Skeletonization settings can be saved and restored by using Skelebrator's import/export feature. This feature allows all skeletonization settings to be retained and reused later on the same computer or on different computers as required.

In addition to saving skelebrator operations and batch run settings, protected element information is saved. Ideally, this information should be stored only with the model that it pertains to, because it only makes sense for that model, but that limitation would prevent skelebrator settings to be shared between different hydraulic models or users. The caveat of allowing protected element information to be saved in a file that is separate to the original model and thus be able to be shared between users, is that the situation is created whereby importing a .SKE file that was created with another model can result in meaningless protected element information being imported in the context of the new model.

However, your protected element information will probably be valid if you import a skelebrator .SKE file that was created using the same original model, or a model that is closely related to the original. The reason for this is that protected element information is stored in a .SKE file by recording the element's GEMS IDs from the GEMS database. For the same or closely related models, the same pipes and junctions will still have the same GEMS IDs and so, will remain correctly protected.

Protected element behavior for imported files is not guaranteed because a potential problem arises when elements that were deleted from the model were previously marked as protected and where the following three things have happened in order:

1. Modeling elements (pipes, junctions) have been deleted from the model.
2. The model database is compacted (thus making available the IDs of deleted elements for new ones).
3. New elements (pipes, junctions) have been added to the model after compaction, potentially using IDs of elements that have been deleted earlier.

From the above steps, it is possible that the IDs of new pipe or junction elements are the same as previously protected and deleted elements, thereby causing the new elements to be protected from skeletonization when they should not necessarily be protected.

Even though the above protected-element behavior is conservative by nature, it is recommended that you review protected element information after importing a .SKE file to make sure that it is correct for your intended skeletonization purposes.