Solidworks vs. ProE

[phoxeoy]

Quality! Quality!?!?? I've got a soap box as big as the grand canyon with that word. Quality has been replaced by speed and greed. You get two words for the cost of one. Call it what you want, Lean Manufacturing, Kyzon, or just trying to save a buck. What ever the reason it appears that the easy target to cut cost is to take out quality where possible.

I like the story about the VW Bug. They took one model of a car and approved on it over and over again. The car didn't change much, just got better in quality and before you knew it you had a car that would run until the wheels fell off. And even then the motor was still running. Now a day things are engineered to break and thats a sad truth. Has anybody bought any toys lately from China? I rest my case.

 

[dgs]

We like to say that you can get fast, cheap and good - pick two.


I have a friend that works for a major corporation using Catia V5. They are transitioning from V4 and the V4 parts don't open cleanly in V5. It's basically like bringing in an IGES file, no editable features.


Can you imagine the rebellion if Pro|E or SW made such a major change in the software that we couldn't edit our old models?

 

[design-engine]

I think thats good fast and cheap. Pick two. our customers want all three. Not all customers want all three. You have to train them.

Catia seams strange. Who would think the French and Americans unite on anything.


I think the VW bug analogy holds true to Pro/ENGINEER. PTC even forced some changes on users that took some time. In hind site it was a good idea.

On one board I started a thread of all the things you like about Solidworks. Maybe that could merit good faith here? Probably not as much as another board with some serious Solidworks users. I did find on that other board the high end Solidworks users were also highend Pro/E users. Don't take that with a dead Bambi.

 

[michaelpaul]

Family Tables are handled much more logically in SW'08 (creates a separate feature tree for each family member),

That's because they're not family tables. They're configurations. Simply create a new configuration in your part and add features/supress features related to that configuration only. No more freaking validating the family table every time you do something.

Another thing I didn't like was separate tools for adding and removing material on features, as opposed to a toggle switch to tell it which one you want.

That's just because you sketch first and peform an action second in SW. you sketch then decide if you are adding material (extrude) or removing material (cut). if you did the wrong one, you do have to delete the feature and recreate it which can be a pain if there are children but realistically how often do you make a cut and decide it's going to be an extrude other than right away?

The biggest thing I miss about SW is the ability to add and remove features easily from patterns and mirrors. once you've created a pattern or a mirror in Pro E, you're pretty much done. you cannot ever add to it unless you first delete it. if you have no children, this isn't a problem but if you do, you're hosed. In SW, you can very easily and quickly add or remove features from a pattern or mirror. Far and away superior to the way Pro E handles patterns and mirrors.

Michael

 

[michaelpaul]

Metoo:


my ear is close to the train tracks and from the jobs perspective out there.... I don't think Pro/E is loosing ground.

three of my previous cmopanies (and I've worked for four) have all made the switch from Pro E to SW.

Why? ease of use, easier to learn, easier to train, easier to find people with experience. is it better? apples and oranges. the key being not a single company went from SW to Pro E.

it doesn't really matter which is better (think Beta Max). it only matters which one is more accepted and more widely used by our prospective employers.

How's the Catia market anyway?

Michael

 

[michaelpaul]

When we added SW to our training format online we got almost no calls for that training.

perhaps because not as much training is necessary because it's intuitive compared to Pro E?

few people could start up Pro E and even know what to do because it's so full of hidden features and the stupid config.pro file. SW is a real windows app that can be deciphered and figured out. Sure, the more advanced stuff is harder to self learn but I have taken two training classes for Pro E and I never took a single one for SW yet I only have a few more years of Pro E experience................

Michael

 

[dgs]

if you did the wrong one, you do have to delete the feature and recreate it which can be a pain if there are children but realistically how often do you make a cut and decide it's going to be an extrude other than right away?

All the time. not so much from cut to protrusion but from solid to surface. Many times I get down the road and realize that I should have done this with surfaces. Redefine and it's a surface, and frequently usually all the children just work. Even when they don't, it's not a huge redefine mess, just a few simple tweaks.

In SW, you can very easily and quickly add or remove features from a pattern or mirror. Far and away superior to the way Pro E handles patterns and mirrors.

