Intent Manager or Sketcher 4

[darcyo]

Doing a bit of a poll here. I work for a large company, who explicitly states that their Pro/E users be trained in Sketcher (not intent manager). Though Sketcher (old style, pre-2000i2) forces the user to strengthen all dims and forces him/her to incorporate design intent, i do not see the advantage of sketcher over intent manager. Simply put, i feel as though Intent Manager is much faster, and has the tools available to capture proper design intent. (Granted, it is possible to create real sloppy sketches with Intent Manager). I want to settle this in my own mind, and find out how many users are using what. your feedback would be much appreciated. thanks.

 

[KBeitel]

Training yourself in sketcher (IMOFF) is not a bad idea. If you understand what the intent manager is doing you will probably appreciate the intent manager more... It does not hurt to learn how to sketch with the intent manager turned off, it will help in the end in troubleshooting. Does your company policy state not using the intent manager? It would be unfortunate if they have but I doubt that be the case.

Take care & have fun!

Kevin

"Hell, there are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something." - Thomas A. Edison

 

[darcyo]

ok, a bit more clarification is required here... i am a trainer for my company and i am told to teach sketcher not intent manager. i guess that makes it a company policy, though there is no way for them to verify sketches - except for trail files of course. anyway, they don't inforce it, as far as i'm aware. like i said, i'm more interested than anything.

i do agree with you however, that learning sketcher would be an appreciable asset for intent manager usage.

thanks.

 

[helpmewithintralink]

Darcyo, I am not going to repeat what Beitel states. He is making a very good call. I will however give the flipside. Intent Manager is basically a tool that will assume certain constraints and dimensions. These constraints and dimensions maybe in direct conflict with the designers intent. As such, as the designer modifies that sketch dependant feature, the model may not behave as intended with respect to the design. This would force the designer to redefine the sketch and basically redefine the constraints and dimensions. If the user is taught sketcher with the intent manager OFF, they will learn how to create a sketch that will react, predictablely, to modifications. Users MUST understand the constraints and dimensioning methods before they can use the Intent Manager effectively. Blinly starting a new user with Intent Manager and not having the understanding of constraints and dimensions will only cause more chances of redefining features/ failures down the road. If this helps you, please DO NOT give me any positive feedback since this can only foster competition.

 

[im4cad]

To make a long story short I can say that Intent Manager is better, faster, and easier. I don't see any advantages of "Sketcher" v.s. "Intend Manager".

im4cad

 

[stressriser]

I know that I use intent manager because sometimes it's faster. On the more complex designs, intent manager can change dimensional values and it may not be obvious to the designer. This may lead to errors that are not caught in time.

 

[roalho]

Intent Manager wins hands down, IMO. The only guys I knew who left it turned off were the old-school Autocad converts who never really got into the whole Pro-thing anyway. You know, the guys who'd rather fight and cuss at Pro than learn how it really works. I have well over 12000 hours on Pro, and it's my opinion that mandating sketcher over intent manager is somewhat akin to shooting yourself in the mouse.

 

[helpmewithintralink]

Hi roalho, I understand your angst. Along with your 12,000 hrs of experience is probably the knowledge of how to expertly dimension and constrain a sketch. Using Sketcher can enforce this by showing the basics before using Intent Manager. I have been using 3D systems for 13 years now. Constraints have not changed, nor, can I see any software having the smarts to understand my design intent. UNderstanding the basics first is critical if Darcyo's users will ever become successful 3D users. In fact, I will put cash on the table and bet that any user cannot get the exact dimensioning and dimensioning scheme with Intent manager on. Now, knowing how dimensioning and contstraint techniques with INtent manager is a deadly combo. I think that you would change your tune if you had 0 hrs experience and your models and assemblies exploded wilst modifying them.

 

[roalho]

Yes, perhaps my favorable opinion of intent manager was swayed by having done my time in sketcher, I guess my real beef is is with the "mandated" factor. I've seen a company mandate their users not use "redefine" because of the potential for failing the model/assembly. Blam! Dead mouse, hole in foot.
I believe that "design intent" is the main thing that needs to be accurately captured when building a model, and models which haven't captured it properly are more troublesome than those which have.
I bet we agree that a more appropriate thing for a company with a parametric cad system to focus on would be "The meaning of design intent, and how to model it properly." The ablility to explicitly constrain/dimension sketches exists in both intent manager and sketcher. Which one you use to do that is really a matter of preference and a silly thing to mandate. Manually strengthening a dimension which doesn't well capture design intent leaves you in the same place as allowing IM to do it for you.
One way I found to have more success sketching with IM is the greater use of construction lines, arcs, circles, points etc... By first sketching and adding constraints to these entities first, and THEN sketching the "real" geometry, IM practically snaps right to everything you want.

 

[darcyo]

wow! somehow i knew that this question would spark a high-quality debate, one which is very similar to the one that i have experienced here at work. as with everything in life, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything. infact, this is the real basis of engineering design in itself - balancing out advantages to drawbacks of any design change. anyway, i guess what i am saying is that there really isn't a 'best' sketcher solution.

