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Mechanical Engineering Home >Info: Useful Links > ProE

• General
  
  • Using UNIX on the SGI - Lost after you log in? See this.
  • Starting and Stopping Pro/E
  • Learning Pro/E on your own
  • Using the /class partition - Running out of space? You may have more than you think you do...
  • Using Pro/E's On-Line Help - Pro/Engineer has an excellent On-Line help system. This shows you how to use it.
  • Undoing Things - Pro/E may not have an "Undo" feature, but there are ways to "back up" several steps. This hint explains how to do this.
  • Query Select - How to use Query Select, and how to use the button shortcuts
  • Changing Units - How to avoid making 50-foot pens.
  • Finding the Center of Gravity of a Part - for when you want to make things balance.
  • An Easy Way to Zoom, Spin and Pan - Using keyboard/mouse shortcuts to zoom spin and pan your part in any view. Many Pro/E users become addicted to this technique.
  • My Changes Aren't Being Saved @#%$ - If you don't think Save is working, read this.
  • Making a Spring or Other Standard Components - Using parts libraries to save you time.
    
• Customizing Pro/E's Behavior
  
• Creating Key Shortcuts- Sick of using the menus? You can make the F1 key shade, the F2 key spin, or whatever you want...
• Setting the Default Text Editor - Hate vi? See this hint, and you won't have to use it in Pro/Engineer.
• Sketching
  
  • Aligns and Dimensions - How to figure out how many you need.
  • Removing Part of an Unwanted Line - How to use one line to cut another in the Sketcher.
  • An Easier Way to Dimension - How to get Pro/E to create all the dimensions for you automatically.
  • Making Regular Polygons - How to make polygons in the sketcher: hexagons, pentagons and the like.
    
• Drawings: Creating
  
  • Creating a Drawing from a Template - This enables you to put a standard title block on your drawing without redrawing it every time.
  • Changing Which Part is Displayed on a Drawing - Ever start a drawing, enter the model name, and find that you've typed the wrong part? This hint will show you how to change this, without restarting the drawing!
    
• Drawings: Views
  
  • Doing Exploded Views - Creating exploded views, modifying them, and putting them on drawings.
  • Creating Cross-Sectional Views - A cross-sectional view is used to show the internal structure of a part or assembly.
  • Creating Cross-Sections - How to create a cross section in drawing mode.
  • Changing the Name of a Cross-Sectional View - what to do when your drawing says "Section absurdly_long_name - absurdly_long_name.
  • Placing Exploded Views on Drawings - This hint shows you how.
  • Creating Detailed Views - A detailed view is a sub-view of a drawing that shows fine detail at a higher magnification.
  • Changing Views in a Drawing - If you want to change how particular views will always appear in your Pro/E drawings.
    
• Drawings: Dimensions
  
  • Changing Dimensions on a Drawing - Because Pro/Engineer is "associative," you can change parts' dimensions in the drawing mode and have the changes reflect on the parts. This hint shows you how to do this.
  • Cleaning Up and Creating Dimensions - Ever had to define a dimension one way in the sketcher, but find that you want to show it in a completely different way on the drawing? This hint will help you.
  • Changing the Position of Circular Dimensions - Pro/Engineer sometimes put circular dimensions (radii and diameters) in an inconvenient place. This hint shows you how to move them.
  • Creating Tolerances Without Using Notes - The easy way to create tolerances is described here.
  • Dimension Name Changing - Changing the name of a dimension to something which makes sense.
    
• Drawings: Notes and Text
  
  • Putting Text on Your Drawing - Placing and modifying text in title blocks or anywhere else on your drawing.
  • Creating Balloons with Leaders on Drawings - Balloons are annotations in circles with lines leading to the assembly. They can be used to specify which part is what on an assembly drawing. This is useful for relating your bill of materials to the assembly drawing.
    
• Relations
  
  • Relation Basics - How to use relations, a powerful Pro/E feature which lets you relate two or more dimensions through mathematical equations so that if you change one, the other changes automatically.
  • Changing Features and Adding Relations - How to change a feature after it has been created, including adding relations.
  • Relation Equation Operators - The mathematical operators you can use in relations.
    
• Printing
  
  • Printing Your Work - Printing wireframes, black-and-white shaded views, and color shaded views.
  • Preventing Cropped Plots - If you print your drawing, and it ends up looking odd (i.e. one side is chopped off and the drawing is not centered on the page), read this.
  • Fitting Drawings on the Page - A different approach to preventing cropped plots.
  • Printing a Color Background - Read this hint if you want to jazz up your color plots a little.
  • Changing Background Colors - A different approach to jazzing up your plots.
  • xv Tutorial

• Making the Pen

Other Pro/E Information Sites:

• Pro/E Newsgroup - For those of you with time on your hands and questions on your mind
• ME5241 - Pro/E 2000i tutorial (277k pdf format)
• Cornell - Design Studio Introduction to Pro/E version 15
• MIT - Pro/E examples
• Pro/User.org - An orginazation of worldwide Pro/E users
• Parametric Technology Corporation - The company who makes Pro/E and other MCAD software
• The Engineering Zones - Online engineering resource site