Creating an Advanced Filter

Filtering on One Level
Filtering on Multiple Levels
Filtering from the Catalog Editor
 

This task explains how to create an advanced filter on a catalog from the Catalog Browser.

If a chapter contains a large number of entities one of the most effective ways of finding the entities you need is to narrow the selection criteria by means of the keywords you initially used to create the catalog.
 
The Catalog Browser is available from the Catalog Editor workbench and from several other workbenches, e.g.  Assembly Design, Part Design, Generative Shape Design and Drafting.

You can perform single-level queries and multiple-level queries.

Filtering on one level

  1. Click the icon , if available, or select the Tools -> Catalog Browser or the Tools -> Open Catalog... command to open the Catalog Browser. Note that the command name varies according to the workbench you are working in.

  2. Click the Browse another catalog icon to navigate to the catalog to be queried. In our example, we will use Catalog1.catalog provided in the samples folder.

  3. Double-click SubChapter.1 then double-click SCREWS. You can click the Table>> button to display the keywords defined for the components along with the corresponding values:

  4. Click the Filter icon .
    The Filter dialog box appears and the keywords that have been defined for the SCREWS family are displayed.

In the Filter dialog box, choose the operators from the values proposed in the pull-down lists, then enter the corresponding values/strings.

  1. Under the Basic tab, select the following values:

This filter will search for any component with a Length lower than 0.1 and with a Diameter greater than 0.01.

  1. Click Apply then OK to launch the filter.

The filter syntax is displayed in the Filter field of the Catalog Browser and the search result is as follows:

  1. Click the Close button to exit the Catalog Browser.
 

Filtering on multiple levels

  1. Click the icon , if available, or select the Tools -> Catalog Browser command to open the Catalog Browser.

Note that:

  • the command name may vary according to the workbench you are working in,
  • the browser must be accessed from a workbench (such as Assembly Design) and not from the Catalog Editor.

  1. Click the Browse another catalog icon to navigate to the catalog to be queried. In our example, we will use Catalog1.catalog provided in the samples folder:

  1. Double-click SubChapter.1 then click the Table>> button:

  1. Click the Filter icon .

As you can see it above, the regular filter mode displays only the keywords defined at the subchapter level.

  1. Click Cancel to close the Filter dialog box.

  2. Click the Enable multi-level filter icon then the Filter icon .

All the keywords that have been defined for the families contained in SubChapter.1 are retrieved and you can then perform your filter on any family contained in SubChapter.1 without having to access each family specifically.

  1. Under the Basic tab, select the following values:

In our example, we will search for any component with a Length greater than 0.1.

  1. Click Apply then OK to run the search.

    Note that if no filter is displayed in the Filter field, a message appears to ask you if you want to retrieve all the descriptions contained in the current chapter and its sub-chapters. If you click Yes, all the descriptions will be displayed.

  2. Click the Close button to exit the Catalog Browser.
If the number of results matching your filter is greater than 500, two buttons are displayed to the right of the Enable multi-level filter icon :
  • the Show 500 previous button lets you display the 500 previous descriptions. Note that this button is activated as soon as you click the Show 500 next button
  • the Show 500 next button lets you display the 500 next descriptions.

 

Filtering from the Catalog Editor

  1. Open one of the default catalogs provided with the Catalog Editor, ISO for instance. By default, it is located in:

    • on Windows: $CATStartupPath\components\MechanicalStandardParts\ISO_Standards\ISO.catalog

    • on UNIX: $CATStartupPath/components/MechanicalStandardParts/ISO_Standards/ISO.catalog

  1. Double-click the catalog entity you wish to filter (in our example, we use the ISO_8734_STEEL_PARALLEL_PIN in the Pins family).

  2. Click the Filter icon .
    The Filter dialog box appears.

  3. Select the operators from the pulldown lists for the selected parameters along with the corresponding values or strings.

  4. Select Apply then OK to run the filter. The filter syntax is displayed in the Filter field of the Catalog Editor and the result is as follows:

When you enter several criteria, the default operator is "AND" (as shown in the above screen grab) but you can change it to "OR" in the Filter field.

The Clear Filter icon lets you clear the currently displayed filter but the filter history is still accessible via the pulldown list.