Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Register Log in

Solidworks vs. ProE

I never thought that I would say this, but I miss the way Pro/E copies features. I have about a 20% success rate for getting features to copy in Solidworks. And then, I always have to go fix them. Ugh...
 
It has been that way for the last few years. I believe the SW sales folks are still playing off the oldnumbers. They initially came out as a low price competitor; one of the nice sides of capitalism is that PTC then chose to lower their price to compete.


The prices have been near the same for a number of years and the price issue is a wash. In some ways it isn't until you start looking at the add-on modules that you'll see a difference, and that is where most of the "sales" are advertised.


On the personal/student license issue, we deal heavily with student licenses here (at an educational institution) and to this point the lure to SW for the students has been the lower cost ($99 or $149 vs $149 or $199), but the problem that tends to be overlooked is the license expiration that is intrinsic to the SW student license.


We use Pro/E for all of our teaching classes with some SWseats available for later classes and individual design projects.
 
Metoo said:
<FONT face=Arial size=2>This might be a good forum for complaining, but the fact is Pro-E is yesterday's software; a relic of the past. The true problem here might be in the user, not the product. For half the
Click to expand...
 
No where did I imply that SolidWorks provides a CAM package within its CAD system. What I said was that you can purchase a seat of Solid Works and a CAM system for less than you can a seat of Pro-E with CAM abilities.





I do understand that Pro-E has lowered its pricing to compete with SolidWorks & Solid Edge, but they offer limited capabilities in the lower price range. About three years back I sat-up an operation to do surface modeling and plug machining with a 5-axis router, which required a machine, CAM system, and CAD system. Solidworks with Mastercam level III was almost half of what Pro-E with Pro-NC capable of 5-axis was quoted.
 
I agree 100% with mr_nc.PRO/NC has come along way since I started using it in 1993.If the operator knows what he is doing,there is no limit what can be done.I went to a sw/mastercam demo a couple of weeks ago and it is not close to what proe/pronc can do.You can make any cad/cam system work if you really want to.Pro/nc learning curve is high and ptc does'nt have the best support but I think its better then all the cam systems I have used,which includes Mastercam,Surfcam,gibbs,smartcam,cimatron and delcam.
 
I don't know about which versions of which programs actually are comparable with regards to the feature set, but I do know that for my job as a mechanical product designer (or however you call it in English), the ProE foundation package misses a lot of necessary functions for normal CAE. I use the Advanced Assembly extension all the time, and sometimes I must even use the elaborate Flex3C license to get some things done. And this is just for normal part construction, since I personally have not yet even used ISDX for example.
So the basic ProE foundation license will not be enough for many users...
smiley19.gif
 
Solidworks wins on broken view creation/modification. I just created a view, added a break, moved the lines by grabbing them. Decided it shouldn't be broken. Grabbed the lines and hit delete, and it was back to where I started.

Carrie
 
Overall though, I think it is easier to create a drawing and not have to redo your work after changes in Pro/E. If I don't want a standard view orientation, it's not as easy to set up the view. I have yet to figure out how to get axis to show in the center of my holes in Solidworks. Sometimes they appear, but I have no idea why.
 
carrieives:

I would love to get you in a room side by side and run SW and Pro/E to make the comparisons. You would probably get so mad at me you would want to fight outside... Lets do it. We can make a webcast and have a mediator. Prob tho I know SW better than you so it would be embarrassing since all my challenges would only be educational to you... and ... well if you want I can fly there.

Okay. That was confrontational. I like competition so I often say things that are confrontational like my software is better than yours or this works better here than the other. i was joking above really to get everyone riled up.

I guess my problem is that the sales people who sell software do it without ethics. The truth is I like Solidworks but customers will hire the design engine consulting team not because they don't have time ... it is usually because they cant model it.






Edited by: design-engine
 
I'm not going to pretend that I really have a handle on Solidworks....I think I've been using it about 6 weeks now. I'm still at the really frustrated at it and want to throw my computer out the window (and the windows are past about 5 cubes and thru a couple of conference room walls...probably couldn't get it to go that far and would really upset whoever it landed on). I'm using the forum in part to reduce the amount of cursing that my co-workers have to listen to. I am very frustrated that the drawings that I am supposedly only revising need to be almost redone and I don't know why.

I'm learning Solidworks because the particular customer for this project wants Solidworks files rather than Pro/E.

I would love to see a good demonstration of which software is better at what. I have heard for years and years how much easier Solidworks is to learn and easier to use than Pro/E. I am finding it hard to learn (I am not content with just throwing something together that looks right, I want it to be robust) and that it requires much more clicks and mouse movement to accomplish the same thing.

There are people I know that love Solidworks and were decent Pro/E users before. I have yet to see the appeal, but would appreciate it if someone would show me.

Carrie



Edited by: carrieives
 
I call Solid Works assembly family tree "Puzzle Mate". Any part or assembly can be referenced or constrained to the parts or assemblies lower in the Assembly tree. Furthermore when you sometimes reopenthe assembly things appear out in left field.


