It is strongly recommended that you import and index the data from your own parts catalogs with an existing PSADDONS*ADVANCEDTOPO license. In principle, the functionality is also available without this license, but the quality is much better with it.

Were Your own parts catalogs during the STEP import (e.g. Quick and Simple) with existing license PSADDONS*ADVANCEDTOPO , the quality of the topology information/features is very good. The same applies to components that have been loaded via file [Load file] loaded in STEP format.

With the additional license"PSADDONS*ADVANCEDTOPO", extended features/topology information such as sphere [Sphere], torus [Torus] and extended cylinder [Elongated Cylinder] are imported. The other features such as holes [Hole], cylinders [Cylinder], cones [Cone], parallel planes [Opposite Planes], patterns [Pattern], rounding [Fillet], etc. are imported with significantly higher quality. Standard topology features are available without a PSADDONS*ADVANCEDTOPO license.

You can see active licenses [Active licenses] by clicking on F9 in the application or on the Licenses menu item in the Help menu [Help]. Open the Features sub-item in the dialog window.

With standard modeled CADENAS manufacturer catalogs (not Quick & Simple), the quality of the topology information/features is very good in any case.

The following example illustration shows a case where extended topology features are also displayed.

Example: Sphere feature [Sphere]

General topology features are always available.

General topology features

As the topology information/features are available as basic search criteria, the search results are also better and more precise with Partial Search [Partial search] / Geometric Search (3D) [Geometric search (3D)].

The following illustration shows a selected "sphere [Sphere]" feature.

Example: Sphere feature [Sphere] selected

If "Unknown" is displayed for a feature selection, the feature is not available for the partial search [Partial search] because it was not read in during part import (no "PSADDONS*ADVANCEDTOPO" license).

The partial search [Partial search] is activated by default.

However, the partial search [Partial search] requires special fingerprints. The standard creation of the geo search index [Geometrical search index] is not sufficient. You must first set an entry in a configuration file.

At for example, to generate the fingerprints for the "mycatalog" catalog, under $CADENAS_SETUP in the configuration file geomsearch.cfg the following Key:

PartialSearchCatalogs=cat/mycatalog

If you want to specify more than one catalog, add further entries separated by commas.^[9]

This setting applies to every type of fingerprint generation.

Finally, create the geo search index [Geometrical search index] for the entire catalog.

How can you tell whether the index for the partial search has already been created?

Open PARTadmin under Index management [Index administration].

Catalogs with an existing index show the corresponding icon .

Details on the configuration file: See Section 1.6.5.8.4, “ Block [settings] Key PartialSearchCatalogs - Partial Search ”.