Moving to R17

[CadArtist]

Hi there,

As for product design and surface modeling, would the enhancements in R17 justify an upgrade from R16?

Anybody using Free Style and Automotive Class A WB extensively in the two releases?

Thanks in advance.



Car Designer

 

[sme1970]

OK, so from your perspective, the current DS model is OK with you? Precisely, we know that the V5R14 is out of support on the 1st of January (I just got that from their web site), do you really think that this gives you enough time to migrate to a newer version?

By the way, I heard that DS is now taking the responsibility on the support for some part of their customers. We then probably will have DS havinf its own web site, support front-end teams, etc... I would be really happy to see that, because I don't feel IBM is today making an efficient job on that... But it may just be the same with DS, who knows?

 

[CadArtist]

Since only those two big boys are on the playground high-end CAD market lacking the much needed competition between innovative CAD vendors and more options as a result. I hope someday someone rise the bar.


Car Designer

 

[sme1970]

OK, that's interesting. I myself am ready to start challenging DS on their support capacity and efficiency, and I think it will not be very difficult to be more performant than IBM today.
I got in the past some pretty bad experience with them...
What means "rise the bar" from your perspective? Have you some complains about IBM or DS Support to tell us?

 

[CadArtist]

For the high-end CAD users choices are very few. DS and UGS are the dominant vendors and almost all the other vendors are using either ACIS or Parasolid or both (except few who may use Granite or those from Think3 and Autodesk). Since you have not much choices, naturally you have to adopt those policies of your CAD vendors since you can't trash the new announcement for your maintenance support by your vendor and call others to send you their sales representatives.

Car Designer

 

[solid7]

What do you mean the "other vendors" are using ACIS and Parasolid?

ACIS and Parasolid are simply modeling kernels, upon which a CAD system is built. Catia is built on ACIS, and UG is built on Parasolid...

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Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

 

[CadArtist]

Acis is from Spatial(owned by DS) and Parasolid is from UGS and others are licencing the use of the two's kernels. Only two majar suppliers for core modeling engine. No other competitor in that level (maybe PTC and Autodesk can do it in future) to introduce new innovative features and a much more competitive environment for vendors targeting high-end CAD market.

Car Designer

 

[CadArtist]

And also a much better customer support and much flexible options to choose from.

Car Designer

 

[rkhan]

Hi
IN R17 you have the option to unfold free form surface that was previously unavailable in R16.that's the only improvement i know of.
ciao

 

[CadArtist]

rkhan,
Thank you very much for your concise note. Very much helpful.
I personally have started looking into R17 closely.
Do you have any experience with ICEM Shape Design?

Anyway,

Thanks all and a happy new year everybody.

Car Designer

 

[solid7]

IN R17 you have the option to unfold free form surface that was previously unavailable in R16.that's the only improvement i know of.

That's certainly not the only "improvement" that was released in R17. R17 was a major release, and the changes are well detailed at Dassault's website.

By the way - I will be releasing an article concerning the DL1 workbench. (which is where the compound surface unfold feature resides)

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Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

 

[sme1970]

Hello CadArtist,
What would be for you a much better customer support?
As I have only been a DS customer, I cannot compare with PTC or AutoCAD... Of course, I can't say that the IBM support of CATIA products is a very efficient one...

 

[ncprogrammer]

UG has excellent support that is included with your yearly maintenance fees. They have expert's available by phone during normal working hours M-F. They always have someone
who answer's your call without having to leave a message or send an email that may never get responded to.

Our experience with Dassault is that your support is usually though a 3rd party who usually sells other software
as well which makes you wonder if you are really a priority.
Not to mention that their fees hover around $140/hr for tech
support.

It seems that Dassault could at least offer the same level of support as their main competitor. They have a great software package but it's frustrating when you cannot get
immediate assistance when you hit a major roadblock or bug.

Just my two cents.

 

[thixoguy]

ncprogrammer,

You are right on the money. Dassault should look to UG as a benchmark in true customer support and should seek to emulate a system that works quite well.

thixoguy

 

[CadArtist]

Exactly,

Except for Imageware(to my experience), UGS provides acceptable pro level support. I also like Delcam guys. They have a helpful user forum being monitored by their support team and normally you get immediate response and a solution for your problem from them and it's free of charge (sometimes just as effective as a direct call). Delcam is not the only one with an effective and useful forum for their users. For Catia users I doubt someone can claim same level of readily available support.

Car Designer

 

[sme1970]

From my perspective, I think DS should develop a knowledgebase of information about their products, something you can search by yourself and gives you a quick answer without having to call someone.
User forums are for me only one part of the solution, they should publish documents, or at least all the hits & tips they could gather from their support stream.
The key question is how to get quickly to the right answer, and through forums, I feel that even if the answer could be there, it is quite tough to find it.

I would be interested to see DS participate more actively in the technical discussions with their users, again through forums, but also through webcasts.

I don't know about UG, do they have these kind of support functionalities?

 

[catiajim]

Been gone for a while, and I have several comments:
1. Flattening of compound surfaces is the driver for R17 for us. R17 also has a bunch of other enhancements, especially in the V4 to V5 migration arena (or are they just bug fixes?).

2. Yes, I am currently out of support at R14. Fortunately, I have a copy of R16 around that I can verify new problems and issues, and submit new PMRs based on the R16 validation.

3. We have the Enhanced Support contract with IBM, and I find that it is usually DS that falls down. I get responses from IBM usually within a few hours. When they have to turn it in to DS, however, it can take months. My biggest complaint is statusing. I can submit a PMR, receive an APAR almost immediately, and get absolutely no feedback until all of the sudden the APAR closes. It would be nice to here from them earlier stating that they are working on the problem and have found the source.

4. The problem with a public Knowledge Base is that the competitors will be the first to use it - to show potential customers completely out of context, thus trying to convince them to select their product. We know this, because it has happened in the past. DS will be glad to provide you these documents for a price, and it's usually a high figure. This is primarily to keep them out of the public domain, and thus away from their competitors.

 

[sme1970]

Hello catiajim,

My comments:
2. OK, you submit your problems based on a R16 certification, but you have no way to receive fixes on R14 anymore. In the case of a critical problem, don't you think you take quite some risks?
I understand that migrating to R16 or R17 could be expensive, but I better migrate regularly than risk to be stucked in production on an unsupported level...

3. I agree with your comment about transparency: once the incident goes to DS, it seems that there is a blackout period where you don't see anything, until correction is available, or APAR is closed. But I think this is the complete chain of support, including IBM, which is failing. IBM should be our unique focal point of contact, and they should fight with DS more to get statuses, or better, improve their tools to provide enhanced visibility. DS could take much too long to correct a problem, I agree, but I also understand that they need time to build a patch and ensure the quality of the fix. So I think transparency is the key point here.
Now, as DS is taking the hand on some part of their channel, and will ensure the support directly to their customers, let's see if they have learned something from their past experience with IBM.

4. I suppose that DS would give access to this KB only to their customers, and publish only known bugs, like IBM is doing today. I don't think they have the choice anyway, all software editors is doing the same today.
In addition to that, I would be glad to get a database of FAQ, for free, to avoid contacting people when I have a question on how I do this and that.
What would DS competition do with such information?

By the way, happy new year!

 

[catiajim]

Happy New Year to you as well!

2. Yes, we can't get any R14 fixes. But we haven't had any problems w/ R14 that could be fixed in R14 in 18 months. All of the problems that we have encountered were not fixable in a Hot Fix. There were a couple in later SPs, but it takes as much effort for us to test and validate an SP as it does a new release. Bear in mind that we have ~1400 workstations (mix of Unix and Windows), and around 3000 users. And rolling an SP usually involves pushing a new PTF of VPM, along with new PTFs for V4. Big Mess!

3. We actually pay not only for Enhanced Support, but also for a Customer Advocate (at IBM). I know that the failure is at the DS side, as even he cannot get response from development at times.

4. There have been an number of efforts in this direction. COE has come the closest to this, but whenever we have tried, companies have not been willing to share their PMR database.