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Wildfire 3.0 ???

About backward compatibility:


There are a lot of conspiracy theorists, and some of their principles make sense (for example, a company need profit in ordert to continue forward), but there is a very good technical reason why backward compatibility is NOT possible beyond what you see now in WF3.


- Pro/E's kernel is absolutely stable, so you can resonably assume that a geometry created in WF8 (in the future) should be readable in the current WF3 release (created in 2005). Provided no major redesign of the geometry description is needed.


- In order to make WF3 (created in 2005) be able to read and modify that WF8 release (created sometime in the future), you have to predict right now all the future enhancements (features, algorithms, even some bug fixes) you will put into the software. Not likely.


- Another way to theoretically accomplish backward compatibility, is to keep releasing new builds of older versions of the software in the future, and put in them all the enhancements you have in the future releases. For example, when WF4 is released, and newer version of WF3 isalso released that includes what is needed to deal with the new things in WF4. When WF5 isreleased,new versions of both WF3 and WF4 are needed. And so on. Not a realistic scenario either.


- Another way is to stop adding anything new other than UI. That would include new features, new options of features, algorithm enhancements, bug fixes that touch any algorithm used to create geometry or features, bug fixes that touch any algorithm used resolve interaction between features, etc. UI is only a minor part of what changes between releases (it just is the most visible). Of course, this is not likely.


There is no reasonable way to make this happen. This is why you do not see anybody even consider it.


Charles
 
Speling - I agree with you, give me the ugly car with the big
engine! I much prefer Pro/e 2001 versus this Wildfire crap.
2001 was fast and effiicient. Sure, it might not be
user-friendly, but once you've mastered the various aspects, or in my
opinion - learned the thought process behind how it works, using 2001
day to day was damn near perfect.



With Wildfire, it is a pain in the a$$ to do stuff now. I don't
like the new GUI, I don't like several aspects about it. We would
still be using 2001 if stuff was backwards compatible.
 
a bit from my perspective. .


I've never used 2001, well not extensively anyway... I remember looking at it in 2002 for the first time with no previous cad experience and with out giving it a serious amount of time, I simply couldn't get my head around it!


on the other hand, I remember learning wildfire, within an hour or two, I had an idea (all be ita small one) about the work flow, after a week I was slightly more familiar and within 3 weeks I wasn't bad at surfacing...


a few months later, I looked at mechanism, within a few hours I had a pretty good idea, same for isdx.. couple of days - sorted!


I've since gone back to spend a (very) little time on 2001 so that I could at least talk about it is anybody asked me.. and man do I hate it!
smiley36.gif
but that's just me! but I gota admit, it worked! and I could learn to live with it if I had to!


the only reason they changes the GUI was for people like me! it was necessary to try and claw themselves back in to the market.. and with $400M in the bank...it seems to be working!


just my $0.02


James
 
My major gripe (now that I've learned the new interface) is that it is very hard to teach Pro/E to a new user because it keeps flip flopping back & forth between the new and old interface. I can understand them not doing it all in one fell swoop but why should we have to wait until 2008 for PTC to complete the job? There are just too many inconsistencies.
 
yeah I'd aggree. there.. I found (and still find) that quite dificult.. perhaps the thinking behind it was to make a"smooth"
smiley36.gif
transition so as not to upset the 2001 users?


I dunno!
 
2001 users are also users of next
versions - 2000i2, 2000, 20, 19, 18, 17 etc.





Do you think how long way was finished Ptc from year 1997 until
now
 
PTC reminds me of cable companies, making changes to offer more and more to new comers but if your already a customer, you get nothing. I don't know anybody who would say "Man, I really like this completely new and totally different Wildfire". Well, maybe PTC's spoke person Mr. Speling. I think it would have been better to just keep 2001 and improve apon it. Like an old VW Bug, Looks the same, feels the same but just gets better and better.
 
Speling,


You've got me intrested enough to dig through your previous posts (not all of them). Now that I know what you do with CAD I better understand your view on ProE.


Like you I've spent quite some time with computer aided design, enough to distinguish facts from fancy.


