How to create or refresh thumbnails for a whole folder?

[pzago]

Is there a way, using a script or external software or whatever, to force the regeneration and saving of thumbnails for a folder?

I have a folder with many parts saved during the years, some don't have thumbnails, some have thumbnails from old versions of Creo Elements (blueish background), some have thumbnails with wrong orientation. Right now I load the part, put it in the correct orientation, then I do a trick to force the update save, but it would be great to have an automated way to do it...

[TomasLoun]

I can imagine to write an application to do this.. What is the correct orientation - do you need user's input for it?

[pzago]

Correct orientation should be the "default" orientation (isometric in my setup). As a plus it would be great to be able to adjust it by steps of 90°, right now I have a mapkey that calls a orientation change rotating each time 90° around the vertical axis. But this is not necessary

[TomasLoun]

So the application can just simply list the folder, and for each part do the same - open in Creo, run your macro (orientation, tricks), save and close. It should not be difficult. Do you know how to develop such an application?

[pzago]

No I don't Any hints to get me started? Also one of the issues is that if I open the model which already have a thumbnail, change orientation and save it back (using one mapkey) it doesn't save because model is not actually changed. What I do is I manually "edit definition" of a datum plane without changing anything and save it. But I can't seem to add this trick (changing the definition of datum) to my mapkey 😕

[TomasLoun]

You can use for example PTC VB API (free), Pro/Toolkit or Object Toolkit (paid) or iTools Automation Gateway (paid) if you know programming. Or we can develop it for you, it should not be much work when you know how to do it...

[TomU]

Also one of the issues is that if I open the model which already have a thumbnail, change orientation and save it back (using one mapkey) it doesn't save because model is not actually changed.

If you set the config pro option "save_objects" to "changed_and_specified", Creo will let you save even if the model hasn't changed.