CadActiveSupport

howto

Model Builder

Create a new Creo part, assembly, or drawing from a CadActive model template, including a parameter-driven name formula.

Model Builder is File → New from a CadActive model template: the new part, assembly, or drawing starts with the organization’s start model plus the template’s parameters, notes, views, and relations. Use it when you are creating something, not when you are fixing a model that already exists (that is Apply Model Templates).

It is not Automate. Automate generates assemblies or skeletons from a data file. Model Builder creates one model from a template so it is on-standard from birth.

See Model Templates for what a template contains, and Define Model Templates for how admins author them in the web app.

Open Model Builder

  1. In Creo, open the CadActive ribbon.

  2. In the Standardize group, select Model Builder.

The command is available with a part, assembly, or drawing active, or with no model open. The dialog title is Model Builder - by CadActive.

Create a model

  1. Set Model Type: Part, Assembly, or Drawing.

  2. Set Model Subtype when your organization uses subtypes (solid, skeleton, harness, and so on). The template list filters to matching templates.

  3. Choose Model Template. The start-model name at the bottom of the dialog fills from that template’s Model Template Model Name.

  4. If you are creating a drawing, set Desired Model — the part or assembly the drawing is of. Use the browse button next to the field.

  5. Set the name:

    1. Type in Name Formula, or

    2. Use the add (+) control to insert parameters from the organization Parameters catalog. Those parameters and their allowed values come from Standardize → Parameters in the web app.

  6. Confirm Model Name. The dialog shows length and warns if the name contains illegal characters.

  7. Select OK.

Field

What it is

Part

Assembly

Drawing

Model Type

What you are creating.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Model Subtype

Filters templates (solid, skeleton, harness, …).

Yes

Yes

Yes

Model Template

CadActive template from the organization database.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Desired Model

The model to place on the drawing.

No

No

Yes

Name Formula

Literal text plus optional parameter tokens from the Parameters catalog.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Model Name

Resolved Creo name for the new model.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Model Template (start file)

Start-model name from the template record.

Yes

Yes

Yes

Show Settings

Select Show Settings in the footer to reveal Use Templates from Database (on by default).

Leave it checked. When it is off, Model Builder ignores CadActive templates and offers start models from Creo’s start_model_dir instead. That path exists for seats that are not using the organization database; most users should not turn it off.

What Model Builder does not do

  • It does not apply a template onto an already-built model. Use Apply Model Templates for that.

  • Name formulas are composed in this Creo dialog. There is no name-formula editor on the web template form.

  • The Parameters catalog that feeds (+) is authored in the web app. How to import and export parameters (including Model Parameter Report and Component Parameter Reports) is a later Standardize topic.