I-DEAS future, if any 2

[dar654]

I have noticed there are many large companies that still use I-DEAS for FE-modeling/analysis. There are good reasons. The modeler addresses novice, intermediate, and high-end users. Users can use the functionality that meets their individual needs, whether beam, mid-surface, or solid modeling. Modern CAD tools are solid-centric, and the mesh must be solid elements associated with the geometry. I-DEAS does it all, the mesh can be associative, or non-associative. Also, the 3D modeler is extremely powerful relative to competitive products, with his design roots embellished with features useful for analysis (e.g. partition, join partition, to create multiple volumes within the same part -- extremely useful and powerful).

Multiple parts can be displayed on the screen concurrently, rather than one at a time. This has been lost in CAD modelers today, one must put away the current part, create another one separate, put away, then another. I-DEAS allows creation of a complex part, by first constructing multiple sub-component parts on the screen, each precisely located and oriented as the analyst desires. There is no need to create an assembly of parts, and define a multiplicity of relationships to orient each part to another. One can simply sketch-in-place or align the workplane to an existing part face, and then create a new part OR an extrusion to the first part. Competitive FEA tools have primitive 3D modelers, leaving that task to the CAD tools. By having a robust modeler, the analyst can better drive the design, and quickly propose and analyze conceptual changes to optimize structure shapes. More commonly, the analyst asks the designer to provide a new STEP file of all changes; whereas, I-DEAS puts tremendous power into the analyst's hands. Of course, you may often hear, "that's a design job, beneath what an analyst ought do" -- that is wrong.

I-DEAS also offers a simple to use Team Data Manager. This can be used standalone by the user, or set up as a shared database of parts and FE-models. This can simplify replicating an existing FEA model into another model file (and generally breaking TDM associativity during check-in/out for simplicity). Once one has used this function, they would find extremely powerful, and useful.

OK, so why am I rambling onwards. I-DEAS truly needs an upgrade path. I don't mean to NX, with its complexities and data structures (i.e. tree of files in folders to represent a model), limit of one part on the screen at once (requiring assemblies perhaps), or downgrading to FEMAP. Even without major upgrades since I-DEAS 12, the software is still powerful and utilitarian at the same time. There are obvious features that would be nice, such as better meshing to handle bad STEP data to overlook small features, cracks, nearly invisible adjacent vertices. Currently, the user must be given perfect geometry, or the user creates his own perfect 3D geometry (often desirable to rid of tiny design details, and conceptualize for analysis anyway). Other enhancements would include hex-dominant solid meshing, defining more types of contact interfaces between surfaces (fixed, sliding, contact, rotating), disconnecting nodes "within" surface boundaries between adjacent volumes (currently disconnects along boundary, too! not so useful), faster solvers to leverage now common dual-quad processors, etc.

If SDRC (oops, Siemens!) is listening, Siemens should provide an upgrade path for both I-DEAS and FEMAP. Let's call it I-DEAS FX. Retain the I-DEAS Master Modeler and Assembly tools, team data manager, and most the FE tools. Take the best aspects of FEMAP and integrate into I-DEAS FX. FEMAP users could quickly learn the most basic of I-DEAS modeling tools, whether line, surface, or solid primitives to get off the ground, and then learn the easy-to-learn yet powerful solid modeler to advantage. I-DEAS users would finally be able to stay with the product, rather than switch to another FEA tool (Ansys, Hypermesh, Dyna, Comsol, Femap, etc). The large set of organizations still relying on I-DEAS will most likely never switch to NX for their FEA platform. Those who could switch to meet their needs, have already switched. Those left could be recombined into a more powerful I-DEAS/FEMAP product. I-DEAS sites that stopped maintenance would restart maintenance payments. Everyone wins. I'm surprised no one has thought of this, or presented this idea to the user base.

 

[Helrezer]

Siemens PLM Software has been named the BEST CAE Supplier in China for 2012!!!

Marilyn

 

[dar654]

Wow, they pay for it? Likewise, I need home access to current NX to become familiar with the latest NX. But that takes a no-cost student license -- and likely a high-powered workstation/laptop with OpenGL graphics card (not Intel graphics on my home 12GB Win7 iCore 7 PC). My current job does not permit my evaluating NX, nor access to the corporate network and software licenses via laptop. Things are more strict nowadays.

 

[Dward]

Hi Marilyn, I'm sure NX is a very capable system in a lot of areas, but on one specific point - can it work with a multi-level structured history tree, like dar654 showed in his Oct 17 post? Is it possible to extract a node to create a new part, with the history intact? Last time I looked, it didn't seem to be possible, maybe it is now.
Dick

 

[Helrezer]

I have to be honest, I don't know. I rarely touch the history tree, because there are other ways to accomplish the same thing.

