motion control broken in pro-e WF2, space pilot, 64 bit

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:01 am

hello, i have recently updated to 3.1.8 drivers.
this has fixed and broken things at the same time.
fixed: i no longer get the 3dxproengineer failed to load error and the lcd recognizes the 3dx config (3dxpro plugin works! i missed it from 32 bit)
broken: i can no longer move the part, ever (preview, window activation, etc)

i also use ansys and the motion control still works in it with the newest drivers and the 3dcube demo allows me to move the cube.

i am using a space pilot, running windows xp64 pro, pro-e64 WF2 m220

the previous drivers i used, 3.0.9, had the opposite problem, i never got the 3dxpro plugin to work but i could use the motion control.

thank you for any help you can give me.

Post by **jwick** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:25 am

Hello jwfranklin,

Pro/E may be connecting to the driver with the wrong protocol.

Please turn logging on in your driver (Write Log File in the tools menu). Stop, then restart the driver, then restart Pro/E and have it demonstrate this problem (that the LCD works and the sensor doesn't).

Please send the log file (%APPDATA%/3dconnexion/3dxware/3dxware.log) to *********************.

Thanks.
Jim
3Dx Software Developmet

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:22 pm

done.

i did not push any of the lcd buttons in that log file (i had verified before that they functioned correctly), but i did wiggle the puck around (and nothing happened).

thank you for the help.

btw if i uninstall the 3.1.8 and reinstall the 3.0.9 drivers, the functions restore and revert (get puck function, but not 3dxplugin)

-john

Post by **jwick** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:49 pm

Hi John,

Try temporarily deleting mwmtrans.dll from the UdTrans directory under the driver's location (move it somewhere else). The default driver location is C:\Program Files\3Dconnexion\3Dconnexion 3DxSoftware\3DxWare.

Then restart the driver, then ProE.

Let me know if this helps.

Jim

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:56 pm

so i tried your suggestion with no change in performance or any errors, would you like the log file again?

john

Post by **jwick** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:05 pm

Sure. Shoot another one over to *******************.

Thanks.

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:10 am

log sent.

correction/update.
with the mwm file moved, the cube demo gave me a "cannot find 3d device" error and the device would not work in any programs.

John

Post by **jwick** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:22 am

Right. Mwmtrans.dll implements the mechanism cube and a few other apps use to communicate with the driver. The problem here is that Pro/E tries to use two different mechanisms and they conflict with each other. We are looking into this.

In the mean time you can put mwmtrans.dll back. You should be able to just run the Update Wizard to have it repair itself.

To get yourself back running in ProE, you'll have to disable 3DxProENGINEER. The easiest way to do that is to do a custom installation in the add/remove panel on 3DxSoftware and uncheck 3DxProENGINEER (plugin for Pro/ENGINEER). You'll loose your buttons on the SP, but the motion controller will work.

Jim
3Dx Software Development

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:47 am

Hi Jim,

ok i uninstalled 3dxpro, i also noticed that the previous "full install" installed both the 64 bit and 32 bit versions of 3dxpro (boxes were checked) could that have been a problem?

so i am back limping along (motion control works but no 3dxpro)

any idea on the time frame of resolution for this problem?

thanks for your help.

John

Post by **jwick** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:43 am

Solved.

The problem is WF2. WF2 64-bit doesn't fully support the 3Dx devices. Full support on 64-bit wasn't added until WF3 (April 2006).

There is a quirk inside ProE that allows just the motion controller to work, but only if 3DxProENGINEER is not installed.

Therefore you have two choices:
1) Upgrade to WF3.
2) Use WF2 and use the motion controller, but you have to do a custom installation and uninstall 3DxProENGINEER. You lose the fancy button mapping panel inside ProE, but you still have the full 3DxWare GUI that you can use to assign keyboard macros to buttons on the SpacePilot.

Jim
3Dx Software Development

jwfranklin · Post by **jwfranklin** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:20 am

great, thanks for the update.

unfortunately i'm stuck with corp standards and they have not updated to WF3 yet... soon i hope.

i'll use it the way i have it now, it's soooooo much better than the mouse.

thanks again.

John

toys · Post by **toys** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:51 pm

I'm using Pro/E WF 2 M190 on my x64-XP Workstation.
Since a few days I have upgraded from Space Mouse Classic to Space Pilot.

The Pilot is a very cute device

, but I'm not satisfied with the implementation to run the Pilot in Pro/E as well as other applications like Geomagic.

In Pro/E I'm not able to use it for moving the parts in space, only the buttons are working.

I've done some test with several constellations of the present ...trans.dll files from the 3dxWare directory. Either the space controll works or the buttons, but not both at the same time.
Now I've removed the protk.dat from the Pro/E's text dircectory to use the motion controll.....

Hope you'll fix the bug

Post by **ngomes** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:00 am

Hi toys,

I'm using Pro/E WF 2 M190 on my x64-XP Workstation.

Are you using WF2 64-bit? If yes, then the problem you are observing was fixed in WF3 and, as jwick noted above, you will need to upgrade to WF3 or make a custom installation and ensure that the "3Dconnexion Plug-in for Pro/ENGINEER" is not installed.

Hope you'll fix the bug

It was fixed in Pro/E Wildfire 3 (WF3).

toys · Post by **toys** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:30 pm

you will need to upgrade to WF3

Is that really your only solution to run Space Pilot with all of its functionality?

OK, it might be a workaround to do a custom installation, but thats not really funny for a 399 EURO toy

Post by **jwick** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:07 am

This is a limitation of the 64-bit version of ProE. It simply didn't support the 3Dx products back in its first versions (a year ago). This is probably in the release notes from PTC. They fixed this quite promptly when they brought out WF3. If you want, you can try to get PTC to bring out a point release for WF2 with the fixes they put in for WF3.