Saving and Loading Library Parts
To guarantee re-use of existing library parts, Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager implements several mechanisms depending on the context.
Part Library load and save
When you create a part in Creo Elements/Direct Part Library and Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager is active, Creo Elements/Direct Part Library first checks whether the part is already available in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager. If it is, the existing part is loaded and used in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. If it is not stored in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager yet, Creo Elements/Direct Part Library creates the part and immediately stores it to Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager.
Library Parts without Part Library
A Creo Elements/Direct Modeling session can contain library parts that are not created by Creo Elements/Direct Part Library. These could be library parts loaded from a storage disk or parts that are marked as library elements using Mark as Library Element in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. They are specially handled depending on the Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager configuration.
• Single Library class in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager
If only a single library class is configured, automatic synchronization is performed before saving an assembly to Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager. The synchronization checks whether any of the library parts to be saved is already available in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager. If a part is available, the part which is in session is silently replaced (reloaded) by the part which is stored in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager.
To disable auto synchronization, type (setf ModelManager::*auto-synchronize-library-elements* nil) in the Creo Elements/Direct Modeling user input line.
To manually perform the library part synchronization in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling, click Model Manager and then, in the Collaborate group, click Sync Library.
• Multiple Library classes in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager
Automatic synchronization is not performed if multiple library classes are configured. You can select the target library class in the Save dialog box.
Integration Kit Support
The Creo Elements/Direct Part Library mechanism to first checks whether the library part is already available in Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager or not and the automatic synchronization are implemented by using the Direct Database Functions from the Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Integration Kit. These functions can also be used to implement special behavior for custom library classes. In particular, the following functions are useful:
• sd-db-element-exists: checks whether an element exists in the database.
• sd-db-element-store: stores an element to the database.
• sd-db-element-reload: reloads an element from the database.
For more information, see the Integration Kit documentation in the Creo Elements/Direct Modeling help.