Pro E Vs Solid Works - The ol' debate 5

[Hayden]

Hi all, ok let's have it!

I am working for a place currently using Pro E. We are considering switching to Solid Works.

There are a few reasons for this being lower maintainence cost, lower product cost, better integration with windows apps.

There are a few percieved improvement too, being better customer service and quicker modelling.

I'm sure many of you out there are pro E converts, I'm wondering if any have any regrets.

We only have 4 seats, but we all have at lest 4 years experience on pro E full time. The modelling we do is pretty basic. We do, however use heaps of family tables and simplified reps. The useability of our legacy data would also play an important part in our decesion.

We are looking at taking on Pro Mechanica, but think perhap Cosmos works could be easier to learn and use, which is yet another reason to switch over.

I'd be really grateful for any advice anyone could give me here as this will be a key decesiosion for us to make.

Cheers

Hayden

 

[jdsmi]

OHARAG,
Good points. When I say "Joke", I should qualify this by admitting that I've had limited time with the Wildfire interface. What I did notice though, was that this was just another attempt at PTC playing interface catch-up while still doing things their own arrogant, illogical way. After 6 years of PTC, IMO, there's simple logic and PTC logic.
But, in all fairness, I've come across cases where certain filleting operations fail in SolidWorks but work just fine in Pro/E.

 

[Phildirt]

Back to an earlier point by Alexasdad about datums, "Your users are dependant on datums and rightfully so. Datum creation is very limited and difficult in SolidWorks. (I.E. You can't create datums on the fly.)"

I'm a 5 year user of Pro and have learned to rely heavily on datums. I am currently learning SW (without formal training) and find feature creation more difficult. How should I change my mindset so that I can creat parts and assemblies in SW is as efficiently as I did in Pro?

Phil

 

[macPT]

Sorry I misunderstood you, RawheadRex. Reading your early post, it gave me the idea that you were considering the modeling inherent discipline as a main feature for CAD systems and the solution (not an aid) to build good models. Now it is clear what you meant.

Phildirt: althoug SW is very user friendly, when we are changing from one system to another it's allways a bit difficult to get used to the new menus and procedures. I think it is not a question of one CAD being better then the other: thit is organized in a different way and we must practice before being efficient. I should note that I tested Pro/E 2000 and SW before I made the decision to go from Pro/E V17 (Unix) to SW. For me it was more difficult to work with Pro/E 2000 than the SW (I think I was expecting the same software behaviour in the Pro/E versions, but they were a bit different, leaving me in some dead ends; this was very annoyng). About datums creation, I used them in Pro/E and I still use them a lot in SW. I never felt any trouble creating them in SW (planes, axis or points) for feature creation. Once again, I think you should practice a bit more and try the tutorials (I agree that Pro/E had more options for datums creation, but SW is catching up).

Another important SW feature that I think no one pointed out so far, is that we can add functionality in SW with VBA macros. This give each one freedom to explore SW in ways, acording to each needs, that are not available in the satandard software. Even simple macros can help a lot. And if someone is not able to program in VBA, there's a lot of free macros over the internet that can be very usefull. For Pro/E V17 (UNIX), this feature was an option. The cost of this option I do not remember, but you can imagine that it was NOT cheap. I don't know if the actual versions of Pro/E have this option without paying (a lot).

Regards

 

[Scoobystu]

Phildirt

I have pretty much taught myself to use solidworks after having been trained in Pro/E. I have found that the basic principles of modelling I learned using Pro/E come in very useful.

It is possible to slip in the ocassional plane here and there in Solidworks. I generally create a plane before a feature if it is necessary as I would have done in Pro/E, i.e if creating a sweep or something. It is pointless creating a datum on the fly in solidworks if you are creating a circular patern as solidworks doesn't need it, that really appeals to me I have to say. I use the plane button (Green Square with a line through it. If you can't see it go to View/Toolbars/Reference Geometry (I may be insulting your intelligence here!!)

Otherwise I treat solidworks as if I am using Pro/E. By this I mean I try and model in the same way as I would have done in Pro/E albeit the commands are different and my usage may not be as advanced as others but so far there is nothing that I haven't managed to model. In some instances Pro/E takes you through all the steps you need to take to create a feature. Solidworks does not do this for you so if you basically follow the Pro/E method by creating your own planes wherever you want them and constrain them so that you can modify the model where you need to then you shouldn't have any problems.

For Example

Creating a Blend

In Pro E you would select Feature/Create/Protrusion/Blend etc. Then draw the sketch of the section you are creating followed by the Toggle Sketch command until you have drawn all the sections that you need. Then you would enter the distance between the sketched sections. Followed by done return and you have your blend.

In Solidworks you have to draw each section on different planes before you hit the blend button. Basically you are doing what Pro/E does but creating all the offset planes yourself. Normally I would draw a sketch on the front plane then create an offset plane to that and draw the next section on that plane with the sketch tool and so on and so on. Then use the 'loft' command to link them all together. In some respects this is perhaps more flexible as you could create offset planes from the same initial plane...

