First look at Solid Edge ST2

[Raaden]

Siemens just launched the first preview of ST2

So far I'm most excited about the new Simulation module. That is what an built in FEA system should look like! Not like the lackluster FEMAP Express.

The ribbon bar is still there though. Hopefully the modifications to the QAT will be enough to make it only somewhat annoying...

Look at all the shiny demos:

http://siemens.pmhclients.com/index.php/solid-edge-launch

 

[cadman1964]

Well i won't be holding my breath to long on this.

Like before it looks like, from the video, they made some enhancements. But did they address the real issues with ST? Like this new look they have, i see they still have it. The little i worked on ST this past winter i hated the new layout. It was very hard to get around and it seamed you were doing more clicks to get something done. We are still on 20 and not planing to to upgrade anytime soon, mainly due to no maintenance.

O yea, i got at email from them the other day saying "WE HAVE LISTEN TO YOU" lets see if they really have

Maybe it's me, but does it seam there moving more to product design instead of mechanical design??

PS don't get me wrong. i love the current Version 20 I'm running. It just seams there moving away from what we do here, mechanical drawing.

Solid Edge V20

 

[HDS]

Product design is all about surfacing. They haven't touched that in a few years. The emphasis of late has defiantly been on machine design.

 

[swertel]

Please don't confuse ST with the new Fluent UI. They are two different beasts that Seimens opted to roll out at the same time.

You can still do non-ST (known as traditional modeling) in ST1 and ST2 but still have to deal with the new Fluent UI.

--Scott

http://wertel.eng.pro

 

[KENAT]

HDS, I think cadmans point is that they seem to have put the intent more into creating a pretty looking model with some kind of increased intelligence to but may have lost some of the ability to robustly define things.

It may just be that the new work flow is so different to capture design intent that those of us used to the old version struggle to get our heads around it.

However, I've seen demos, read the blurb, followed some online discussions and am not convinced and the Siemans people I asked couldnt' answer my questions.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484

 

[burhop]

Raaden - I hope it is what you want

Cadman1964 - I can' talk beyond Solid Edge Simulation be we did talk to a lot of customers about their needs in this area. I even visited a few customer sites. I also had a rather large list of enhancement requests from customers.

Rome was not built in a day so we could not hit everything customers wanted in this first release. However, this new version will be a nice step up from Femap Express and addresses many of the things customers told me were their highest priorities (i.e. assemblies, loads, constraints, control of the mesh, etc.)

 

[donyoung]

> Rome was not built in a day so we could not hit everything customers wanted in this first release.

I've heard this excuse too often nearly every shortcoming
and missing functionality (thread) was addressed this way ...
And now we may hear this I suppose: wait for ST3.

> this new version will be a nice step up from Femap Express

hmm, seems to ask for a separate license

 

[cadman1964]

burhop, your a SE man???

I've worked with SE for almost 10-1/2 years now. So I've seen the good times and the bad times. I personally wouldn't want to change the cad system here because this is good for what we do here. (V20 that is for now)

burhop, I don't want to go in great detail here but through the years, 2 world conferences (Florida and California), I've been involved in so called enhancement round tables and haven't seen much, if anything, come from it.

For example, In California we had a very good discussion about improvements in the DFT environment we like to see. Of course it was too late for V20, but was hoping to see if they would put some of them in ST. The little I played with DFT environment I didn't notice anything obvious in ST. This was another head shaker for me especially when we saw the new UI. They did to much at one time, should of did ST then change the UI in the next version.

One of the biggest vote getter at that discussion was the ability to right click on dimension and then be able to change your dimension style. Example – from X.XX to X.XXX as far as i know, this hasn’t be done.

So this kind of why I’m leery when I hear “WE LISTEN TO YOU”. I could go on and on and on but I wouldn’t

One more thing, I’ve personally over 10-1/2 years has requested enhancement and haven’t seen one of them put in, as far as I can tell

PS not directed towards you burhop, just venting little


Solid Edge V20

 

[donyoung]

> burhop, your a SE man???

yes, he is: Some data

 

[burhop]

"PS not directed towards you burhop, just venting little"

No, I understand. I was a customer of SDRC, UGS, CV and a couple others for almost 10 years. I do tend to trigger some venting now that I'm with one of the CAD companies. Sigh...

Having said that, pretty much my job for the last 18 months has been to listen to customers and try to put together a good Simulation product for Solid Edge. So there is listening going on. I'd love to fix any other problems too but just hitting the FEA needs will keep me more than busy :-(

Dongyoung Yes, separate license. Is that bad? For customers that don't need FEA, its probably not right to build the cost of creating this into the SE price.

 

[donyoung]

> Dongyoung Yes, separate license. Is that bad?

did I say it's bad, didn't I?
I think we'll see another SolidEdge bundle let me guess: SolidEdge
Premium or something like that. Personally I would like to
see no bundles but separate modules to customise SE to one's
need. An advantage would be SAAS or renting for expensive modules that
are only needed from time to time for a short period.

dy

 

[Raaden]

>Raaden - I hope it is what you want

I'm sure it will be, especially if you've put as much work into SE Simulation as you've done into social media

 

[toffeet]

We are still hanging unto V20 because the majority of our parts are sheet metal. I am actually more excited about the support for SharePoint 2007. We have been using SharePoint 2003 for 2 years now and I can’t imagine managing 20 000 files without it. Unfortunately the workflow capabilities are very limited compared to 2007.

Solid Edge V20 SP7 on WinXP SP2

 

[HDS]

Will the st2 insight work with V20?

 

[burhop]

Raaden - lol

Social media is the future. We are not going to be designing airplanes on Facebook but it is nice for folks like me who want to make connections with customers or follow some of the industry happenings.

I just wish I had more Solid Edge blogs to read.

 

[swertel]

I've never had a problem writing, just have a problem coming up with the idea to write about.

Give me ideas and I'll write more.

--Scott

http://wertel.eng.pro

 

[Gemnoc]

I'd be eager to see what ST2 sheet metal looks like, but my employer/client didn't renew its maintenance for this year. So we'll be stuck with the first release of ST.

BTW I had the chance to have a (very) quick look at Inventor 2010, and frankly I've been impressed at the sheet metal feature set. They already have features that SE users have been wishing for for years, for example corner treatments. SE has been boasting to offer the "best sheet metal module" for years, but it looks to me like they've been passed by the competition... :-\

Mark (Burhop), you sure face criticism squarely and bravely. It's unfortunate you are the only SE employee (to my knowledge) who is active on public forums and blogs.

I sure would like to see a SE oriented blog as active as Matt Lombard's.

 

[cadman1964]

What I'd like to know is if they've went to more global settings like they did with Hole Size File and Pipe Threads file. I think that's one thing there lacking at.

Solid Edge V20

 

[burhop]

swertel,

There must be 100 things you could write about with no effort at all. Lots of people are just ramping up on SE so what you figure is common knowledge could be very useful.

Since we are getting involved with FEA, anything in this area would be good too. While we are making some FEA tools that (I hope) are easy to use, there can be a big issue on the user side if you don't model the data or interpret the results correctly.