Sleep is dead!!!
Sun, 03/30/2008 - 01:10 — Ian.Keough
Users can download the newest AF Tools here.
The changes made in the newest version are as follows:
General Improvements:
- In order to speed up the process, we've redesigned the software to
operate on an open Robot model. So open your Robot model before you
begin the Mode Frontier optimization, and leave it open during the run. - Reading from and writing to the XML file should be significantly faster.
- The output file now contains the total weight of steel in the building.
CatOut:
- Users no longer need to use the Sleep command in the CatOut script node in their Mode Frontier workflows. Catout will now interatively search for the Catia process for 10,000 interations. If after 10,000 iterations Catia can't be found, then the process will just fail silently. The rest of the design loop should complete, but your model will not have been altered.
- Users must now specify a working directory as a command line argument. This working directory will be the location where the XML file is written and updated from.
- The new syntax of the CatOut command is as follows:
E:\AF_Tools\CatOut.exe E:\WorkingDirectory\
Where "WorkingDirectory" is the name of a directory you want to use for your in-process files.
CatBot:
- Users must now specify a working directory as a command line argument.
This working directory will be the location where the XML file is updated from, and the Robot files are written to. - The new syntax of the CatBot command is as follows:
E:\AF_Tools\CatBot.exe -u -s E:\WorkingDirectory\
Where "-s" indicates one of two options -s (save) or -o (overwrite), and "Working Directory" is the name of a directory you want to use for in-process files. - If you choose to save the Robot file, the
robot file will be saved with a numbered suffix as follows:robotFile.rtd...robotFile_0.rtd...robotFile_1.rtd...robotFile_2.rtd
...NOTE: This will create A LOT of Robot files. If you don't need every
Robot iteration saved, specify the "-o" overwrite flag instead.
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Comments
CatiaBot error message
The new integration seems to be working well, but I noticed that after it's been going for a while, it will do a license reconnect ("license reconnect succeeded mf_batch4 / license reconnect succeeded mf_gui"), and an error message will appear saying that CatiaBot needs to close and would I like to send a report. About 5 hours after this happened, I clicked 'don't send,' but every design after that gave the same error message, even though no designs failed, Catia stayed open, and the Robot model continued to update with every design. If I close and open the Robot model while the experiment is still running, the error messages stop. What does this mean? Are my results still valid?
additional instructions for new AF_Tools
Here is a little more instruction on how to build the XML, robot and dat. files and run the new AF_Tools file:
in these instructions 'yourfile' is the name of your file and 'E:\yourfile' is the folder in which your files are located. I have listed the part of the process followed by the revised text that must be entered into the .bat files and the MF script nodes.
Build1.bat:
start E:\AF_Tools\CatOut.exe yourfile E:\yourfile
Build2.bat:
start E:\AF_Tools\CatBot.exe yourfile -b -o E:\yourfile
Update to create .dat file:
start E:\AF_Tools\CatBot.exe yourfile -u -o E:\yourfile
Be sure to have Robot open when building the .dat file. Robot now must remain open during the .dat building process and while running the loop. The model in robot should update with every design.
Revised CatOut script node in MF
E:\AF_Tools\CatOut.exe yourfile E:\yourfile\
exit %ERRORLEVEL%
Although Ian has removed the need for the sleep function for most CATIA files, I discovered that mine is so large that it actually still requires the sleep function in order to extract the points. In which case the script looks like this:
sleep 20
E:\AF_Tools\CatOut.exe yourfile E:\yourfile\
exit %ERRORLEVEL%
CatBot script node:
E:\AF_Tools\CatBot.exe yourfile -u -o E:\yourfile\
Copy E:\yourfile\yourfile.dat %APPL_PWD%\yourfile.dat
exit %ERRORLEVEL%
This new loop does seem somewhat faster and also appears to not shutdown at night, which is great. Thanks Ian.