My explanation will be clear as mud but I am sure it works.

Cheers

 

[Hayden]

Well thank you very much everyone for you responses. It seems we have some thinking to do.

I am thinking it could be worth getting a trial license of SWX for a while and trying a mini project on it.

By the way, has anyone tried using the COSMOS Express which is now included with SWX 2003? If yes is it useful at all? I'm primarily interested in it for early optimisation of parts/assemblies prior to passing designs on to a conultant hose specialising in structural Analysis.

ps. I just knew this would get a good debate going.

Cheers

Hayden

 

[macPT]

Hayden

For more information about CosmosExpress, please visit thread559-40684

Regards

 

[Hayden]

Thanks MacPT, that was the thread that actually sparked my question. The ultimate question I guess being:

Is it useful at all? Even for very basic early model optimisation. Other than looking over other peoples FEA work, I have no experience with it.

In you experience, should that be a factor in our decision on wheher to buy solid works?

Cheers

 

[macPT]

Hayden

I think SW included CosmosExpress to help the users in simple FEA problems (simple geometry without sudden changes, simple loading cases) and as a promotion to CosmosWorks. Mabe it can be used also to previous checks and some previous optimisation, by the designer, on more complex parts, if there is another more complete FEA package, or a FEA guru, to perform the final check; this way it is possible to have a shorter design cycle.

If CosmosExpress is to be considered as factor for CAD evaluation, I think you must consider as a positive factor (how many CAD systems include, for free, even a simple FEA tool?). You should not compare CosmosExpress with other FEA packages like CosmosWorks, Ansys,... Do not compare SW+CosmosExpress with Pro/E+FEA package.

If you really need serious FEA, you must compare SW+FEA package (CosmosWorks or other) with Pro/E+FEA (Pro/Mechanica or other).

If you have no experience with FEA, I think you can profit starting with CosmosExpress. But be careful validating the model and checking results. FEA is a numerical simulation of physical phenomena and the numeric results depend a lot on an effecient model.

Regards

 

[RawheadRex]

FYI Cosmos is now a part of SolidWorks proper in a corporate sense now. I believe that the inclusion of the "express" functionality in SW03 has a bit of duality in purpose as indicated by macPT.

1. There is little doubt in my mind that it's inclusion is a "plug" for the full-blown CosmosWorks product.

2. Having said that however it does give users the ability (which I believe is somewhat unique) to do some fairly simple linear "what-if" scenarios in earlier design-stages.

Which one was the primary reason for it's inclusion and which was incidental, who knows? It probably doesn't matter.

In any case, while I think it certainly has positive ramifications I lived without it since 97Plus until the 2003 release so it wouldn't necessarily make or break the deal if I were evaluating it at this point in time. Although I can see quite a bit of upside when considering it from the perspective of someone designing mechanisms as opposed to someone who does a lot of E/M packaging or more "static" types of design work. The simulation of mechanical motion, etc. is pretty slick IMO.

Chris Gervais
Mechanical Designer
American Superconductor

 

[MadManxCadMan]

To reply to Hayden,

Cosmos Express - it has one major limitation - don't expect to model contacts within a part - eg a flexible bracket bending and coming into contact with itself - Cosmos Pro handles this by placing the part into an assembly on its own - and guess what - Cosmos Express only handles parts not assemblies, even when they only contain one part.....

From my brief play with Cosmos Pro eval copy, mesh refinement also appears to be poor when compared with Abaqus, which is where my previous experience comes from.

Expect a lot of litigation in a couple of years when products fail having been designed using Cosmos Express by novices who don't understand FEA and the crucial effect of poor constraint definitions. Solidworks should push the training needs for Cosmos Express far harder than they are doing.

As for Pro/E : I've used Pro/E since v17, SDRC Ideas since 7m1 and have been using Solidworks 2001+ for 4 months: my conclusions:
1. Pro/E is the master package but is let down by archaic interface and hindered by a company who has lost its way in the doldrums, who will sell it at any price.
2. Solidworks is an infant with an exceptional growth spurt occuring - its interface is superb and the features which the 'grown ups' like Pro/E provide are probably going to come along in future releases. For basic design it is unbeatable.

2D drafting text handling is abysmal though - no support for width scalable or correct form ISO fonts ("buy your own if you need them" I was told - so much for full ISO/JIS/BS support...)

3. Ideas ... drop it and move across asap to Unigraphics...

MadManx

 

[mfg4mfg]

Does the latest version of SW support mapkeys similar to Pro? I can fly in Pro/E with the use of mapkeys. Both hands are involved, one on the keyboard and one on the mouse. I have watched painfully at other cad users, using only the mouse as they pick icons that have to be displayed. Their screens become crowded with all the icons.

Also, is SW parametric? In Pro/E, I have customizable products that can be modified to meet customer requests. All I have to do to change a model is typically modify a dimension or two, and with part relations, the entire model changes, and my drawings automatically update because they are directly related to the model. Does SW do this?
I need to find out before I switch to SW.

mfg4mfg

 

[Mandrake22]

mfg4mfg,

Yes and yes.