Solidworks vs. ProE

[GLEN20]

Go back to July 08 (20 pages back - page 8) and read all 3 of my comments....


I've used ProE14 to Wildfire3. The time frame Jacek mentioned is about right. You have to remember the history --- at that point only Cadkey and ComputervisionPersonal Designer and CADDS4x(which PTC bought) where the only other ones entertaining 3D (mostly wireframe). Once everyone saw Pro - everyone wet there pants to see an actual 3D associative solid model.....


I learned PRO designing typewriters (how Ironic - utilyzing computers to design typewriters!) I was laid off and used ACAD 12 for other employers, but within a matter of time -rember ProE-Jr? I love Pro, Solidworks, and Inventor - but just remember they all copy form each other.... Remember Autodesks Mechanical Desktop?? I guess the point I'm making is that Smith Corona Typewriters were not going to give their Cadillac that they leased for $50K per seat until they finally closed. I don't think Universal Instruments, Raymond, John Deere....... will also, it was an expensive CAD TOOL, an expensive investment, and once their operators are reaching the payback ROR...... it would be hard to just throw away and jump into another package. As Imentioned ---- I'm now on my 8th employer, and I'm just using ACAD LT - all the OEM's are exporting their Pro, SW, Inventor files into DXF files for me.


I've been around where I did not get excited between Pro-E 2000, 2000i, 2000i^2, 2001, or Wildfire. I have to admit that I was excited to know that SW 2001 - current and Inventor10-11-2008 had less steps to make a model -or- did not have to hit DONE 5 times for the software to know I was really DONE I also loved the SW feature of opening the native ACAD 2d file copy the profile into a SW Sketcher - highlight the profile with a right click - give it depth and I had a working Solid Model...........


Until I see something out of this world above and beyond sweeps, blends, nurbs, animation, family tables, pro program, Mechanica, Algor, iges, step .....that I can test drive from Lime wire -or- from my COOPs college sites......, this old engineer ain't getting excited! (AS LONG AS WE HAVE JOBS- WHO CARES WHAT TOOL WE USE)

 

[michael3130]

The SW vs ProE debate reages on again!!!


I have used ProE and SW for quite a lot of surfacing projects and have likes and dislikes for both. Sometimes I can do a job more easily in one or the other.....I'm sure the job can be done in both but I'm not the best surfacer ever and have a lot to learn though I'm trying and in both packages.


One thing I would like to say though is, would some of the people here defending SW please post some images of their complex surfacing, or their models. There have been numerous models and images posted by Design Engine, Skint, Jacek, to mention but a few, but yet I don't recall seeing any SWmodels to the same level. They say the proof is in the pudding so please, help this debate with some proof people, rather than going round in circles with words and sometimes pie in the sky comments. All the Sw users here will probably now hate me but I am a huge fan of SW, having used it for the past 10 years. I've only used ProE for 5 but love it too.


So come on boys and girls, SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!

 

[[-Skint-]]

Well said Michael

Why am I not at home playing in the snow

 

[michael3130]

It's snowing here

But the ground is too wet for it to lie

 

[design-engine]

I have a bunch of solidworks images I could post.

 

[Metoo]

I wouldn't normally do such postings, but since you're a user of both solidworks and pro-e and seem to be wondering about the surfacing ability of solidworks i'll attach a few jpegs of thing i've designed in solidworks lately. of course, these are reduced jpeg of screen shots, so the image quality does not do justice to them. anyone well-versed in surfacing would be looking for discontinuities between patchs, and you can't tell much from a 50k (or less) image.


the first item is a spa shell i designed about a year and a half back, just as the market began turning down. The project was put on hold. I've done a bunch of spas and watercrafts in solidworks.


the second image is of an overmoldedradio head adapter i designed to mount to toTDS RECON's pda's. Its part ofsome training devices I've worked on in the last few months.


The last item is a handheld radio and data processing unit i designed in the last year.

 

[michael3130]

Anyone else got some SW images they can post???


Come on Bart, post some!!!


Heres a few images of some products I worked on.


The 1st and 2ndimage is a bath chair for kids with cerebral palsy. The company we fif the design work for gave me one so I use it as a Play Station / Wii chair.


The 3rd is a wash ball for louvre blinds, quite a fun project.


Metoo, do you have access to PhotoWorks?

 

[SW]

Can we have some short videos to illustrate some of the awkward modelling tasks? Then the rest of us make the judgement ourselves.

Sam

 

[design-engine]

I did about 10 of these Barbie flashlights using Soldworks... complete with co-injected rubber etc.

That was back when SW really sucked. 2002
Edited by: design-engine

 

[Metoo]

I do have Photoworks, but I don't generally render surface models (except when passing on images to the marketing types); nor do many professional product designers.


All competent and experienced surface modelers have the same three concerns about their designs; form, function, and continuity between surface patches. Rendering hides all three. Amatuers tend render their models to hide their poor surfacing abilities. In spa and boating work I've seen designersdisguise 1/2" gaps between their patches by showing only rendered model images to the customer; they only get by with it until its time to cut the tooling. This issueof showing rendered images in liew of the actual modelhas become an increasingproblem over the last half decade or so. With so many people entering the world of 3-d design, few employers understand the differnece between someone who knows how to extrude a block and put radii on it, and a person capable of producing a product with desirable organic features.


As for sw's request for video of the "awkward modelling tasks", there's nothing awkward in anything I posted , and don't see anything difficult or unusual about the following posts. If you want to learn to do commercially viable product design, you have to learn how to do surface modeling; there's no short-cut, nor does it matter whose software you learn on, as long as the software has the basic capabilitiesof creating surface patches.


