With this release of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 M030, comes the first formal integration between Mathcad and Pro/ENGINEER. This integration allows you to associate Mathcad files with Pro/ENGINEER parts and assemblies, enabling unique predictive engineering capabilities.

The integration improves productivity and design quality by enabling you to reduce errors from manually transferring dimensions and parameters between files, reduce time needed to update changes to parameters, verify that correct versions of the files are being used, and perform what-if analyses and instantly visualize results.

Mathcad can be used to apply scientific and mathematical principles to engineering design problems at the beginning of the design process in order to determine the critical dimensions and parameters used downstream in the CAD model. By calculating the parameters required and “predicting” the performance of the design up front, instead of guessing key dimensions and parameters, product designers can produce an optimized design more rapidly and with less iteration than the traditional methods used today.

The integration between Pro/ENGINEER and Mathcad is a bi-directional link between the two applications. You can easily associate any Mathcad file with a Pro/ENGINEER part or assembly using the Analysis feature in Pro/ENGINEER. Critical values calculated in Mathcad can be mapped to parameters and dimensions in the CAD model to drive the geometric design. Parameters from a Pro/ENGINEER model can also be input into Mathcad for downstream engineering design calculations. The integration offers dynamic updates to calculations and the CAD drawing when parameters are changed. 

This release delivers integration between Mathcad 13.1 and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 M030.

If you are currently on Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 you can download a toolkit-based application allowing integration of Mathcad 13 and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0. This less formal integration will enable the use of Mathcad parameters in Pro/ENGINEER models.

How to set up integration between Mathcad and Pro/ENGINEER

The basis of the integration is mapping Mathcad values to Pro/ENGINEER parameters and Dimensions.

Starting with your Mathcad worksheet, you need to identify the values that you wish to pass to or receive from Pro/ENGINEER (Figure 1)

Once you have decided which variables are to be dynamic, select them (Figure 2)

• Right click to select Properties (Figure 3)
• Once the properties are displayed, tag the value with one of two options. Proe2mc = value is driven from Pro/ENGINEER to Mathcad and Mc2proe = value is driven from Mathcad to Pro/ENGINEER (Figure 4)

Within Pro/ENGINEER, parameters can be set up to enable easy changes to the design. (Figure 5)

• To link the Pro/ENGINEER model to the Mathcad sheet, an analysis feature is used (Analysis à Mathcad). The regeneration options can also be set at this time
• Once Mathcad analysis is selected, click Next (Figures 6 & 7)
• At this point we select the Mathcad file using the Load File button
• Checking the Automapping option will automatically map Mathcad variables with Pro/ENGINEER parameters. This can be set by default with the config.pro option auto_mapping yes
• Automapping will attempt to map variables with the same name and units. To map variables and parameters (or dimensions) with dis-similar names, the Add Dimension or Add Parameter button can be used
• Figures 8 & 9 show the variables from the Mathcad worksheet. Note that the Units need to be identical in Pro/ENGINEER and Mathcad 
• Selecting the Outputs button allows us to select the parameters and values you wish to pass from Mathcad to Pro/ENGINEER
• Once the inputs and outputs are specified, clicking Compute will run the variables through the Mathcad worksheet and provide an answer
• At this point you can close the feature, as the results will automatically create parameters in Pro/ENGINEER
• The final thing to do is link the derived parameters to Pro/ENGINEER features or Parameters via relations(Figure 10)

Now, when variables are changed in Pro/ENGINEER, and the model regenerated, Mathcad’s calculations will drive the model.

Note that two regenerations are needed: the first regenerates the values and parameters, the second regenerates the geometry. 

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