On the project I recently did on SW 2005, the patters drove me nuts. Get it patterned and then change a dimensions, pattern fails. Have to pattern it with different options. Make another change, fails again have to go back to the previous options. Another change, you just can't pattern it. Drove me crazy.

 

[design-engine]

I think Doug summed up SW best for me. I went back and read all his recent posts on this thread.

articulate and Well put.

I am going to have to make an article for you and put your name on it or quote you heavy.

 

[msmit]

Even as a mechanical engineer also trained in usability, having used both pro-e (wf3) and solidworks (older version) it is still only my humble opinion but here goes.

For me Soliworks wins. There are simply too many usability problems with pro-e. I hardly know where to start.
One of the most screaming eye bleeding rash all over things is the help. It is just impossible for me to find annything in there, while I am very capable of learning things out of a book or a decent documentation.
And then there's the don't run pro-e full screen thing. It is NOT so hard for a decent program to keep track of the windows it pops up. I have a nice big screen and I want to use it to interact with my work! not view a strip of my pretty desktop half the time.

Another thing, thats possibly related to the previous lazy programmers bug is the file (load/save) dialog. Pick any decent programming toolkit and it will provide you with a nice platform native looking dialog, allowing the user to sort files by name date size type etc. why is this still not possible?

No undo for most functions drives me up the wall.

I miss the way SW indicates what parts of a sketch are un/fully/over defined, and how you can enter a value directly after attaching the dimension.

The way pro-e "hangs up" after a regeneration error, is insufferable, undo usually doesn't work, and there is no grasefull way back, frequently I end up ctrl-alt-del-end process and starting over from my last save. (not too far back I am very weary)

there are many more but the last one I will mention here because it is todays headache is you can't add a sheetmetal flat wall to the outside of an edge, eigther side of the flange ends up in the plain of the edge. quite often I want to add a flange WITHOUT cutting into the existing part. this causes a lot if nasty corners that need to be repaired by hand.

On the whole pro-e is hard to learn and work with ant this is a shame. It is such a powerful tool and expensive enough, why do we still need to work with this half finished wildfire interface? Its been around for years now, please finish the bloody thing, eliminate the old popup menu, make things consistent, AND FIX THE UNDO!!!

ok I am a child of the windows era but no MS fan. I like a clear GUI. Engineers have other more valuable skills than wrestling with a complex cad package (allso known as firefighting), after all we are payed to create working designs to make the word better. This is rewarding work, but pro-e sometimes gives me a headache.

 

[carrieives]

I don't know if this is just my years of Pro/E or not, but I actually like having that strip of desktop visible on the right of my screen. I run both Pro/E and Solidworks (more Pro/E), but actually resized my Solidworks window to leave me that strip of desktop. I put my frequently accessed stuff over on that side. (especially my text file that I use as a scratchpad for frequently copied and pasted stuff)

Carrie

 

[design-engine]

from what I can tell some of the solidworks users tend to have bad practices because they learned on their own... or without guidance.Not constraining sketcher constraints. (fully constrained sketch) mirroring in sketcher mode making it almost impossible to redefine sketch....I could make a list eight hours long and often it's the same list for Pro/E users who learned on their own.

To make a plug for instructor led training.... give me someone who can show me a thing or two (an expert) and let me ease into a guided struggle any day and Ill be the expert in less than a year. Show me how not to make bad habits... Guide me with controlled stress... Give me a project and share techniques on how to locate interferences other than a global interference tool. Share work around when I come across a weakness in a tool. One time I mentioned that I am the king of work around...which is why I'm so good at Solidworks. I understand how geometry is constructed. Pro/E just gives more options.

And only the hi-end Solidworks users can agrue with me.... an they usually exclaim "well yea... "you cant do that in Soldiwroks" or "why would you want to do that"

I think thats why RAND came up with the assessment test they are famous for... Managers don't realize the value of training. Convince the manager to let RAND administer a test so everyone can see what weaknesses there are in the team. Unfortunately engineers tend not to take multiple choice questions well and well you know.The test became more of a sales tool.

