Building 3D/2D Thumbnails from the Batch Monitor

This task shows you how to build 3D Thumbnails from the Batch Monitor.

This task includes the following:

Launch the Batch Monitor

Follow the procedure below to launch and run the Thumbnail Builder from the batch monitor.

  1. Launch the command $installpath\win_b64\code\bin\CATUtil.exe.

    Note: You can also launch the batch monitor from the Administration Configuration: in the application menu, select theUtility command in the Tools section of the action bar.

    A Log On dialog box appears.

    After you successfully log onto a data source, the Batch Monitor dialog box appears.

  2. Double-click the PLMThumbnailBuilder entry.
    The PLMThumbnailBuilder dialog box appears.
    Tip: For any dialog box that contains the icon at the upper-right corner, you can click the icon to access the online documentation.

Select Objects

First select the objects for which you want to generate thumbnails.

The Object Selection area lets you select the objects to be processed in batch mode via a query.

  1. Click the Search icon to launch a query.

    Tip: The 3DEXPERIENCE platform Object Management dialog box appears, enabling you to select objects. See the 3DEXPERIENCE Native Apps, Searching for Objects.

    The Query parameters appear.

  2. Define the Query parameters.
  3. Select the Case sensitive check box to render your query case sensitive.
  4. To append the query results to previous results, click Add Results.
  5. To replace previous results with the current query results, click Replace Results.
  6. Click Apply to launch the query.
    The results are displayed in the Object Selection area.
    Tips: You can remove entries by selecting them and clicking the Erase icon .

Define Parameters for the Selected Operation (PLMThumbnailBuilder)

You can use the Thumbnail parameters to fine-tune thumbnail generation.

To define the 3D Thumbnail calculation options, see Building 3D Thumbnails in Interactive Mode, Building 3D/2D Thumbnails in Interactive Mode.

Define Report Target Directory

The report target directory enables you to define exactly where the report will be saved.

Specify the target directory either by entering its path directly in the Target Directory box or by clicking the directory icon.
The Target Directory box contains the path of the directory in which the reports and, eventually, the processed objects will be stored.
Important: This field is mandatory to run your PLM Batch. By default, it is initialized with the current or temporary directory, depending on your configuration and on the write access. However, note that when searching for File objects, the directory specified in the Default target directory field prevails.

Launch the Command

Follow the procedure below to launch the Thumbnail Builder.

  1. Click Run to launch the batch.
  2. Afterwards, to access information on your PLM Batch execution, click the Processes tab in the Batch Monitor tab.
    Some general information on your PLM Batch execution as well as a report containing the global results of the batch are also generated in the target directory that you specified above.
    Important: The 3D XML connector does not manage concurrent access to 3D XML files, therefore the Run button is not available. See Building 3D/2D Thumbnails from the Command Line to generate 3D Thumbnails for 3D XML files.

Save the Batch Parameters in an XML File

You can save batch parameters in an XML file for use at a later moment.

  1. Optionally, to save your batch parameters in a specific location, click Save.
    A dialog box opens to let you enter a name for the XML file and choose the directory in which the file will be saved.
  2. Click OK when finished to validate and close the dialog box.

Tip: Before the batch execution, an XML file containing the batch parameters is generated in a temporary folder. This file is named BatchParameters suffixed with the hour at which the batch was run (e.g. BatchParameters_14.41.25.xml to indicate that the batch was run at 14.21.25 PM). This parameters file is the same as the one you get when pushing the Save button.