Previewer 2

[neilc78]

One of our designers asked me an interesting question today - maybe someone out there can help. We build large one of machines. We give each machine a job number and then we copy (using SW Explorer) an old similar machine into a new folder which we then edit. The folder is called after the job number. This works fine except that it can be difficult to find that older similar machine because of the nature of the filing system. Currently, the designer would need to go into each folder and open or preview each assembly. We thought a better solution would be to save a copy of each assembly into a different folder. Then a copy of all assemblies would be in one folder and could be easily browsed through to find an appropriate one. I don't like this idea as it allows the desiger room to error when using save as or SWexplorer. The file sizes would also be large. I'd prefer if we could save an edrawing of the assembly into a folder. The file sizes would be small and easily browsed. There is only one problem. Doing a file, open in edrawings does not give a preview!! Does anyone know a program that would allow a person to click on files for a preview (ideally edrawing files). If not edrawing files then some equivalent that won't take up a lot of room on the server?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You could add a description to the folder name, (Job Number + Descriptive Name) or keep a separate list of what each job comprises.

You could use the 'Summary' information of the assy to also store descriptions.

You could save an image of the main drawing & use that as the picture in the folder. Using 'Thumbnail' views of the folders would work best.

Maybe the simplest way, would be to save images of the main models/drawings in the folder, then use Picasa or other image viewer to scan the folders.


Helpful SW websites faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[TheTick]

maybe not the xact anwer you're looking for...

If you had a JPEG of screenshot of each of your machines in a folder, you could take advantage of Windows features to do your previewing by thumbnail view or filmstrip preview. Personlly, I'm a fan of the filmstrip preview.

 

[smcadman]

I had the same problem also. I made a new drawing template so I can have the information of the project, such as project number, client, Rev., etc. and simply called it "Catalog". I originally saved it as a PDF, BUT there is no preview. So I save it as an image. JPG may work for you if you only want the thumbnail, and it has a smaller size.
I save it as a TIF file because there are options you can set, mainly DPI and an option for "Print Capture" instead of "Screen Capture". At 100 dpi, the "Packbits" compression yields better results than a jpg (75 dpi) and is generally under 150 kb.
I put all of the images in a folder called "catalog" so they are all in one location. Now I have a thumbnail preview, and if I print it, I have all of the vital information on the image.

Flores
SW06 SP2.0