Blogs - ProE.net

The 15 Minute Lockout

This post is a humble request to all Pro/ENGINEER developers out there to help me solve an extremely irritating problem. First let me begin by explaining my problem. Unlike most CAD vendors, PTC does not give away their SDK (Software Development Kit) for free. So if you want to customize Pro/ENGINEER by means of plug-ins you need to purchase a license of something known as Pro/TOOLKIT, basically a C API used to develop what PTC calls auxiliary applications, or plug-ins. As a PTC partner I have… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on July 9, 2009 at 10:30pm — No Comments

VBA - Connect to Pro/ENGINEER

This code will connect to a running session of Pro/ENGINEER and will change the Working Directory: Sub Main() Dim asynconn As New pfcls.CCpfcAsyncConnection Dim conn As pfcls.IpfcAsyncConnection Dim session As pfcls.IpfcBaseSession 'Make an asynchronous connection with Pro/ENGINEER Set conn = asynconn.Connect("", "", ".", 5) 'Get the current session Set session = conn.session 'Show the current Working Directory MsgBox "This is the current Working Directory: " & vbCrLf & session.GetCu… Continue

Added by Teun Ham on July 8, 2009 at 1:07pm — No Comments

VBA - Start a new session of Pro/ENGINEER

The code below will start a new session of Pro/ENGINEER: Sub Main() Dim asynconn As pfcls.CCpfcAsyncConnection Dim conn As pfcls.IpfcAsyncConnection Dim session As pfcls.IpfcBaseSession Dim sProE_Start_Location As String 'This the full path to the exe file which will start Pro/ENGINEER sProE_Start_Location = "C:\ptc\wf4\bin\proe.exe" 'Make an asynchronous connection to a new instance of Pro/ENGINEER Set asynconn = New CCpfcAsyncConnection Set conn = asynconn.Start(sProE_Start_Location, ".")… Continue

Added by Teun Ham on July 8, 2009 at 12:52pm — No Comments

VBA - Run a 'mapkey'

The code below shows how to run a 'mapkey' For this example you will need to have a drawing open in Pro/ENGINEER Sub Print_Current_Sheet_To_PDF() Dim asynconn As New pfcls.CCpfcAsyncConnection Dim conn As pfcls.IpfcAsyncConnection Dim session As pfcls.IpfcBaseSession 'Make an asynchronous connection with Pro/ENGINEER Set conn = asynconn.Connect("", "", ".", 5) 'Get the current session Set session = conn.session 'Define a mapkey string which will perform a ViewRefit Dim sMacroString As Strin… Continue

Added by Teun Ham on July 2, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

VBA - Open a Pro/E file in a new window

This routine will open a Pro/E file from your WorkingDirectory in a new window: [code] Sub Main() Dim asynconn As New pfcls.CCpfcAsyncConnection Dim conn As pfcls.IpfcAsyncConnection Dim session As pfcls.IpfcBaseSession Dim oModel As pfcls.IpfcModel 'Make an asynchronous connection with Pro/ENGINEER Set conn = asynconn.Connect("", "", ".", 5) 'Get the current session Set session = conn.session 'Open a Pro/E Model Set oModel = Open_ProE_File(session, EpfcMDL_PART, "PRT0001.PRT") 'Show the na… Continue

Added by Teun Ham on July 2, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

PTC Joins the Direct Modeling Bandwagon

I guess I can open my trap now. People at PTC/USER 09 have started reporting on PTC's modeling plans. I was shown some of it during my visit to the PTC Headquarters in Needham this April, but was asked not to talk about it till PTC/USER 09. Direct modeling will not be in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0. Rather it will be part of Wildfire 6.0. But since they are already working on it, I suspect that it will be in the software but the fu… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on June 8, 2009 at 10:45pm — No Comments

PTC's New Blogger and Tweeter

Mark Lobo, PTC's Director of Windchill CAD Integrations, now has a blog. PTC/USER 09 starts tomorrow and Mark intends to blog and tweet live at the event. Blog: http://marklobo.blogspot.com Twitter: @marklobotweets Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on June 7, 2009 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Options to Streamline PLM Collaboration: Microsoft vs. Google

Options to Streamline PLM Collaboration: Microsoft vs. Google http://plmtwine.com/2009/05/28/options-to-streamline-plm-collaboration-microsoft-vs-google/ Continue

Added by Oleg Shilovitsky on May 28, 2009 at 10:29pm — No Comments

Top Five Disappointing PLM Technologies

Once in a while, industries, companies, or developers come up with something that they think will change the technological and product landscape. PLM is no exception in this lineup of excitements and disappointments. Here are five technologies, that disappointed me in the CAD/CAE/PDM/PLM world listed from least to most disappointing): http://plmtwine.com/2009/05/22/top-five-disappointing-plm-technologies/ Continue

Added by Oleg Shilovitsky on May 28, 2009 at 10:28pm — No Comments

GRANITE Cross-Release Interoperability

During my recent visit to the PTC headquarters in Needham, Asa Trainer, Director - Product Management, explained to me PTC's solution to the legacy format interoperability problem, something which I accused many CAD vendors of deliberately ignoring in my last post. Their solution is called… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on May 25, 2009 at 4:23pm — No Comments

What is the Engineer’s Social Formula for PLM?

http://plmtwine.com/2009/05/04/what-is-the-engineers-social-formula-for-plm/#comment-845 Continue

Added by Oleg Shilovitsky on May 5, 2009 at 11:38am — No Comments

PTC Visit - Revisited

Rick Stavanja left a comment on my post titled "PTC Visit" letting me know that he missed the "meaty unfettered opinions" that he is accustomed to hearing from me. He found it odd that the executives from PTC did not discuss the role I was taking as a visitor before I arrived. I know all this sounds quite odd. In fact it is. But I think I need to clarify a few things here. PTC did not pay for my travel or stay. I am payi… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on April 24, 2009 at 7:51pm — No Comments

PTC Visit

I spent the entire day at PTC headquarters in Needham, Boston.

My meetings with top PTC executives went off well. In fact, I think they went off too well. So much so that they gagged me from just about everything they told and showed me. Before we even started, John Buchowski, Director of Produ… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on April 24, 2009 at 8:53am — No Comments

Boston

Today I find myself in the cozy home of Mark Lobo, PTC's Director of Windchill CAD Integrations. Mark lives in a beautiful town called Ashland on the suburbs of Boston. This is my first time in a suburban town of an American city and it feels wonderful. To give you an idea, Mark's house is on the edge of the woods and I am told that deer come to graze outside his window. I arrived into Phoenix from Hawaii this morning and eventually landed in Boston this evening. I lost a few hours along the wa… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on April 24, 2009 at 8:22am — No Comments

Pro/ENGINEER and Direct Editing

Michael Campbell, SVP Product Management, Desktop Products of PTC left an interesting comment on an article on this blog (“Pro/ENGINEER: Old Is Gold”). He drew a distinction between PTC’s strategy and that of its competitors, Dassault and Siemens. According to Michael, “an important part of PTC’s strategy is to develop a single, scalable parametric CAD tool that can compete… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on April 8, 2009 at 9:53pm — No Comments

Pro/ENGINEER: Old Is Gold

I prefer to think that I know a few things about the innards of today’s CAD systems. Over the past decade I have written plug-ins for a bunch of them – AutoCAD, Inventor, 3ds Max, Maya, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, SpaceClaim, Rhinoceros, Alibre Design, IRONCAD, INOVATE, SketchUp, Acrobat and over a dozen variants of IntelliCAD. Yes, I have done all these ladies. As programmers we get to feel them up and touch them in places that end users cannot. This is because CAD vendors need to expose certain pa… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on April 3, 2009 at 1:30am — No Comments

A Couple of Surveys

Your email address could now be worth close to $4,000. Cyon Research is conducting a follow up survey to the one they did with Merrill Lynch last summer. That was a survey on CAD/PLM users, the report of which was published this January and could be purchased from Cyon Rese… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on March 19, 2009 at 11:22pm — No Comments

iCADsales.com Releases ProgeCAM, Linking Design with CNC Machining

iCADsales.com (www.icadsales.com), in co-operation with progeSOFT North America (www.progesoft.us), announces the release of ProgeCAM, CNC Machining Software linked to progeCAD Professional providing seamless “Art to Part” manufacturing life cycle.… Continue

Added by iCADsales.com on February 18, 2009 at 3:30am — No Comments

PTC World – Product Development System

It is quite normal, even fashionable, for a company to coin a fancy phrase and use it to differentiate itself from the competition. Autodesk has "Digital Prototyping", Siemens has "Synchronous Technology", and so on. PTC is no different. Yesterday, at PTC World in Mumbai I learnt about something called "Product Development System" or PDS, and is comprised of 5 C's - Create, Collaborate, Control, Configure an… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on February 11, 2009 at 11:00am — No Comments

PTC World - The Speeches

I just got back to my hotel after attending PTC World, the annual PTC user meeting held at the Hyatt Regency in Mumbai. Truth be told, I do not know much about PTC or its products and this event was my first step towards the due diligence I promised myself to undertake. In April, after attending COFES in Arizona, I will be visiting the PTC headquarters at Needham, where I intend to meet more PTC employees, especially the technical people. I was really looking forward to meeting Jim Heppelmann,… Continue

Added by Deelip Menezes on February 11, 2009 at 12:00am — No Comments

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