Pro/E is the best structured Assembly.
 
both are so similar that the comparison is not that interesting. The differences are subtle and more annoying than interesting. Compare the base price package of SW to the base priced package of Pro/E ....

"I love soldworks, I prefer Powerpoint" < quote of the day.


maybe SW could win if SW had an intent manager. But the developers at SW
actually listen to their weak more ignorant user base. At least PTC does a better
job ignoring the dumbasses out there..... except when they listened to
the users and gave them 3 part boundaries in ISDX. I laughed that day. I hope that did not come from our surfacing technical committee


Edited by: design-engine
 
I feel all your pain........but ---- since I use Pro-Wildfire3, Solidworks 2007, and "RE"-Inventor11............I just want to let you all know that the "treetoad" machinist does not give a sh*t which system we like or dislike aslong as we provide him a .dxf or .iges file ---- realty check
 
I have used solidworks long enough to say I've seen it. This was about 8 years ago. I have not worked with it sense. Nor have I worked on any other CAD package but Pro/E. This year, oddly enough, it would appear that because of some projects coming our way I will be sent for training on Solidworks and UGS. My question is, how much different is this stuff? Is it easier to go from Pro/E to other CAD packages or the other way around? I was shown a demo of Solidworks and from the mountain of icons that made up the screen, I'm not sure what to expect. UGS, I'm really not sure about. Never even seen this package.
smiley5.gif
 
the icons in sketcher are almost the same. The transition is easy. It will suck to sit in a training class with beginning users so look for a high end user after your class to sit with for 10 hrs. You will be using it better than them in 100 hrs.

If you like me at all the learning effort will try your patience.... make your wife think you complain too much... and ... well. If you can do it w/o complaining you will be a better man than me.

For me it was like going back in some ways to the early days of Pro/E and in other ways its workflow is off. There are many things you take for granted in Pro/E that you will miss in SW. The SW tool is maturing very fast tho...


Edited by: design-engine
 
Going from Pro|E to SW can be frustrating for the long time Pro|E user. Especially if you're diligent about your references and really tying you models down properly. SW resists such rigor, it's build around being flexible and loose.


I found in SWthat if you tie things down one way, a small change to the model may make that invalid and you have to redefine it to tie it down another way. SW also has fewer options for locating geometry. For example, long time Pro|E users have been taught that surface references are more stable than edge references. In sketcher, rotate the modeland align & dimension to the surface, not the edge. I think the same is true in SW, edges change references when you add a round to one end. But you can't align to a model surface in SW, you have to use the edge. This results in a lot of unintended parent child relationships in my limited SW experience.


That's also why SW users are frustrated by Pro|E. Pro|E shines when you diligently think through your references & tie things down intelligently. It takes forethought, but it then becomes a powerful tool to help you design, not just a tool to build geometry. SW seems to encourage, or maybe just better tolerate, run-and-gun modeling. Pro|E doesn't.
Edited by: dgs
 
I found the same thing but struggled saying it. I think I am going to quote you on another board. ;) Doug ... you said that so well.
 
I notice this 8 years ago when I used Solidworks for the first time. When I use Pro/E, the wants to know everything before it creates it. Solidworks seemed to "really not care" and I was creating models kind of "willie nilly". Is this still the case today?
 
DGS wrote; "But you can't align to a model surface in SW, you have to use the edge."


I'm lost as to your reference to not being able to "align to a model surface". At any place on a surface, whether planer or not, you can align entities. Are you speaking of an assembly mate, or the alignment of a feature, reference, or drawing element?


In SW you do not have to constrain drawing elements to create a feature. This is a very time saving aspect to SW. But,only a fool would continue into an in-depth design without doing so though. As far as the references becoming invalid, I assume you are really talking about assembly mates, and not constraints within a part model. If the issue is with the latter, then you have a serious lack of modeling knowledge. As to the former, I find it best to do part design within the assembly mode when the end goal is a complex assembly. Launching new part models from within assembly, and constraining them to base parts, resovlesmost issues withconstraint and mate errors. Building parts from within assembly mode forces the parts to be properly mated and constrained. Unlike in Pro-e, which sets idly by while you try to figure out what your feature is missing, SW pops up a message window with the error messagepointing to the problem if you try to complete the task with missing info.


It appears that you have not spent much time using SW. The issues you touch on are ones common to new users of the software. SW makes modeling easier, but you do have to use your brain. Unlike Pro-E, SW doesn't force you to do all the right things before going to the next step.





Of all the whining and complaining that takes place on the Pro-e forum over SolidWorks,it should be kept in mind, like it or not, if you plan to stay in the business of design engineering, it would bewise to learn Solidworks. For those of you that have been using Pro-e for many yesrs, it should be clear that Pro-e is not going to get a revamping to look and feel like the newer modeling software, that PTC can't charge the high prices they used to charge for their products, that PTC has lost serious market share, and thatPTC doesn't suport their product very well. The future of Pro-e is in doubt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top