If you want to learn how to do professional surfacing (class A), then learn what a surface is, and the limits of working with surfaces. This is the difference between people who do it for a living and those whotalk aboutit. If you don't, you'll probably go no further than those simple items design engine posted. Those who don't spend time to learn what a surface is tend to get in over their heads; they paint themselves into a corner, and when theycan't proceed, they start complaining about the software; searching the menulist for the one magical feature that will solve their ills.


When you can produce a complex surface model,using any software,like the spa I posted, and convince yourself that you have good tangency and curviture continuity between all 3000 patches that make up the model, then you'll understand what nonsense it is to see a person post on this forum theirignorant opinion thatPro-e's surfacing is better than Solidwork's. I can do that spa in Pro-E, solidworks, solid edge, etc, etc..., even in MasterCam, which I've done. If you don't understand surfaces, what they are, and how to work with them, you won't be able to do it in any software.


In short sw, even if there was a video showing me surfacing, you wouldn't understand what, or the why, of my methods if you don't understand what a surface is. In surfacing, the end results justify the methods; not the other way around.


Flayl Payne

 

[SW]

Thanks Flayl.

Although I've a lot left to learn, I'm quite familiar with surfacing in Pro/E. My Solidworks skills are a bit out of date. My reason for the video footage of the modelling process to see what can be done in software package easily, that is difficult in another.

A few years ago, as I understand it, some surfacing tasks accomplished in Pro/E would be hard to emulate in Solidworks. I'm not sure this is the case now. Some objective comparison in the form of video footage of the actual modelling process would also hopefully cut through the 29 pages of largely opinion-based argument that makes objectively assessing the different options difficult.

Sam

 

[michael3130]

I do have Photoworks, but I don't generally render surface models (except when passing on images to the marketing types); nor do many professional product designers.

All the 'professional product designers' I know render their models, not necessarily for the client but for portfolios or websites. Guess you do things differently there.

All competent and experienced surface modelers have the same three concerns about their designs; form, function, and continuity between surface patches. Rendering hides all three. Amatuers tend render their models to hide their poor surfacing abilities. In spa and boating work I've seen designersdisguise 1/2" gaps between their patches by showing only rendered model images to the customer; they only get by with it until its time to cut the tooling. This issueof showing rendered images in liew of the actual modelhas become an increasingproblem over the last half decade or so. With so many people entering the world of 3-d design, few employers understand the differnece between someone who knows how to extrude a block and put radii on it, and a person capable of producing a product with desirable organic features.

I certainly don't render my images to hide poor surfacing abilities.


The reason for asking to see people's models was to see what SW was capable of, not to start slating each other. As I said, there are a lot of surface questions on the proE forum about surfacing, some really copmplex stuff and I've yet to see the same degree of difficulty on SW and when people make arguments that SW surfacing is just as good if not better than proE then it would nice to see some models to back those claims up. It's amazing the comments that float about on this forum with not hard evidence!! I'm not backing either side by the way, I'm just here to learn more!!!

 

[[-Skint-]]

I agree with Michael totally which is why I have tried to stear clear of this topic, ashere on MCAD we have probably had the same age old debate a hundred times. There are those who use pro-e that will slate sw and visa-versa. There are those who use both and cancomment on bothsystemspro`s and con`s.


We are all here to learn more, so dig those " complex " models out that are possible on sw yet impossible on proe and we can all have a go at re-creating them. I am not big into solidworks, but i`m always up for a challenge !


Time to put your "cocks on the blocks "

 

[michael3130]

lol Skint, have to say, I wish I hadn't entered the debate but I'm still relatively young (33 today) and will learn sometime during my life.


The models I posted were done and rendered back in SW2001 in 2001. I've learnt a lot since then.Most of my more complex surfacing on SW I can't post due to client confidentiality. All my other complex surfacing has been on ProE. Unfortunately my full time job lends itself more to less surfacing

 

[SW]

Thanks for the metaphor Skint. I would probably have chosen a different one, but I see what you are saying nonetheless.

Any models that apparently can't be done, or are very difficult in Solidworks would be good too. There is model of a hummingbird that used Pro/E. Can it be done in Solidworks?

Sam

 

[[-Skint-]]

Haha Sam, no problem... its a favourite of mine lol.


Happy Birthday Michael

Hopefully you will be going for a swift half at lunchtime lol. 33 eh, spring chicken... I was 33 in November

 

[michael3130]

Thanks Skint.


No drink for me

, I'm in training for the Paris marathon on the 5th April so haven't had any alcohol since Christmas and even then I didn't have much cause of the flu.


Which reminds me, if anyone wants to sponsor me, let me know and I'll post the link to my 'justgiving' website. I'm sure I'll be inundated with requests for that in the middle of a credit crunch!!!


And if anyone wants to know about the various friction burns and chaffing I've experienced over the past months, I'll be only too glad to share it!!! Prob not appropiate for this site though!!!

 

[[-Skint-]]

Haha hilarious... I have a lot of friends who are into running marathons, every few months I get an ear bashing in the pub " Come on skint, its about time you joined us for the next run "... you know what my response is each time lol ! Madness.


I dont like driving 26 miles let alone running it

Post the link to your sponser page mate, I may feel generous one day !

 

[design-engine]

My idea of a marathon British style

http://www.iomtt.com/
Edited by: design-engine

 

[[-Skint-]]

Bart... the TT rules !!