Benderlink Tech Document #3

Advanced Tubular Technologies

Benderlink Tech Document #3:

Document For: Those who use Pro Engineer in conjunction with Benderlink

Software Version: 4

Date: December 14, 2000

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This document discusses the interoperability of Pro Engineer with Benderlink.

There are two ways to export data from Pro/Engineer to Benderlink. The preferred method requires that you have the Routed Systems Option in Pro/E. The second can be done using Benderlink Offline Programmer. This alternate method is more cumbersome to invoke, and is not recommended unless you do not have the Routed Systems Option in Pro/E.

Recommended Method:

2. Open FIF Translator, choose Add Files, Select the FIF File that you just created from Pro/E.

3. Translate the data to a Supravision File and save to the locale of your choice.

4. Import the Supravision data into Benderlink, and then send it to the bender through serial communications.

Alternate Method:

It is possible to import data from Pro/E using a software tool that we refer to as Benderlink Offline Programmer. You may know that Pro/E can be setup to output centerline XYZ and radius data in an ASCII file. The specific method used to transfer data is:

2. Load Benderlink Offline Programmer and open and parse the Pro/E file data.

3. Save the data to the Supravision format.

4. Import the Supravision data into Benderlink, and then send it to the bender through serial communications.

Benderlink software is installed near the measuring center and bender in the shop. While Benderlink Offline Programmer is included with the Benderlink installation, many customers prefer to purchase a second license of Benderlink Offline Programmer to install at a remote office (i.e., in engineering) in order to perform the initial import of Pro/E data. They then save the newly created Supravision data to a network location that is shared by the Benderlink computer. The Benderlink operator then accesses the new file and creates a bender program from within the Benderlink computer.

The following is an example of the output data from a typical Pro/E application. This scripted output came from a customer's database and is readable by our Benderlink Offline programmer. If you program Pro/E to use this format, then our Benderlink can import and convert the data.

This sample file provides for the radius, diameter, the number of coordinates, and the coordinate values.

The FILE START and FILE STOP lines are not part of the file, but are shown to indicate the start and the stop of this file data.

--FILE START---------------------------------------------------------

!
!       DATUM POINT ARRAY DATA FILE
!
! Comment lines should begin with an exclamation mark (!).
! You may have as many comment lines as you wish.
! There must be at least one space between values.
	
! Enter values with respect to datum arrays' coordinate system:
 Bend radius: .750
 O.D.: .250
 CARTESIAN coordinates: 5
!        X                Y                Z
!
              0               0               0
              0            9.16               0
        -2.4545            9.16               0
       -12.3711            9.16        -9.91659
       -12.3711            9.16        -11.8311

	   
--FILE STOP------------------------------------------------------------

Written by Michael Cone & Mathew Parker
Advanced Tubular Technologies

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