Product View Express - Cannot see original ProE file's decals/colortexture

Hi - I have some ProE WF2.0 .prts that have jpg/bmp on certain
surfaces to depict labels. I applied these images onto the .prt
surfaces by using the Appearance Editor and creating new materials
with these jpg/bmps. This all works fine in ProE as the jpg/bmps are
in the same Working Directory along with the appearance.dmt file.
However - others in our organisation need to view these files using
Product View Express (or similar viewer) - all of the asm & prts
appear ok but none of the jpg/bmps appear even though I have these
files in the same directory as described above.
Is it possible to get these images displayed using Product View
Express?
If not - is there a similar ProE viewer that will display these
images?
Thanks for your help in advance - Mark

 

My first question to you is can other Pro/e users view you
textures/bmps/decals on their own machines. Because, if other Pro/e users
can't view them, PV is definitely out of the question. Prior the WF3, you
had to store the graphics files referenced in textures, decals, etc. in a
special folder that everyone's (or some corporate) config file pointed to. I
don't remember what it was exactly but it was something like PRO_TEXTURE_DIR
followed by the folder path name. I'm not 100% sure that PV will pick this
up since it may be unaware of config.pro, but I'm sure that it will be
impossible without the directory setting. I think the need for this option
and directory pointer goes away in WF3 which stores the graphics with the
part.

David Janes

 

Thanks David for the post...
Only one Mec Eng & ProE seat in the company (me) - what Im trying to
do is give some of our sales team visibility of new product designs.
We've tried PV Express and they can see all of the shaded prts/asms
but I cannot figure out a way to get the textures/bmps/decals to
display. Also worth noting is I have to send them a folder with all
the ProE files included so they can open the files while they're out
in the field doing their sales thing...so far if I send them a folder
with all .prt & .asm files as well as the jpgs/bmps for the decals -
the decals do not display. (Ive also included the appearance.dmt file
in the folder - but PV Express probably cannot read/understand this?).
Do you reckon this is asking a bit much of Product View Express?

 

To your last question, might it be a bit much to expect of the free,
stripped down version of PV? It just might and I haven't yet checked to see
if the full blown, professional version can do it.

On the other hand, people who are trying to snazz up marketing's
presentations often do several renderings. True, you can't get the full
solids effect of being able to spin/pan/zoom a model. But you can do some
pretty life-like shots of the product in a natural setting that marketing
people love. Maybe that plus the unadorned models would be okay. Another fun
thing that marketing loves is RP models, either machined or SLA or cintered
metal or FDM in ABS. Did you investigate the config setting and what it
does?

David Janes

 

I just found out what I have at work in config.pro that gets me to where the textures are stored. It's an option called texture_search_path. When you browse to a path, it appends this path name to a search string. Done repeatedly, the string can be composed of many path names, separated by semi-colons.

David Janes

 

David
We have settled with using eDrawings - which does very good rendering
- however it does not work with the jpg/bmp textures. I have had to
work around that by cutting text into the surfaces rather that relying
on photos of a real label.
I was talking to a PTC distribuitor and he reckons that this feature
of pasting the jpg onto a surface as a texture will not transfer out
of ProE to another 3D rendering package. He also mentioned WF4 is
equipped with a tool that will create 3D pdfs that you can pan/zoom
etc.. in Adobe 8 (again it will not transfer the texture/jpg though).
Thanks for the help on this one
Mark