What is it?
Nitro-Cell is an automation tool for Pro/ENGINEER that enables you to use Microsoft Excel to drive Pro/ENGINEER automation processes. Our latest version supports corporate configuration files and NitroMation Plug-In's (i.e. write your own NitroMation Plug-In code to integrate NitroCell with your other business applications and environments).
The OLD way of automating Pro/E
| The OLD Way of Automating Pro/E |
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For years, Pro/ENGINEER has been marketed and purchased for its unique abilities to define and manage parametric and geometric relationships. It has been the product that all products have been compared to for the past 10 years and also today.
However, the trend and tendency has been to treat Pro/ENGINEER as the "single source" for engineering knowledge and logic - resulting in parts and assemblies that were closely related and "locked" together.
The benefits: Pro/E models and drawings structures that worked perfectly when everything was tightly related, controlled and managed.
The problems: Pro/E models and drawings are tightly related, controlled and managed - it is basically a locked structure. You can not easily reuse or run automations unless everything is in place, at the right versions and you don't care about re-using components that are driven within a Pro/E automation in other designs.
Also, when you configure a design, and you save it, your entire logic structure and relationships are still in the models and drawings. Essentially, all of your knowledge is still there for your vendors - and possibly your competitors - to see and learn about. This is a MAJOR issue for anyone concerned about a maintaining competitive edge. Then there is the question of how to rename, store and manage configured designs and modify them over time. Argh!!! What a pain!
What about Layouts?- OK, these are cool, but compound your problems when you try to manage any of your automation data in a PDM (Product Data Management) System - Layouts are interpreted as both parents and children within Pro/E, and must be properly declared in order for your design to leverage them. Have the same components driven by multiple layouts - who ever saves last "wins!"
As you can see, automation in Pro/E is a blessing, but also is very limited when it comes to the long term management and component re-use...
The NEW way...
Nito-Cell was designed to leverage what works well within Pro/E, while eliminating the problems of traditional Pro/E automation techniques, improving component re-use, management, control, delivery, etc., etc., etc...
Nitro-Cell works completely outside of Pro/ENGINEER and enables you to document your product knowledge outside of Pro/ENGINEER in Microsoft Excel - the #1 used engineering software application in the world.
| The Nitro-Cell Way of Automating Pro/E |
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With minimal formatting requirements, you can us Excel to collect engineering inputs, perform simple calculations, data-lookups and optimizations and deliver the results to Pro/ENGINEER directly, bypassing much of the conventional approaches typically taken with Pro/ENGINEER to get similar results.
As an added bonus, you can drive the same parts over multiple designs using multiple Excel Files!
Improved Component Reusability, Faster Regenerations
Nitro-Cell's unique approach of targeted component modifications means that you do not have to lock down your assemblies with "EXECUTE" statements or use "Layouts" to pass and force information within your Pro/ENGINEER model structures.
Nitro-Cell enables you to directly modify specific models, regardless of their location within an assembly. No more dumping things in at the top of your Pro/E Assembly and hoping everything regenerates ok.
Get it done! With or Without Pro/PROGRAM
Pro/PROGRAM is an efficient method for toggling feature and component existence within Pro/ENGINEER Parts and Assemblies. Nitro-Cell enhances your use of Pro/PROGRAM by enabling you to focus on the feature and component existence logic that a Pro/PROGRAM does very well, without embedding mountains of relations and logic within Pro/E that is more easily defined and managed in Microsoft Excel.
Nitro-Cell and Pro/PROGRAM are a PERFECT Combination!
Automated Design & Documentation Releasing
When you start to to embed your engineering know how into your CAD data, you expose and by default accept a certain level of risks that your data will not fall into the wrong hands after it leaves your engineering department.
Nitro-Cell helps to minimize those risks by cleaning up model data to remove your engineer's feature and regeneration logic for you - resulting in a "dumb" model that can be passed on to vendors and other suppliers without concern about the knowledge or path that was taken to derive your designs.
NitroMation-API Plug-In Support - NEW! w/ Version 2.1
Now you can extend Nitro-Cell with the NitroMation-API to write "Plug-In's" to seamlessly integrate Nitro-Cell with other other applications (e.g. other databases, excel documents, web services, etc.). This enables your organization to easily bridge the technical and procedural gaps that limit success with integrating automation within your business process!
Protect your Intellectual Property!
Aside from cross-version compatibility issues with highly structured/locked-down part/assembly automations in Pro/ENGINEER, one of the biggest problems customers risk is the loss of their engineering know-how when they send out designs and documentation to 3rd party and outsourcing vendors. This is a HUGE RISK to your business!
Nitro-Cell's fundamental approach of keeping design logic separate from your Pro/ENGINEER data by definition helps to protect the "how?!?" and only deliver the "what!" you need to have produced. |
