You should note that the “raw materials” drawing will become an external reference (XREF). This will allow you to later update your materials library to add or modify materials.
And In Productstream?
Each raw material that does not have an item already will be assigned an item. Make sure to use the PSEQUIVALENCE field in AutoCAD Mechanical to link to an existing item. You’ll also get an item for the materials library itself. You can release this item to ensure the library is not edited.
Conclusion
Using a simple library drawing you can ensure consistent data in your bill of materials, and allow quick and easy adding of raw material data. This means also making it available to downstream users through Productstream, as it will also capture this information!
PS: Please refer to this previous blog posts for additional information around AutoCAD Mechanical and property mapping: -
Inventor Mass Properties in Productstream
December 12, 2008 08:22 PMby Brian SchanenA significant benefit of Autodesk Productstream is the ability to pull data from an Inventor assembly file. The Bill of Material structure in Inventor is read by Productstream, and the properties within the files can also be exposed as User Defined Properties. These are useful to pass on to upstream systems such as ERP/MRP. In this example, we'll look at the steps to push mass properties from Inventor into Autodesk Productstream's Bill of Materials.
1. With the Top level assembly open in Autodesk Inventor, invoke the Bill Of Material editor dialog.
2. Click on “Add Custom iProperty column” button and create a new Text data type.
3. Select a cell under “PS_MASS” column and click on “Create Expression” button.
4. Bring “Mass” property from pull down menu and click “Insert Property” button from the dialog.
5. Populate the property for other rows by using “ Add Custom iProperty (all component) option from the Right Mouse button context menu.
6. Save and check in the assembly.
7. In Productstream. Go to Tools> Administration>Item tab> Properties and create a new User Defined Property and map the custom mass property.
8. Now, you may “Assign item” or “Update item” on the Inventor assembly in Vault to see mass properties.
-
From Test Vault to Production Vault
December 5, 2008 10:49 PMby Brian SchanenI am a big fan of having ‘other’ Vaults for testing or training purposes. We call these Sandbox Vaults. Sometimes, these sandbox test Vaults turn out to be production Vaults before you know it. Rather than export all the data and import to a new Vault, you can proceed with this Vault and rename it to a better descriptive name other than ‘junk’ or ‘testing’ Below is a procedure to rename a Vault properly.
First, check the current status and make a good backup of your entire Vault.
For example, this Vault called “AL-test” – uses the same ‘AL-Test’ name for all 3 main areas – Data file (.mdf), log file (.ldf) and File Store on main folder …\FileStore.
Per our example, this will be changed to Uffe-Test all around. From the ADMS Console, Detach the target Vault from the right-click context menu. Next, in Windows Explorer on the server, copy the .mdf and .ldf files from the database locations. Note: ADMS Console will expose this location for you.
Paste these back in the same location and rename them to identical names.
Next go to the location of the FileStore and copy the original filestore folder.
Again, paste and rename to the same name as the database files above.
In the newly named folder, find the file FileStoreInfo.fsg and delete it. Now start ADMS console and Attach the new Vault by pointing to the new location of .mdf and Filestore – and a new FileStoreInfo.fsg file will be recreated.
Finally, you could optionally run a Vault Backup from ADMS. Remember that the original vault and file store can be deleted – or restored if you want to have 2 different Vault attached at the same time.
Special thanks to Uffe for this tip!