In short (maybe not that short) : Studied to be industrial designer, saw a glimpse of things to come in the late 70's. Only the things you could acquire then costed a house and performed like a PDA now. Did the "drawing board way" till the late 80's. Got my first PC in 1988 and had an early version of Autocad (probably on3-4 real floppies or so) on it. I took my personal computer to work when we had to do technical manuals because I was sick of writing text, giving it to the secretary, correct it, hand it back, ... I personally was convinced that CAD could work, only the word was out that computer drawing took longer than manual drawing and the directors were not eager to engage. At one occasion we needed to urgently make a 1:1 drawing of a plastic profile. I took my chance, made it in Autocad, plotted on the A4-penplotter (used for graphs), and handed it over in 15 minutes flat. "Mmmm, doesn't take that long after all, does it ...". This led to our first CAD-system by Intergraph (1991), "one-and-a-half" (UNIX) workstations - 50000 euro in present money. (At that time half of the companies didn't even want to look at us when we told them our budget. Few of the names back then are still alive now ! )Most of the things we did were 2D. When parametric modelling came out I was all enthousiastic. Changing a design by typing numbers was magic when most of us then (4 workstations by then) were busy moving lines, trimming, filleting, ... It also got me definitely set for 3D, which was not evident in profile business, where sections define the product, but we got more and more parts, so I specialised in that. Occasionally we took a look at other programs during trade fairs, ProE came along but couldn't improve on what we were doing. Then Intergraph announced something new for Windows : Solid Edge. They had taken what they knew about CAD into a new program, started from zero and built it entirely on pure Windows functionality with as little user intervention as possible. We were charmed, got free licenses,but had too little functionality to put it to use. A few years later Intergraph became UGS and announced to stop with EMS (our CAD). The choice was to pay extra for UG or get SE as a replacement. None of the choices were viable for the business we had. So we took a second round of CAD-systems survey. The emphasis on 2Ddocumentation was so heavy that they decided on Microstation. Meanwhile I was too busy with other ventures where SE was the most cost effective option and started on my own, with a third party investing in the CAD-part of business. Both for my private business as for the company we reviewed Solid Designer, Autocad and ProE, all with negative result when we compared wanted functionality versus cost.


All this to say that I'm a (critical) Solid Edge man. But I wouldn't say - like you - that it is a lifetime commitment, it's better to stay critical.


The job I do now is ProE (2001). All too often it reminds me of old EMS-days where "workaround" was an artform in it self. The things you have to do to get where you want to be ....


Speling, much of your work is focused around freeform. I must admit you had (!) a point there in evaluating SE negatively. But fortunately SE develops at a faster pace than ProE. I would suggest you get yourself a temporary license.


We had Wildfire2 training just recently. My feeling in many aspects was : "at last, something that PTC has made manageable finally". So I agree with previous posts in this thread that ProE is doing too little too late.


Alex
 
Speling


Changes are good but you've heard the saying "if it's not broke don't fix it". This is where I'm coming from. I don't know about all your past posts but I have read about a lot of different things here and when someone talks about something they don't like it seems your posts are right below it. Although I have a hard time understanding your posts, and maybe thats just it, but what I gather is someone complains about Pro/E and you reply with you don't understand why they complain.


Question: Pro/E has been around for a long time and has, for the most part, invented the 3D cad we see today. So can someone tell me why Pro/E is only as good as it is. They should be leaps and bounds further then anybody alse.
 
I have to come to the defense of Speling, though I do not agree with all he says.


First: I had no problems with older Pro/E UI (I haveused Pro since R 7) , but after using WF UI, it is definitely faster. And after training some people on it, it is definitely easier to train on.


2nd: The big problem in WF UI is that it is half cooked. The stuff there are in general well done (admittedly some things can be better thought of). Because it is half cooked, there are no areas of the software that can be used without a mix of old UI and new UI. This is really where the difficulty isin training new users. I would rather they held up the new UI until all (or at least a comprehensive set of functionality where it is reasonable to assume that some user might stay there to complete their job without needing any other features).


Having said that, UI is for people who cannot look any deeper at differences. I could care less what UI is there as long as it is logical, predictable and fast. I understand why PTC needs to do this. Even if MS UI-like is not ideal, it is most familiar, and that familiarity promotes a sense of ease (because, it behave in a manner that is not novel).


What I like most about WF2, is that the features and geometryare much more robust than previous versions. It is what PTC claims (PTC says that in WF, not only are they changing UI, they are also enhancing the robustness of the features), and from working with the software, I have to agree that it is more robust.


To answer AHA-D, I cannot see SE easily becoming as powerful or as robust as Pro/E, no matter how much faster it develops. I like their UI. It is very well thought of, but that is all. They spend a lot of effort and put a lot of lipstick on it, but they are working with an outdated and poor geometry kernel. As long as Parasolids stays as is, they cannot move it reliably into more complex geometry. That does not means that SE cannot have a market it may excel in. Most prismatic geometry does not present cases that are challenging enough for Parasolids to fail.


I most challenge your assertion that Pro/E requires "workarounds" (like EMS days) while SE is straighforward. I can hardly see a case where Pro/E needs workarounds while SE does not, as long as we are not comparing how SE works modeling square boxes vs. Pro/E modeling engine casings!