With Synchronous Technology, you can modify any part (including STEP imported files) without a history tree.

However, to create a part from a feature on the histroy tree, you can select the body and copy it to a new part. It is very easy and does not require the history tree.

Marilyn

 

[dar654]

Marilyn,
Yes, I heard NX does not really have a history tree, per se. Its different and transparent perhaps, and I suspect very powerful. Unfortunately, I may not get crack at the newest version of NX.

Darryl

 

[Xwheelguy]

Does I-DEAS combine both assembly "history" and feature "history" into a single tree?

You are correct, Darryl, NX has 2 items that show the part file's "history" - it's called the Assembly Navigator (for combining components into a sub-asm or full asm) and the modeling side as the Model Navigator. They are separate because NX is based on the master model concept. The are tabs off to the side of the interface and fly out when you hover over them. They can be pinned or you can drag them out and "break" the tab/fly-out mechanism and just have it hover over your graphics area. You have the option of displaying the Model Navigator in a Timestamp order (straight line, first feature at the top, last feature at the bottom) or you can turn that off and show the model in more of a parent/child relationship, although I don't really care for that type of display. I feel that Siemens wants the user to keep working in the graphics window and not spend their time dragging the mouse across the screen 40% of the time - most editing can be done from right in the graphics window, without the need to activate menus or dialogs. NX has a wonderful selection intent and selection filter that will help the user pick what they intend to pick, which will influence the choices that are available in the graphics area.

If I understand the brief descriptions of the "bushy tree" concept, I believe the same thing could be achieved via Assemblies in NX - particularly WAVE and linked parts. The assemblies can be created using either the bottom up (create single components first, then assemble them as sub-asm and full asm) or top down (all solids in one single file, then create component later) methods. NX8.5 has something new called Part Modules that might also fall under the "bushy tree" concept, but I do not want to speculate, as I'm waiting on GM to migrate from NX7.5 and don't have a full grasp of exactly what they're going to provide or the proper intent for their use.

I know I-DEAS users are used to the Datum CSYS, and NX has brought that over. Those can be useful for assembling and using constraints, but you can use part geometry to achieve that as well. NX is VERY robust and there is usually more than one way to skin the same cat. Some people like that, others can't stand it because they've been used to a strict workflow to get a specific result. NX isn't like that at all in most cases.

I have very little I-DEAS experience, and I'm like most other NX users and had the feeling it was cumbersome and not easy to learn due to some of the more archaic dialogs that were used. I don't doubt its power or usefulness to an experienced user, but it seemed like it would take me a long, long time to figure things out for myself, particularly the TDM concept. I struggled to get my head around all that stuff, but in I-DEAS defense, my introduction to it came from someone who'd forgotten alot of it and wasn't a very good instructor. I did run across some things that at the time I'd hope would be brought into NX and after some years, they were.

For me, I'd probably have the same feelings if one day Siemens were to get bought out and then NX just left to die a slow death - however, I'd eventually have no choice but to get over it and either learn the new software, stay stuck with unfixed bugs or possible loss of data with the old software or just find a new career altogether. I feel for you, but I can say that NX isn't that bad, there is a HUGE community of helpful and KNOWLEDGEABLE users and their support is the best I've encountered (as long as you're paid up on your monthly maintenance). NX will even listen to the users and if enough users want something new added to the software by way of a voting process, they'll do their best to get it in there in a fairly timely manner. I'm not going to sit here and say NX is the best out there, because my feelings are that each user/company or potential CAD buyer needs to test drive as many softwares as possible and find the best fit for their product, processes and overall use.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 7.5.4.4 MP8
WinXP Pro x64 SP2
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[dar654]

You are correct, I-DEAS can be a bit intimidating for its 3D modeling and TDM. Keep in mind that I am a structural analyst, not a designer or design engineer, who prefers to leverage the I-DEAS modeler to create analysis models with robust history and efficiently for subsequent changes, whether solid, mid-surface, or solid+mid-surface.

Each site really needs at least one super user, who can explain the essence of both -- and avoid common stumbling blocks like creating 20 surface parts on the workbench and not knowing it. Or, trying to mesh a surface for a part with its FE-model not on the workbench, i.e. multiple parts can be on the workbench, but only one part can have its FE-model active on the workbench. Otherwise, the user could struggle or limit themselves to the more rudimentary features of I-DEAS. That would apply to any CAE tool. Sure helps to continually learn from the experienced analysis modeler, or to leverage general utility program files and global symbol sets that user may have created to reduce clicks to tolerable levels.