One has to remember... soldworks is your blackbet or six sigma tool. It was developed for 80 percent of the engineers out there. To boot it was going to be easy to learn.Pro/ENGINEER goes well beyond the slope and developed for the .003 percentile engineer. Look at Pro/SHEETMETAL's Progressive die utility... ISDX.... Pro/MAN ... yes.... All those module cost more too but its additive. You add it when you need it. With solidworks you wait till the next release or upgrade to Catia.
Edited by: design-engine

 

[tommypurple2]

How is Solidworks at importing geometry? And how is it atworking on removing and adding features?

 

[GLEN20]

You guys should just read the jokes ---- I swear, this thread always open up every 6 months.
Solidworks is like your little sister. She's easy.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

possible relatives?:

solid edge- the neglected sister that just can't seem to get a break?
catia- the rich uncle with the nice car that only hangs around a few places?
pro-e- the dad that still wears the plaid stretch knit clothes, but is sure he is cool?
UG- the brother that always comes in second?
OSD- the hippie sister without a care in the world?
inventor- that neighbor that always is making something in the garage, but never quite finishing it?
maya- that flirty neighbor always showing off
3dmax- the hot shot cousin that gets all the best jobs

hyperbole of course...


Seriously, someone should 5S all of the CAD tools nad be real LEAN! It does not matter which platform you run --- The bottom line is DESIGN INTENT! We don't have designers and drafters detailing our design anymore, we as engineers design, detail, and coordinate........ we now only have 3 days to do all of that, so if it takes 3 weeks for PTC, 2.5 weeks for Solidworks, 2.8 for Inventor....... we might as well sketch it on a napkin and fax it to China - and in 3 months we will get a mold made out of recycled steel...... again a mold that would take a year to fabricate here at 8x the price.I have a feeling that a "baloon" drawing withtabulated values will suffice in ACAD LT rather than Family Tables..... Why bother with that iso view, when the Chinese won't be using a programmed CNC, therefore a DXF will suffice, rather than the favored IGES for Pro Users, STEP for SolidWorks and "RE-Inventor" design transfer. Since these are the big 3 CAD packages - just like the big 3 in the automotive industries - It Does Not matter which system these auto designers use ---- All 3 are Laying Off workers!


I guess if we did not discuss this topic every 6 months ---- then we would argue why so and so used mylar and ink, while so and so used velum and #2 pencil


My Advice - Focus on the DESIGN INTENT, be efficient (without requiring a paid on-line assesment test). God knows we would not be able to handle it if John Deere announce they will be swithching to Solidworks from Pro-E, almost like switching to the plastic junk tractors


Seriously, folks, It's great to drive a loaded Cadilac (Pro-E) with Mechanica included -BUT- with the gas prices, I would drive a Yugo (CADAM or CADKEY) as long as I have a job.

 

[design-engine]

With the gas prices so high... i can use a larger trailer and a 10 calender cumins to pull more motorcycles to the race track for other racers who are all going to the same track from Chicago. Charge each racer 200 bucks per bike and pay for my gas to the track that way ... and use Pro/E in the passenger seat and end up making a couple thousand bucks on my trip.

Or pull a VW but with one motorcycle on the trailer and complain about traffic and gas prices.

Solidworks is like your little sister. She's easy <- I had tears in my eyes when we came up with this one.

Edited by: design-engine

 

[mark c]

How about this,


Pro-E incorporates a user friendlness, and a Help structure at the same level as Solidworks. Wow! What a concept. Are you listening Autodesk?


I'm a Unigraphics user that switched companies and now I'm learning Pro-E on my own. I'm sure Pro-E is really powerfull, But if I can't access that power, what good is it. At least with Solidworks, like U.G., one can get to aworkinglevel of productivity on his own because these two softwares are very "new user" friendly.


Learning Pro-E, without my company spending thousands of dollars on training,is very difficult and to be honest I'm not sure I'll make it. ProE makes me feel stupid.


In my opinion, Solidworks is kicking Pro-E's --- not because it's more powerfull,but because and only because of it's user friendlyness.

