Inventor to Solid Edge

[nubbz143]

I'm a designer for a manufacturing company and my engineering mgr is having me evaluate SE ST because he wants to transition from Inventor. I'm trying to find out if the switch is going to be worth the time and money it's going to cost to change over. The first roadblock i've come to is the Inventor Data Migration utility that comes with Solid Edge, i can't get the files to translate. Has anyone had any experience with this data migration?

 

[beachcomber]

My first question would be why change?
Does Inventor do everything you need it to?
If so, don't change because you will probably break everything you have done so far. If you don't have a lot of data that may not be a problem.
Your part models may convert OK and you should be able to edit them in ST using the direct modeling, but there will probably be no relationships in any of the assemblies, and no links between models and drawings - unless the migration is supposed to do this.

bc.
2.4GHz Core2 Quad, 4GB RAM,
Quadro FX4600.

 

[KENAT]

I agree with beach. Once you have an adequate, if not spectacular, 3D CAD system I believe it's hard to justify migrating to another one, even if slightly better. It depends how much legacy data etc you have, if you tend to re-use that data, you have staff familiar with the new product... but it's painfull.

KENAT,

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

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

 

[nubbz143]

First off, the change isn't my decision. I'm just evluating the software. This all started when my mgr was trying to get all of the designers on the same release of Inventor (2 on R9, 1 on R11 and 2 on 2008). He waited too late to do it and now all they have is 2009, so we have to buy all the seats. Second, Mr. Mgr is VERY biased towards solidworks, having used it before and is not catching on to Inventor. My choice would be to bite the bullet and upgrade all of our seats and actually keep up with our upgrades in the future.

 

[KENAT]

The change wasn't my idea when I got stuck doing it either, managers get to make these wonderful decisions. Like you my manager was biased toward another package based on previous experience.

We've done a lot of translation, though not with inventer that I'm aware of, and usually resort to having the native program export parasolid and open this with SE.

However, if you're doing a lot of it, like it sounds like you are you're right to investigate.

Have you spoken to Siemans/your VAR?

If they are potentially looking to sell it to you then it's in their interest to show you how to do what you want.

KENAT,

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

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

 

[nubbz143]

I've talked to our "Technical Solutions Consultant" and done an appshare with him on a couple of things. I may just have to keep calling him until I can get this data migration to work. I'm not entirely convinced it's going to be worth the time and effort considering we have all of our information, since CAD was implemented at this company, done with Autodesk.

 

[KENAT]

As Beach mentioned, the biggest killer to me is that the drawing and model are no longer linked and the assemblies will have some problems. To the best of my knowledge there is no fully automated CAD package, or translation package that does this.

They may be able to open the models, be it via a 'generic' file type, and may be able to open the drawings, be it as dxf or similar if not direct. However they don't keep the links which is one of the biggest things with 3D.

Hound your "Technical Solutions Consultant", in this economic environment they should be hungry for the sale. Our Solid Edge sales contact just got laid off, along with 300 colleagues at Siemans.

KENAT,

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

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

 

[beachcomber]

Hound your Inventor supplier for a BIG discount to upgrade all your licenses and to stop you ditching them and going with SE !!
I really like SE, but changing a CAD system is not something you should do unless the old one really doesn't do what you want.
Sounds like Mr Manager waited for an excuse to change - has he got you to evaluate SW yet?

bc.
2.4GHz Core2 Quad, 4GB RAM,
Quadro FX4600.

 

[karmoh]

Tongue in cheek, Beachcomber, but it sounds a tad like V20 to ST eh!

 

[KENAT]

That's one of my issues with ST! At least the drawings are still linked to the models though, and the models are still 'native'.

KENAT,

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

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

 

[beachcomber]

Hi Karmoh,
I wasn't making any (intentional) comparisons here.
I've been through a CAD system evaluation and change before and I know that although all new projects have been done with the 'new' one the company still uses the old one for a huge amount of legacy data - even after 10 years or so.
Mind you, the hardware is getting a bit ropy now and finding people that can still use it is not easy.
Have you seen the new Inventor 'Fusion' demos - it's very similar to the way ST and SpaceClaim work (and no doubt how SolidWorks will).
I'm still doing my own 'evaluation' of SpaceClaim and I have to say it's a very clever little package - although still limited and missing a few things.
Siemens should especially take a look at how the sheet metal works - but I'm going off topic here again.

bc.
2.4GHz Core2 Quad, 4GB RAM,
Quadro FX4600.