Is Pro-e slowly becoming extinct?

[Rocko]

I have noticed that in the last year and half quite a few clients have slowly been replacing Pro-E with other CAD Packages. The new packages seem to be powerfull and alot less expensive overall than Pro-E. Don't get me wrong they keep typically one seat current and active for communication with their clients who use Pro-E. The mid-range packages are slowly becoming upper range products with the expanding capabilities. How do you approach this change and exchange cad data? Have you started adding a SW, SE, or Inventor package to your company to handle the change?

 

[FrenchCAD]

I worked on both SW (19 to 2001+) and Pro/E (v18 to 2000i²).

I have to say I like the way Pro/E interface evolved. It became more user-friendly. But still, it is somehow behind SW on this point. And SW filled its lack of calculus power and became as powerfull as Pro/E. And it offers the same kind of add-ins (Molding, manufacturing, FEA...) than Pro/E. Plus I believe SW products are cheaper than Pro/E products. What would be your choice if you had to choose for your company?

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer

 

[gleich]

I do not believe that FEA modules of Pro/E and SW are so good as programs based on FEA (for example Cosmos/M, ANSYS and etc). I have five years of experience in this area (FEA) and my impresions are, that mentioned above FEA modules really suck. I mean, that for example Pro/MECHANICA has virtually no options for manual meshing, not to mention lack of so many element types. Generally my opinion is that there is no such thing as universal software program for researching whole aspects of an existing problem. I believe, that for problem research are needed at least 2 or 3 different software programs.

gleich
Mechanical Engineer

 

[FrenchCAD]

I never said those FEA add-ins are any good. I just stated they're available for those CAD softwares. Also, Cosmos is FEA add-in for SW.

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer

 

[guyfn]

I have read different comparisons between the Pro/E Wildfire and other mid-range, such as Solid Works, Solid Edge and Inventor. I work in a company, which recently was looking for a CAD program, and I have checked the 4 programs mentioned above. I came to conclusion that Solid Edge is better than the other programs, and is much better than the foundation package of the Wildfire. From what I have read in this forum, I understand that most of you think that the Pro/E is a high-end program, which is much better than Solid Edge. If the Wildfire is as strong as the previous versions, why do Pro/E sell advanced modules for surfacing and assembling and why is the Simplified Representations option, which they are so proud of, is "limited" in their foundation package. Maybe the Pro/E is better when you also purchase the advanced modules and Behavioral Modeling, Mechanism Design and maybe also Mechanism Dynamics, but then you have to pay some $25K for a single seat and another $5K for the maintenance. I have also heard that the FEA modules of Pro/E are not as good as the programs, which are based on FEA, such as Nastran or Ansys, so why even to consider purchasing Pro/MECHANICA, if you can buy the Cosmos add-in for Solid Edge. Solid Edge can do almost everything the Wildfire can do and more. SE is more user friendly, it has the same abilities in the motion module, it is much more flexible in modeling, it is better in sheetmetal. SE also consists of Engineering Handbook developed by Mechsoft, which can handle basic engineering calculations and can build standard parts, such as gears and bearings, accordings to the resulst of those calculations. Pro/E foundation package doesn't offer any solution to the subject of basic calculations, and their motion module only simulates the motion without any real kinematics calculation.
In my opinion the foundation package offered by
Pro/E is a standard mid-range program, and it has very strong and better competitors.
Guy

 

[oneilldm]

How is SolidEdge better than SolidWorks?

 

[AboveRedline]

It seems that PTC started off with a superior Mechanical Engineering Design package. It was great. We added more seats as we added people. Each seat came with more basic modules (sheet metal, floating options etc); but even though we paid 15% a year in maintenance per seat the old packages were not automatically expanded upon. They would upgrade the version, but not add the extra modules which were part of the newer basic platforms. We end up with three different packages in our department based on when each package was first purchased. Ugh!
Also PTC seemed to put more effort into software expansion than improving the core product. I'd rather have fillets that work every time than some PLM package. I.T. is not run by the Engineers in my company. And the I.T. guys aren't going to look to PTC to replace Oracle.
I'd rather deal with a well focused Mechanical Engineering software company.

 

[scubadude]

Interesting story "AboveRedline". I had a similar problem with my old company. We had a seat that we paid the full $25K for. The company bought it before I got there, and that was back when PTC just wanted to sell stuff... Didn't matter if you didn't need it (not that this has really changed). We paid maintenance every year on it for about 4-5 years. We got some seats of the new "Foundation" and wanted to merge them all together into one license. (the original seat had a separate license number)

PTC wanted us to pay $3K to 'upgrade' the original license to the current 'foundation' package because there were a few options that weren't originally included in the first seat. In addition, this 'upgrade' REMOVED the assembly extention. What a crock!

Basically they wanted me to pay for the Sheetmetal module and the Photorender options that I never used and strip off the Assem. Extension.

I told them totake a hike and didn't renew my maintenance at the end of the year.

All this and I still love Pro/E. I still think its core product is better than SW... but... (as "AboveRedline" points out) SW continues to improve their baseline product, giving it more and more functionality. At some point we're all going to be using SW just because PTC wants you to pay extra for the stuff SW is throwing in for the cost of maintenance.

OK, I'll shut up now...

;-(
T

 

[Rocko]

To make things worse PTC sold of an integral part of the package for industrial design the Advance Surfacing Module to a bunch of management insiders. You really have to wonder why PTC would ever let this go to a third party. They should have let their poor CAM package go to a third party and kept an integral part of the design process internally.

 

[looslib]

PTC kept the rights to the ICEM code when they spun them back off. The new Industrial Design Option (?) (ISDX?) is based on the old ICEM code.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand