Create ProActive Parts

PROActiveParts is a powerful tool useful to manage parametrical parts. PROActiveParts allow you to set and incapsulate into a parametrical part all the values related to the parameters. These values are indexed by the PartNumber. Furthermore also CustomValues and a Preview Picture can be set and stored inside the parametrical part.

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When a parametrical part has been transformed to a PROActivePart, the user can change it double cliking on it (or right click and choose Add-on Properties).

How to create and manage PROActiveParts

In order to create a PROActivePart, you have to create a parametrical part. Here is a Parameter Table related to a simple parametrical part:

When it will be transformed in PROActivePart, all the parameter values owned by the Part D1, d, Dm, L and T will be managed by ICMechanical.

How to create PROActiveParts

To start the PROActivePart tool, drag the “Create PROActive Part” item from the Tools catalog, and drop it over the parametrical part. In alternative, you can select before the part, then drag and drop the item in the scene. This dialog will be displayed:

How you can see, the columns of the grid in the dialog are PartNumber, Description and the names of the parameters defined in the part (only those contained in the part are shown, and only the free ones, i.e. without expressions that bind them to others). At this point the user can fill the grid with all the values related to parameters, or he can import them from an external MSExcel file.

Before to evaluate the import/export functionalities, we will describe the commands available on the dialog box:

This group of buttons allow the user to create, rename or delete the groups grid.

This allows parameters to be managed in different grids (called Groups); which will be shown in the part selection dialog.

This group of buttons allow the user to move, insert or delete the rows of the grid.

This group of buttons are used to add, remove, rename and update a Custom column in the grid, add color, and load or add new parameters.

Custom columns are used to set values that will be transferred to the CustomData of part. User can add and delete these columns, but he cannot add or delete columns related to parameters or BOM Information.

This button adds a column to define color; it is useful for associating a color to be applied to the element related to each record.

This button shows a dialog with the names of the parameters associated with the part, you can then add them all to the grid, or just the selected ones.

How you can see, every column has an icon that describes the type of data.

This option is used to define in what Unit of Measure are to be considered the parameter values inserted.

This text box is used to assign a name at the ProActive Dialog, and will be visible at the top of the dialog.

This option is used to select the Material for the part.

The buttons included in this toolbar are used to create, select an existing image and preview the Picture to be associated to the PROActivePart.

These buttons are used to create a 2D drawing (based on a chosen icd model) for each row of the table and export them to pdf or dwg files separately.

These buttons are used to import or export the data contained in the grid. Using the import functionality you can import all the parameter and custom values from an existing MSExcel file.

As example, here is a valid MSExcel table that you can import:

How you can see, the first row contains all the Names related to the columns. During the import, every column name will be evaluated and associate to the correspondent parameter name. Every column that will not match with a parameter, will be managed as Custom Data. In the above example, the columns “Supplier” and “Note” will be Custom Data.

After the import of the above MSExcel file, the dialog will similar to this image:

The user can still edit any value, add or remove any Custom column and move change the order of the rows. If the user double click on the Row Counter, the values of the parameters in the row will be transferred to the parameters in the part.

When the user clicks on Apply or on the OK button all the information on the grid, and the Preview image will be elaborated and stored inside the part. In other words the part has become a PROActivePart.

At the bottom of the dialog box are two tabs for management:

In addition, one or more cells in an Excel file can be linked to the fields.

The user can also create complex expressions (based on the data extracted from the part) to assign to variables or use to fill in the properties.

This button is a simple help to explain the use of tags in cells:

• @ means any numeric parameter value can be entered manually, insert a value after @, it will be use as default.
• [...] means that the user can choose from a series of defined values, the values must be inserted between the characters [ ] and must be separated by a semicolon ;
• <...> means that the parameter value can be entered manually between a min and max value, the values must be inserted between the characters < > and must be separated by a semicolon ;

The last button activates automatic sizing of the grid columns. If the user clicks it, the columns fix the current size.

Operativity

When the user double click on a PROActivePart, or when he drop it inside a scene, this dialog will be displayed:

Using the PartNumber option (and/or other group options if present), the user can select the type of part to use, and all the parameters and customs will be filled with the right values.

Also, if you click the Data button, the dialog will expand and you will see the grid containing all the data and you can select and apply the values by double clicking on the grid:

In addition, if the user clicks on the Settings … button, the On Drop dialog will be opened and you can choose how to display the ActiveParts dialog box; the choices are:

• Always
• Only when you release in the background
• Never

Edit data

This button allows you to position all the elements contained in the grid by applying all the values in succession, when you click, a dialog appears to define how to position the elements in the scene.

This button activates automatic sizing of the grid columns. If the user clicks it, the columns fix the current size.

This button allow you the edit the data contained in the grid. If the user click it, the dialog described at the beginning of this page will be displayed.

It is also possible to hide some columns; this operation also hides the values in the dialog box.