Here is a trick, if you don't already use it, that can save a lot of time when you hit the dreaded Regeneration Failure!

Actually, a failure in regeneration brings you to the RESOLVE menus which give you a chance to correct something that is not quite right.  This Tip-of-the-Month, deals with an option called the BACKUP MODEL.  The Backup Model is simply a previous version that "worked."  It can be a version stored automatically by your computer with each regeneration, or it can be the last version you saved to the disk.

If you are anticipating regeneration problems, use the REGENBACKUP option in the ENVIRONMENT menu.  If you didn't set the Regen Backup option, Pro/E will go to the last saved version.

TIP:  Save often.  It will make sure the last saved version is relatively current, as well as helping to avoid a lot of other headaches.

Here is an example:  This model failed to regenerate a round.  When the failure occurred, this was the view of the part on the screen.

Can you tell where the round references are?

To find out where the references are (or were), use the INVESTIGATE option in the RESOLVE FEATURE menu.

The next menu, INVESTIGATE, has two choices at the top:

CURRENT MODL
BACKUP MODL

In this case, the ENVIRONMENT menu for Regen Backup was not used, so Pro/E asked if it should retrieve the last saved version as the backup model.  When this was confirmed, the previously saved version appeared in another window.  When the SHOW REF option of the INVESTIGATE menu was chosen, the previous references of the failed round were highlighted on the backup model as shown below:

With this little additional information, it was very easy to go back to the RESOLVE FEATURE menu, select QUICK FIX, then redefine the round.

Finally, when the references were redefined, the part appeared as shown in the picture below.  (NOTE: The new references are shown in cyan superimposed over the completed model.)

Good luck in learning about and using the BACKUP MODEL.  It's a powerful tool and a great time saver.

For another tip on dealing with regeneration failures, try May 1999.