I would suggest that experienced IM users re-learn sketcher. i had to do this, and was actually quite suprised at how strong the created sketches were. sketcher really forces the user to incorporate design intent into created sketches. how? because it doesn't put in weak dims, and will only regenerate once the user has applied all the necessary dims inorder to fully constrain the sketch. this might be the problem with IM: the fact that weak dims are initially applied. i mean, how many sketches do we make every day? i'm sure we are all guilty of highlighting a weak dim in IM and doing the old 'ctrl-t' (strengthen). the problem here is that it is not obvious in IM whether a dim is applied to (parallel) lines or to verticies.

anyway, i'll stop here for fear of killing the topic completely. i guess the moral of the story is to insure that your are dimensioning the correct entities. and if you are a new user, understanding how IM works is best learnt via sketcher. enough said? ...

 

[helpmewithintralink]

Yep, yep and yep! Good luck Darcyo!

 

[hkoren]

Consider the PRO/E Live Learning Series to address this advanced User question...

http://www.rand.com

 

[cgrace12]

My 6 cents...

1) IM is like a calculator - in order to be allowed to use one you should know the workings behind the machine. We'll all be out of job when PTC adds the "Design Widget", "Fix Widget" and "Produce Widget" icons - Oh, sorry missed "Package and Ship Widget".
2) The company isn't forcing people to use sketcher, just to learn it. (That would be like forcing all of us to use long division and show our work.)
3) In IM you should lock dimensions if you don't want them changed while moving items, make 2 lines // if you want them //... use the constraints, do not rely on IM to do your job for you.
4) Once and a while when redefining failed features IM can not open the sketch and Pro/E defaults to sketcher mode. If you don't know sketcher you are now in delete mode, not redefine mode.
5) During redefine it is sometimes faster to fix a sketch in sketcher. (If references are lost on a large Use Edge or Offset Edge sketch for instance.)
6) Why did they not include Trim/Extend in IM? I used that all the time in Use Edge situations - now I have to add a dimension, delete the constraint, change the dimension... I want Trim/Extend back - not everything about IM is rose colored.
Chris Grace
Product Development Engineer
Sterilite Corp.

 

[rickg]

It looks as if the general concensus is teach both!!

I would agree with this, -especially as I haven't yet found all the features from sketcher in Intent Manager.

However I believe that there is one major advantage with Intent Manager - you can specify constraints BEFORE you have completed the sketch. Therefore the sketch follows your design intent rather than the assumed design intent from ProE. You can also delete constraints, and specify which features you want the sketch to reference.

Possibly the question you should be asking - of the person who told you to only teach sketcher is - Why?

 

[mjcole]

I feel that it is important to know both. Intent manager is powerful if you understand the importance of adding strong dimensions to replace weak dimensions which usually don't follow your design intent. You may want to start out with showing the users how to use the sketcher and then how to use the Shift+Right mouse to lock or right mouse to deactivate constraints. Another thing you can do would be to hide weak dimensions and have the users dimension the sketch to communicate their design intent.

 

[Hayden]

mjcole,

how do you hide weak dimensions in IM? I'd be very keen to know this one.

Cheers

Hayden

 

[mjcole]

Hayden,

In New Sketcher you can go to the
Utilities > Sketcher Preferences dialog window

I think the first of the 3 Tabs is the constraints list and you can uncheck the show weak dimensions option. The weak dims will still exist however if the sketch is not fully constrained.

Hope you find this useful

Michael

 

[proguy]

OK I've seen enough. I have at least 8000 hrs of pro but after the first 1000 it doesn't matter anyway. I learned Sketcher and I hated it. Intent manager is easy, simple, and if it set up and used correctly it captures your design intent 90-95 % of the time. To say you MUST learn sketcher to understand IM is just plain wrong. To understand IM you simply need 10th grade geometry, a little trig, and a little training in the correct use of the software. If you don't already know parallel, perpendicular, equal lengths, symmetric, etc. what are you doing working in an engineering field. Learn to watch the IM when you are sketching. Don't sketch to scale. If it begins to assume a constraint tap the RMB and disallow it. If it's assuming several, use tab to toggle between them. Use the sketcher preferences menu to prevent it from EVER making certain constraints if you want.
1) Don't take a job you aren't qualified for.
2)Don't take a job you aren't trained for.
3)Don't complain about great software because you are a poor user or your company doesn't properly train you.

Basically just take some personal responsibility for knowing what the heck you are doing.
Even at it's worst IM will reduce the time it takes for even the lowliest of users to complete a sketch.

To those of you who get it........You've earned your positions and pay scale. To those who don't get it...You are diluting the market of professionals and causing a reduction in the salary of those of us who do get it. Try autocad, I hear it's got a good sketcher.

 

[jscad]

How come noone has mentioned that in Pro/E Wildfire there is no option BUT Intent Manager.
I don't work for PTC or sell the software, but I do know that test scores for new users learning Wildfire are much better than any previous version.
So the Intent Manager is perfectly good enough, as long as people are taught what it's doing.
To use the previous analogy of a calculator. You do need to know WHAT it's doing, but you don't need to know HOW it's doing it.

Bruce Jackson

http://www.jscad.co.uk

 

[mjcole]

A lot of basic knowlege about how to use the sketcher can be found in the pop-up window that is there for less than a millisecond because it get's closed so fast by user reflex.

I would suggest and have suggested to people I teach to take a look at it.

For IM if you know where the Tab & Shift keys are and have a RMB Pro/E makes your time in sketcher seem like a Vacation

Catia makes simple sketches hard because there is no = length option and vertices have to be told to show.

Pro/E is so much better

Michael