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. 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).

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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 IronPROXT. To start the PROActivePart tool, drag the “Create PROActive Part” item from the IronPRO_XT 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. 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 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. 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. 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 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 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.

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, the user can select the type of part to use, and all the parameters and customs will be filled with the right values.

Furthermore, if the user clicks on the Data button, the dialog will be expanded, and grid containing all the data will be displayed:

This button, placed on the upper right of the grid, 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.

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