If you have created many Block-Based Parts, you may have noticed after using PLANTPARTCONVERT that the folder in Windows where you store the parts has a lot of files. You can make your life a little more organized by developing a file management habit before the number of files gets way out of hand. I personally have two methods that I incorporate when creating custom parts:
For each DWG file you create, there will be a corresponding XML file, but for each individual part within that drawing file, there will be a PNG image file. If you look in your Windows folder, you will notice there are many more PNG files than any other file, and there lies the need for a little file management.
In this image, you can see a small portion of the files I am speaking of. There are 82 files currently. If I could show you the entire folder, you would only see 5 DWG files and 5 XML files. The remaining 72 files are all PNG image files, and a large number of them are identical, but for different sizes. My goal is to have as few files as necessary. Preferably as few as 1 image file per dwg, but as you can see with the Butterfly Valve, I have two different types of images: one for Lever and one for Wheel. With this one, I will only narrow it down to 4 files to maintain the two images. For a DWG that is manufacturer-specific, I may end up with more image files because there are more different parts, but I will still be able to redact all the sizes.
In this article, I am going to focus on modifying and reducing the Pressure Reducing Valves down to 3 files. It is the same simple process for each DWG file, so once you learn one, you can do them all. It is a manual process, which means it is best to do this as early in the process as possible, and to develop the habit of managing it every time you use the PLANTPARTCONVERT command. This will keep it from becoming an overwhelming task as well. I also think it is best to do this immediately after using PLANTPARTCONVERT and before creating the Block-Based Part in your Catalog. As a side note, your Catalog, in my opinion, should be a Custom Catalog and not the Out-Of-The-Box Catalog, but that is a discussion for another time.
The first step is simply deleting duplicate image files and renaming the one you are keeping. My rule of thumb has been to keep the largest size of any image files. My assumption has always been that the larger size is a better quality, but I have never tried to test the theory. Whichever image file you decide to keep becomes the image you will see on the Tool Palette when using Plant 3D™.
I am deleting the PNG files for the three smaller sizes (3”, 4” and 6”) and only keeping the 8” version named PressureReducingValves.dwg_PressRedValve-8.png. Then I will rename that file by removing the size (-8) to a generic one size fits all PressureReducingValves.dwg_PressRedValve.png.
That is all there is to this first step. Clean up the number of image files and rename the one you are keeping. Unfortunately, if you do not take the next step, you will not get an image when creating your Block-Based Part, which means your catalog, specs, and tool palettes are going to have a few issues since none of the images the software is looking for can be found. That is where the next final step comes into play.
Open the XML file in an XML Editor. If you do not have an XML Editor, and you double-click the file, it will most likely open in your browser, where you have no editing capabilities. You can find XML Editor’s online for free; however, you can also use Notepad. To use Notepad, you will need to right-click on the XML file and go to Open with > Notepad.
I am using an XML Editor named FOXE to open the file PressureReducingValves.dwg.xml. In the Editor, I just need to locate each PNG file and rename it to the same file name that I used previously.
Save and Exit the XML File, and your mission has been completed. Rinse and repeat for any other images you would like to clean up.
As you can see in the image below, after performing these two steps on the 5 DWG files that I had in my folder, I went from 82 files to 19 files, and this was just a sample of files that I have on my system. It was a 77% reduction in files in this sample, making it much more efficient to work with and manage moving forward. As stated earlier, it is now my habit to do this every time I use the PLANTPARTCONVERT command before I create the Block-Based Part. It normally takes me less than a minute to complete the process to keep my life as a CAD Manager as simple as possible, which I believe is well worth that extra effort.
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