Hi amdsoo, and thank you for your answer on associativity. I already noticed that SR1 works in absolute mode so I changed my product structure and now works great. But now I have another question...sure you can help.
May be you know that some changes have been introduced to structure design in R17, in previous releases, when specifying the section you wanted to use for a shape (beam or columm) you could browse over your catalogs, but in R17 you can only choose from a fixed sections list. My issue comes when I want to select other sections than those appearing in that list, I have searched through the Documentation and all I found is that avalilable sections are defined via a PRM file and sectios are placed by default at /intel/starup/equipmentandsystems/structure/structural catalogs/aisc/models_resolved, and so it is, but I cannot find the catalog referring to those sections. I went to Structure design workbench> tools> projectmanagement and tried to select another project.xml containing the supposed right strings to define my catalog but it didn´t work since I tried to validate both .xml files (the default CNEXT and my own project.xml) and both miss the structuresectionspath string. My question: as catia uses by default a PRM called CNEXT, is there any way to manage this file rather than creating a specific .xml file which is not working? Is there any way to modify the catalog CATIA is using by default?
Thank you very much and congratulations for your webpage, really nice work.
I'm surprised by your problem . Structure Design has always used a resolved section catalog since Day 1 . There is no change here . What we have changed tough , is the Panel to access the section and the structure of the catalog itself . This is to re-align Structure design to all the others Structure products (SFD/SDD) >Now we use one Centralized catalog resource, called StructureMaterialSpecifications, in the folder \intel_a\startup\EquipmentAndSystems\Structure\StructuralCatalogs\Materials.
I do NOT recommend to use CNEXT project as this is just for people doing a simple demo , or a test . You should have your own Project.xml file . If you had a r16 or earlier resource xml file for Structure Design , you must upgrade the XML file to have the right resource defined :
1- StructureMaterialSpecifications (NEW)
2- StructureMaterialCatalog (OLD)
Please check the documentation (PRM) , we have done a serious effort to explain this precisely .
Let me know if you succeed .
amdsoo -
Thanks for sharing your CATIA Structure Design knowledge. I have a problem that you can likely help with. We are using CATIA to design marine based drilling rigs with heavy use in the Equipment and Systems area. Currently we are having a problem when producing a (BOM) report (using the report define/generate option). When we run a report our weight is not being calculated correctly. Also, the length has problems after we place endcuts on the steel beams. In the report the weight is incorrect and if the beam has an endcut the length just shows as asterisks.
Can you tell me where the weight and length exist (i.e. where is the calculation happening before it is displayed on the report)?
Thanks for your reply... we are using R15Sp7. We are in the process of moving to R17. There is currently a RAND guy on-site w/R17 installed on his laptop so we'll try it there just to make sure.
Thanks for being active on this site... I look forward to hearing more of your expertise in the future.
You were right… the reports in R17sp2 are working fine. Length and weight displays in the reports correctly. However, if I use CNEXT as my project file the weight calculates correctly. If I point to our PROJECT.XML file and use our catalog of steel beams the weight doesn’t calculate correctly. I am trying to figure out what’s wrong with our catalog setup and why it’s causing wrong weight calculations. We are running R15sp5… all this was setup when I started here. I realize that the fix is in R17 so I’m trying to use R17 w/our catalogs. From looking at the default directory structure of a R17 install, it appears that there may have been some dir structure changes from 15 to 17. Is this true? Can you tell me what files are used to calculate the weight when running a report?
You are right that we have done A LOT of cleaning from R15 to R17 . In term of reorganizing the PRM resource .
Two things you can do ( "must do" maybe but this isn't polite)
1- Check the Sr1 documentation, Section PRM Resource , we have done a gigantic cleaning in Sr1 ,and the mandatory resources are clearly defined there .Check you are pointing to the right folders and catalogs.
2- The weight is based on two things
a- The Material must be properly informed ( say STEEL A50) in the Material Catalog , check this , you must have a volumic Mass defined (if you haven't customized anything , you should be good)
b- In each section CATPART , one parameter called A is key for evaluating the surface ( yes the surface) of the section, this is NOT COMPUTED by CATIA , this is READ .Because we want this to be fast , and not related to the exact defintion of the section ( for instance you could define a simplistic section but still want the exact weight).
A is stated in m2 or ft2 .etc ..it is an area.
thus A*(length of Profile) *VolumicMass = Weight of Profile
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, I found the problem. Someone here added new materials in the catalog but didn't fill in the properties. After entering the properties, the report now calculates the weight properly.
Thanks again for your help and especially the quick response.
