About Using the Legacy Drawing Associator (LDA)
You can use the Legacy Drawing Associator (LDA) in the Drawing mode of Creo Parametric to associate drawings with their models and create drawing and model pairs. When a drawing and its model of the same name are in session, LDA automatically maps the model to the drawing. LDA automatically completes the model, view, and entity level associations for the model and the active drawing. You can import drawings and models that belong to the supported 2D and 3D file formats or open models that belong to the CATIA, SolidWorks, and NX file formats as non-Creo models in Creo Parametric.
Though the priority tasks of associating the model to the drawing and mapping views and entities are performed automatically, LDA also offers interactive capabilities. You can interactively perform the following tasks in LDA:
• Create, place, and orient 2D views on the active drawing.
• Create annotations such as dimensions, geometric tolerances, notes, and surface finish symbols.
• Insert symbols from the symbols palette, create custom instances of the associated symbols, and define or redefine symbol definitions using the symbols gallery.
• Match unmapped legacy annotations, such as dimensions and notes, with draft annotations.
• Verify whether the views, annotations, and other 2D entities on the drawing are mapped to their corresponding 3D entities.
• Clean up the drawing when LDA completes mapping the views and annotations.
LDA consists of the following tabs on the Legacy Migration tab:
• Map—Automatically associates the model from disk or session with the drawing. Maps the 2D views and annotations on the drawing to the 3D views and the corresponding 3D entities in the model. Automatically creates model views based on the 2D views. Copies the legacy annotations on the drawing and maps them to the associated annotations. Copies the ordinate dimensions as associative ordinate dimensions.
• Views—Allows you to create 2D views. You can also orient and match the 3D views of the model relative to the 2D views on the drawing. You can use references from 2D views to orient and match the model views.
• Model Views—Allows you to place model views or specify the view types such as orthographic, projection, detailed, auxiliary, and so on. You can place the model views only after you add the 3D model to the drawing and associate the model with the drawing.
• Annotations—Allows you to create standard, reference, and ordinate dimensions, geometric tolerances, notes, and surface finish symbols. You can also insert free-placement and on-entity drawing symbols from the symbols palette, create custom instances of symbols associated with the model and the drawing, or use the symbols gallery to define new symbols and redefine existing symbol definitions. Additionally, you can match and associate unmapped legacy annotations and draft entities with draft annotations.
• Utilities/Settings—Allows you to validate view and annotation entity associations. You can use the Validate LDA Associations dialog box to verify whether the views, dimensions, notes, and 2D entities on the drawing are mapped to the corresponding 3D model views, annotations, and model entities. You can place the mapped views, annotations, and dimensions on a layer and hide the layer to clean up the drawing.
• Annotation Converter—Allows you to convert the annotations on the drawing to 3D model annotations. The Annotation Converter is an additional application on the Legacy Migration tab.
To use LDA, the imported drawings must have the same names as the imported models or the parts and assemblies opened as non-Creo models. For multiple drawings and models, you can create a *.csv file listing the names of the models and their drawings. You can then specify the location of this map file as the value of the lda_map_file configuration option. LDA locates the model file for the drawing in session based on the entries in this mapping file.
You can then open a drawing, preferably an .igs file. You must select the Import Associative Dimensions option in the Import IGES dialog box when you open the drawing file. If LDA does not automatically find the model file with the same name as the drawing in session, it searches for the model file in the Creo Parametric working directory and its subdirectories. LDA then opens the model from one of these locations. If the model file is not found in the working directory and its subdirectories or if the drawing and its associated model are named differently, you can browse and select the model file in the Open dialog box.
After LDA opens the model file of the active drawing and maps the model in session to the active drawing, you can click the Legacy Migration tab to use LDA. You can create and place views, insert symbols, verify whether all the views and 2D entities are mapped, and clean up the drawing to remove the mapped entities.