You know; that's something that puzzles me. I've never had any formal
CAD instruction and almost all of the informal instruction has been
from helpful people in internet forums. My practical, real world
experience and exposure to users is usually limited to people using
low end programs (most of the work I do is for people still using
Acad) and where not the role of the resident 'guru' is knowing which
button to push to make something happen. I've never worked in an
environment where I could absorb 'cool guy at GM' stuff; e.g. the
aerodynamic surface modelers using Catia, UG, CADDS, etc. or
proprietary 'in house' tools. I figure those are the people that will
know the sort of things I stumble across trying to find different, if
not 'better', ways to make do with whatever software I've purchased
or to satisfy my curiosity. (B-rep modeling, geometry definitions and
modeling software fascinate me and I spend a lot of time, wonder what
happens if I ..., dinking around with it. It was while dinking around
that I discovered that a Helical Sweep feature section can be made
variable ala VSS. Is that documented anywhere; Help, Suggested
Techniques, etc.?)
I had a maintenance contract the first year I owned Pro/E and, along
with freely available tutorials, absorbing forum discussions and
articles, KB Suggested Techniques were the corner stone of my Pro/E
'education'. There wasn't anything related to the finer points of
constraining and manipulating splines in a VSS section or defining
specific characteristics of curves by way of explicitly controlling
the spatial relationships of their defining entities. I assume (my
access expired shortly after WF2's release) that is still true and,
as you've noted, these things apparently are not being covered in
Pro/E classes. I can only speculate that it's market driven (e.g.
expediency vs. other available and more 'intuitive' interface
controls and the type of modeling most generally done by most users)
or 'support' driven (do they want to recommend a technique and deepen
a commitment to all the existing applicable interface tools). It may
also be that they feel it would compete with extension modules which
are to some extent just variations on user interface and implicit
manipulations of CVs and knots, possibly without the user being
aware of their presence.
Rhino is a fine program in that it does expose a curve's / surface's
basic defining entities and attributes to the user in the manner
CADDS (from browsing its user manuals) and, I assume, Catia or UG
does and to a greater extent than Pro/E does. It was my first
comprehensive exposure to them and accompanying documentation
sufficient to seed some understanding of the basic 'mechanics';
how defining entity spatial relationships and attributes affect
the characteristics of the objects.
It was on their forum that a user informed* me, in response to a
question, that some of the characteristics (specific to my query; end
point curvature) can be defined algebraically (which is at the limits
of my math comprehension). What's interesting is; that information is
not of general value to a Rhino user for two reasons. (1) Rhino
provides means to match curvature and bulge / stretch via user
interface functions other than explicit CV manipulations, as does
Pro/E, and (2) Rhino does not have a function equivalent to VSS with
its ability to manipulate the spatial relationships of a curve's CVs
as the section travels along the trajectory. Likewise other typical
users of other typical MCAD programs will have little interest in the
information either because functions and user interface are not
available or it serves little practical purpose given the type of
objects being modeled, shapes being described.
I suspect there may be other Pro/E users that are cognizant and may
use similar techniques. They just don't post, maybe don't even
regularly read forums. I read, with some regularity, about half a
dozen forums that are open to public scrutiny and dedicated to about
as many different programs. I'd guess that, all told, there are a few
score regular contributors of information with a relatively small
percentage of them being what I think of as 'complex technical shape'
oriented modelers that regularly try to thrash out the details of
shape definition and modeling techniques. In the big picture it's a
miniscule number and it may be that only a trickle of the information
makes into the 'public domain' as we wrestle with and try to make
sense of some of the bits and pieces.
*That first clue and all that's come since is documented here for
posterity and the benefit (or amusement) of other wandering clue
seekers. Anybody that's read most of it knows at least as much about
it all as I do. ;^)
CAD instruction and almost all of the informal instruction has been
from helpful people in internet forums. My practical, real world
experience and exposure to users is usually limited to people using
low end programs (most of the work I do is for people still using
Acad) and where not the role of the resident 'guru' is knowing which
button to push to make something happen. I've never worked in an
environment where I could absorb 'cool guy at GM' stuff; e.g. the
aerodynamic surface modelers using Catia, UG, CADDS, etc. or
proprietary 'in house' tools. I figure those are the people that will
know the sort of things I stumble across trying to find different, if
not 'better', ways to make do with whatever software I've purchased
or to satisfy my curiosity. (B-rep modeling, geometry definitions and
modeling software fascinate me and I spend a lot of time, wonder what
happens if I ..., dinking around with it. It was while dinking around
that I discovered that a Helical Sweep feature section can be made
variable ala VSS. Is that documented anywhere; Help, Suggested
Techniques, etc.?)
I had a maintenance contract the first year I owned Pro/E and, along
with freely available tutorials, absorbing forum discussions and
articles, KB Suggested Techniques were the corner stone of my Pro/E
'education'. There wasn't anything related to the finer points of
constraining and manipulating splines in a VSS section or defining
specific characteristics of curves by way of explicitly controlling
the spatial relationships of their defining entities. I assume (my
access expired shortly after WF2's release) that is still true and,
as you've noted, these things apparently are not being covered in
Pro/E classes. I can only speculate that it's market driven (e.g.
expediency vs. other available and more 'intuitive' interface
controls and the type of modeling most generally done by most users)
or 'support' driven (do they want to recommend a technique and deepen
a commitment to all the existing applicable interface tools). It may
also be that they feel it would compete with extension modules which
are to some extent just variations on user interface and implicit
manipulations of CVs and knots, possibly without the user being
aware of their presence.
Rhino is a fine program in that it does expose a curve's / surface's
basic defining entities and attributes to the user in the manner
CADDS (from browsing its user manuals) and, I assume, Catia or UG
does and to a greater extent than Pro/E does. It was my first
comprehensive exposure to them and accompanying documentation
sufficient to seed some understanding of the basic 'mechanics';
how defining entity spatial relationships and attributes affect
the characteristics of the objects.
It was on their forum that a user informed* me, in response to a
question, that some of the characteristics (specific to my query; end
point curvature) can be defined algebraically (which is at the limits
of my math comprehension). What's interesting is; that information is
not of general value to a Rhino user for two reasons. (1) Rhino
provides means to match curvature and bulge / stretch via user
interface functions other than explicit CV manipulations, as does
Pro/E, and (2) Rhino does not have a function equivalent to VSS with
its ability to manipulate the spatial relationships of a curve's CVs
as the section travels along the trajectory. Likewise other typical
users of other typical MCAD programs will have little interest in the
information either because functions and user interface are not
available or it serves little practical purpose given the type of
objects being modeled, shapes being described.
I suspect there may be other Pro/E users that are cognizant and may
use similar techniques. They just don't post, maybe don't even
regularly read forums. I read, with some regularity, about half a
dozen forums that are open to public scrutiny and dedicated to about
as many different programs. I'd guess that, all told, there are a few
score regular contributors of information with a relatively small
percentage of them being what I think of as 'complex technical shape'
oriented modelers that regularly try to thrash out the details of
shape definition and modeling techniques. In the big picture it's a
miniscule number and it may be that only a trickle of the information
makes into the 'public domain' as we wrestle with and try to make
sense of some of the bits and pieces.
*That first clue and all that's come since is documented here for
posterity and the benefit (or amusement) of other wandering clue
seekers. Anybody that's read most of it knows at least as much about
it all as I do. ;^)