We have configured and customised Windchill PDMLink to show some of the CAD Document information on native MCAD drawings created with Creo Parametric and SolidWorks, by using a combination of implicit mapping of Attributes and customised copies of the "download delegate" and the Promotion workflows. At the end of the workflows, the Lifecycle state changes and the drawings get re-published by WVS and the cadworkers, to make new PDFs showing the latest version, Lifecycle state, etc. Hence both the native CAD drawings and the PDF viewable copies show exactly the same information in the drawing title block.
The same behaviour is not possible for ECAD applications, such as Creo Schematic or PCBCAD tools from eg. Mentor Graphics, because they have a set of native files that get ZIPed up to make the ECAD Document primary attachments, and the viewables are (typically) made on the client-side automatically during the check-in process. Hence there is no mechanism for sharing Attributes & values between Windchill WGM and the native ECAD drawing files, and no sensible way to re-publish the viewable copies after approval in order to show the new version and state.
Following discussions with PTC and our VAR, and as I have described on another recent posting (add cross-ref. here ...), it seems the best solution for ECAD would be to add watermarks or stamps to the PDFs (copies of drawings, etc, attached to ECAD Derived documents) in order to add and show the missing metadata. I have been searching the PTC websites and the Internet for information about the various ways this might be achieved, and found quite a lot of it is confusing - as the terms watermark and stamp sometimes get mixed up. I have even read about some PDF stamping tools that apply watermarks, and vice versa !
Can anyone confirm or clarify the following tentative conclusions :
I think that stamps may be more versatile than watermarks, as they may be more easily sized and positioned to fill in a title block on different sizes of drawing sheet (A4, A3, A2, A1, A0) ?
I think that stamps are applied on top of the visible information, and that watermarks are applied behind the visible information, and that both can be made opaque or translucent ?
I think that stamps can be omitted when printing PDFs but that watermarks cannot as long as they were created with the relevant options set to prevent them being hidden ?
I think that the watermarking functionality in WVS only works on files viewed in Creo View, and that if a PDF viewable is downloaded it will not show that watermark ?
There are a few, possibly several, third party tools for adding watermarks and/or stamps to PDFs, and of particular interest are the ones that can be used from the command line (using java or javascript, as these might be used in workflows or perhaps with the WWGMTK...), from companies that provide add-ons or consultancy services for Windchill, as mentioned by other users on this forum (eg. Fishbowl, Najanaja, Wincom). Can anyone describe how they have used any of these tools with the ECAD WGM and PCBCAD applications ?
Nick