 

[[-Skint-]]

<O></O>


Seriously, someone should 5S all of the CAD tools nad be real LEAN! It does not matter which platform you run --- The bottom line is DESIGN INTENT! We don't have designers and drafters detailing our design anymore, we as engineers design, detail, and coordinate........ we now only have 3 days to do all of that, so if it takes 3 weeks for PTC, 2.5 weeks for Solidworks, 2.8 for Inventor....... we might as well sketch it on a napkin and fax it to China - and in 3 months we will get a mold made out of recycled steel...... again a mold that would take a year to fabricate here at 8x the price.I have a feeling that a "baloon" drawing withtabulated values will suffice in ACAD LT rather than Family Tables..... Why bother with that iso view, when the Chinese won't be using a programmed CNC, therefore a DXF will suffice, rather than the favored IGES for Pro Users, STEP for SolidWorks and "RE-Inventor" design transfer. Since these are the big 3 CAD packages - just like the big 3 in the automotive industries - It Does Not matter which system these auto designers use ---- All 3 are Laying Off workers!

That is the best thing ive read all day haha

 

[Metoo]

Pro-e die-hards will find any pretext to confirm their viewthat Pro-eis a superior modeling package to all else. The fact is, Pro-e is very powerful and when viewed from the standards of ten years past, it trumps all.By the late 1990s though, it was clear to any reasoning person that Solidworkswas the future, Pro-e was the past.


Pro-e die-hards spend too much time worrying about how their software compares to Solidworks. Being a former Pro-e user, I laugh everytime I read the silly remarks about Solidworks vs Pro-e. If the Pro-e die-hardshaven't seen the advantages of Solidworks by now, they never will. Unfortunately, there's even worse news for PTC and their Pro-e die-hardsthan SOlidworks; try looking at the newest release of Solidedge. Wow; talk about the future of modeling, UG hasclearly one-uppedSolidworks.


Ten years after realising that Pro-e was old news, I'm pretty sure Solidworks will be suplanted by Solidedge if they don't add the same functionality and features to their software that UG has in Solidedge.


In short, pro-e is now two generations behind, andits clear that PTC has no plans to try to catch the leader.

 

[design-engine]

I like to dream about whats next.Anyone see Iron Man? he had a holographic interface to his Pro/E.

TO YOUR POST
I am trying to guess what you mean by 'the leader'?I'm laughing because you cant be refereeing to Catia or Unigraphics?And solidworks is the mid range tool under those two big brothers.

A BETTER ATTITUDE
What is cool that with a more aggressive competition, we contractors and engineers will have some really cool tools over the next 10 years. And I hope things change radically.The more radical change the more business I have teaching the tools. I will always be on the for front of new software.

And I wish solidworks was more aggressive to give better competition.Solidworks product development is probably watching this thread and I will say they are not agressive enough. Its not good enough to just have a better interface. Maybe next year they will get an automatic dimensioning in sketcher. The problem is their research is 6 years old. I imagine they interviewed miffed high end proe users about what they hate about Pro/E Wildfire.(2001) And the response from all the high end users was, "we hate intent manager".Because of that those dorky solidworks users are stuck without an intent manager. and I was probably the last guy to use intent manager. I can't imagine going back to having to regenerate my sketch. except when I go back to solidworks. It kills me and I bitch. And Its slow.And why do I care... I don't have to use it.

they should be more aggressive and I should probably keep my mouth shut.


Edited by: design-engine

 

[Jacoolo]

I like to stand aside by such discussion, and I gonna keep this habbit longer.

However there is one funny case withis this discussion - history.

Well, I haven`t used SW a minute, but it is seen from pics that SW interface is superior than Pro/E(that is my and only mine subjective opinion). Taking this as a base, it is understable why do SW user blown their horn so much.

What is funny - they trying to forget or maybe they do not relize that the same situation happened 20 years ago within whole CAD market when Pro/E appeared.

Yea, You heard right - Pro/E kicked off for good all apps. because of its revelutionary interface based on pop up menus and Unix X-windows.

quote from article on CADAZZ

"If it had not been for Pro/Engineer's initially weak 3D curve and
surface modeling functions and the investments in training and
especially legacy data (which would have been very expensive to convert
into Pro/Engineer's proprietary data format) that manufacturers had
already made in the established CAD software vendors' systems,
Parametric Technology's advance would have been even more dramatic than
it anyway was...."

Since then, all competitors made big step forward, being now even a litlte ahead. But they needed such kick, same as SW is trying to give Pro/E now.

Hope situation will return to give us next positive heart attack from PTC

check this link

http://www.cadazz.com/cad-software-history-1986-1989.htm

 

[GLEN20]

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)