Charles
 
Charles.. very well put!
smiley32.gif
I think if you look at the development of any product, it's probably easy and fairly cost effective to get it to 90% of where it would like to be, but that last 10%, is near impossible andvery expensive to make up..


And I too would like to stand up for Speling.. I'd say I've read most of his posts and he believes exactly what he says, and in my opinion, more often than not.. He's Right!


But it's important to remember that these posts are simply the opinions of of the members here at MCADcentral, more often than not they are exteemly costructive - so lets leave the personal attacks out of it and get back to bashing PTC
smiley36.gif
(joking!)


Can I ask how many ofye who are so quick to voice your opinion ar actually a member of the technical commitees?


http://members.ptcuser.org/Resource.phx/committee/tc.htx


orhave submitted enhancment requests?


http://www.ptc.com/appserver/cs/misc/PTC_Enhancement_Process .jsp


Just a question..


James
Edited by: james.lynch
 
OK, since we're coming to this point. Parasolid kernel is one of the most spread kernels. If it were really that poor I suppose it would be out of the market. Of course market share doesn't say it all, Windows is no top product either and look where it is :) So back to reality check. The real question is : does it perform ? Well, working 4 years full time on it, and the rest parttime in a 7 year period it has hardly failed on me, certainly not noticeable different than this ProE I have at hand. Anyhow I thought most of these discussions were outdated. It has been years since I heard things like "try merging 2 equal, crossingcilinders in the same plane and apply a fillet through their mating ribs, you can't in ACIS !". To my experience kernels are "grown up" by now and in general do what they have to do. When it comes to freeform modelling any kernel is stretched to its limits, and all will fail on you on occasions, often for no obvious reasons.


While on the subject, the main difference IMHO between the PTC philosophy and SE (and others) is in the constraints handling. ProE needs everything to be constrained. Luckily you can now leave someconstraining to the system, but you couldn't in earlier versions. SE has a mixed model : you constrain what and how you like, when there's a solution it's OK. The PTC way is what decided on not choosing ProE in my old company. In the evaluation they needed to import a PVC-window-profile geometry which has easily between 4- to 800 degrees of freedom on a contour. Needless to say it failed, even if it would have been succesfull it would've been unmanageable. Zero degrees of freedom makes sense in a mathematical way, but it's frustrating for the designer to get thrown in resolve mode each time you change something to a part of your assembly.


Regarding workarounds I'll give you an example. I need to show components in the context of their packing strip. I model the strip, pattern it 10 cavities long and then assemble the components in. Fortunately there is a bottom hole in the packing, and also a circular cutoutin the componentwhich I can align to, so the component can be "reference patterned" into the packing. But the component also has a state where it is packed right-angled. In 2001 you can't use a pattern if you don't attach to it so I need to create a datum axis in my part just for the sake of being able to align it into the package on referrable geometry of the pattern. That's workaround. That's creating things just for the sake of it. SE in version 6, 7 or 8 years ago already allowed me to pattern anything in assembly using any pattern available in any component or any assembly sketch. Finally in Wildfire 2 you get about half the pattern flexibility I have been used to for years.


OK, looks like this had better belonged in "rant'n'rave" but things have to be set right. Back to reality ...


Alex


PS


attached image of a little bit of freeform done by Masco, AU - SE V17


View attachment 983
Edited by: AHA-D
 
For those who say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" you are missing the whole point. Just because you have more experience using 2001 doesn't make it better than Wildfire.


The bottom line in my opinion is that Wildfire 2.0 takes a lot less clicks to get the same things done and features are much easier to redefine. It frustrates me just thinking about how I used to have click done, done, done just to finish one portion of a feature. I suggest diving in to Wildfire and learning it and you will make models faster that are easier to change.


Al
 
Besides the somewhat streamlined GUI, there are some functional improvements in WF like being able to change a protrusion into a cut or vise versa without starting over from scratch. I have had to do that numerous times when some marketing squid wants a logo inverted.

I started with Pro/E R2 (that is not a typo, 1989) so I had a lot of years with the menu manager. The issue for PTC is not with the old timers having to learn the new interface, Speling can keep running 2001 for the next 20 years if he wants, but trying to sell new licenses to new accounts who expect to see the familiar WIMP interface. They waited too long to get started and are taking far too long to finish the job.
 
What the hell is going on with spelings postings. The more he posts, the more his text is getting hacked? Speling can you see this when you preview your posts. Some postings come out good but others are a mess.
Edited by: cncwhiz
 
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