If you haven't yet taken advantage of Insight (the PDM component of Solid Edge), chances are that you will eventually.

But before you can move your existing files into the Insight file system you'll have to make sure you have no broken links and that your Solid Edge file names don't contain certain invalid characters. Also, to make the best use of Insight you'll want to make sure your files have made good use of file properties.

InSuite is a group of utilities that have been put together to help you in transition to Insight. Included in the suite are BatchLinkFix, InvalidFileFixer, and PropertyRemapper. Download the demo here.

BatchLinkFix

Before upgrading your Solid Edge files to use Insight, you'll need to make sure that none of your files contain broken links.

Versions 12 and up of Solid Edge include features for finding files that contain broken links. There's also a feature that allows you to fix broken links. Unfortunately, the features aren't linked and you can only fix one link at at time! Worse still, you must manually type the name of broken links and their replacement paths. If you have more than just a handful of files with broken links, fixing them with only the tools provided with Solid Edge can turn into a major chore.

BatchLinkFix automates the functionality provided by Solid Edge. After running a search for broken links, the program will prompt you with a list of all broken links where alternate links were found. With no more than a few mouse clicks, you'll be able to accomplish what would have otherwise taken several hours.

InvalidFileFixer

Before upgrading your Solid Edge files to use Insight, you'll need to make sure that none of your files contain certain invalid characters that Insight will reject.

InvalidFileFixer will crawl one or more paths for Solid Edge files with invalid characters and provide you with a list of the bad names. After running a search, the program will prompt you with a list of all the invalid files it found in the search path(s). If you choose to continue, each file will be processed in an orderly fashion: First the file is renamed by replacing invalid characters in filename with the underscore character. Then 'RedefineLinks' functionality is used to update all references to the file. Once all files have been processed, a log of events will be displayed.

With no more than a few mouse clicks, you'll be able to quickly start an automated process that would otherwise have taken several hours to do manually.

PropertyRemapper

This program allows you to copy, delete, or create file properties for a whole directory tree of files at one time. You can set a specific file property to be equal to a constant or another file property in the same file. If you tell PropertyRemapper to set a file property equal to "", it will be removed (only custom properties can be deleted). You can even effectively rename existing custom properties by copying the old value to a new property and then deleting the old property.

Univerter

Ok, so this program doesn't really help you with Insight, but it is a great utility for engineers.

Univerter is a calculation tool for engineers, scientists, students, and others who hate dealing with units-related issues. Simply enter equations in whatever units mix you wish, and get the answer in whatever units you need. Univerter goes far beyond the simplistic one-to-one units conversion programs that require wading through hundreds of conversion factors -- with Univerter, you simply type equations as you would write them. Univerter actually parses equations into separate words that it then correlates with units and constants that it already recognizes. Even if you need a unit that's not included in Univerter's substantial database, you'll never be limited since you can add your own units. For example; create your own unit called an "Arm" by defining [1 Arm = 2.2 ft]. Univerter will AUTOMATICALLY understand that [Arm^2] is area, that [Arm/min] is speed, and that [1.2 Arm/min = .03 mph].