I do not discount that NX 8 can do the job, but reality is I must use the tools provided by my company. Its also about $$ training and migration costs, and being able to readily find analysts who are familiar with NX's modeler and FEA functions (hint: very rare individuals). Although I-DEAS is a great modeler for newer and experienced analysts, the tool is completed by the usual set of pure analysis tools, e.g. Dyna, Hypermesh, Ansys, Patran, etc. for specialized analysis requirements.

 

[NEO5044]

I've used I-DEAS master solution for more than 10 yrs, the last version we have is Master Series NX12; which will be retired because of the incompatibility with win7 and Siemens wouldn't provide a solution; if u used a sophisticated software for that long it is difficult to use lower capability FEA pre-processors like the ones currently exist in the market; Siemens response to win7 made me an advocate to move away from their software all together

 

[JohnRBaker]

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT an official endorsement nor a claim that this is the policy position of our company. This is my opinion only!

Please don't be mislead by the fact that we may not CERTIFY a specific software product on a particular OS. If you are currently using Ideas on Windows XP it will 'probably' still run on Windows 7. While I can't personally vouch for versions of Ideas, since I don't have any of them installed on my laptop, I've got 12 production versions of UG/NX installed going back to UG V17.0, which was released in October 2000, and all of these versions run just fine on the latest release of Windows 7. Now this does not mean that we fully 'support' any of those older versions of UG/NX on Windows 7 only that, as policy, we do NOT explicitly disable older versions of software once they move off the original OS's on which they were CERTIFIED to run. However, running on a non-certified version of an OS will limit the amount of assistance that one can expect to get if you're still paying maintenance and using GTAC (the 800-number) for support, particularly if it's determined that there are issues related to the OS that you're running the software on.

Again, this is not an endorsement, simply an observation based on my own experiences, at least with respect to UG/NX.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[dar654]

I recall I-DEAS 12 does not install on Win7. More than likely, it was that awful Orbix software that was embedded into Master Series in the mid-1990s, i.e. 350 MB of software code that added nothing obvious to the customer, vs prior Master Series releases. i.e. 350 MB binary executables = approx 20 million lines of code!

Likewise, I-DEAS 14 (NX-I 6.0) can be installed on Win7, though certified for Vista, with a few tricks to get the Orbix software to install and four IT-IONA services created, with repetitive tries and extreme patience. As I recall, one must install Orbix to the root C:\xxx (no spaces), rather than "C:\Program Files", start the install manually by dragging the install exe or msi into a command window, then adding INSTALLDIR=C:\Siemens\Iona632 (e.g.), and turning the UAC to lowest level during the install. I would assume I-DEAS 15 (NX-I 6.1) installs cleanly on Win7, but I would not hold my breadth w.r.t. Orbix services being cleanly installed.

 

[Dward]

I can confirm that NX Ideas 6.1 does run fine on Win7, with no install issues. We have several seats here, no problems.
Dick
Radiodetection Ltd
Bristol, UK

 

[SDETERS]

We are having issues running I-Deas 6.1 on windows7 64 bit. There is Orbix 64 bit patches out there. But the 6.2 I-Deas release should run just fine on windows 7 64 bit. Our issues is running I-Deas from teamcenter using TCII (teamcenter Intergration for I-Deas). So when you talk about running I-Deas under windows 7 are you running teamcenter or the old TDM? We have had little to no issues running I-Deas on windows 7 32 bit boxes.

 

[Dward]

Hi Shane, we are on Win7 64-bit, but still using good old TDM.
Dick

 

[SDETERS]

Cool glad to hear the old TDM is working well and still alive even in the 64 bit world. That TDM was really really nice. We are on teamcenter and mostly now into NX> IT has been a long journey which was tough at times. But things are starting to smooth out.

 

[Helrezer]

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT an official endorsement nor a claim that this is the policy position of our company. This is my opinion only!

Ideas12 is a very old version of the software. If they had used the same numbering scheme (they keep changing it), the current version would be Ideas16. I know Ideas16 runs on Windows7 and the FEA task work well.

I would also point out that it has been over 10 years since SDRC/UGS/EDS/Siemens has told customers that Ideas is going away.

I think even if Ideas was not going away, that Siemens would not create a special version of Ideas12 to work with Win7.

Marilyn

 

[JohnRBaker]

You're correct. Of course it's been 13 years since we released V17.0 of Unigraphics and while we have done NOTHING specific that would allow it to run on Windows 7, it still does. And while it may be hard to say who should get credit for this feat, Microsoft or ourselves, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to our people ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.