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Pro/e wildfire or catia V5 for Yacht Design & Engineering 2

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tiasimo

tiasimo

Marine/Ocean
Mar 27, 2004
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Hi all!

Let me explain first our situation.
We are a Yacht Design office in Barcelona, and we are currently using Microstation for designing in 3d. Our models are complete and precise, but we are finding that there is no way of modification of the model, once you have drawn it, and further more there is no real link between the 2d detailed drawings and the 3d model. Another thing is that to make an structural analisys, we have to go out of MS and use some fea programs with problems importing geometry and so forth.

We were quite sure until last week to move to proe wildfire, but a commercial from catia v5 came to us and explained their software. Know we have a dilema. What to do.

I was quite convinced with proe, up to the point that i was studying it by myself with the demo version thaty came with the book (that its quite goog actually pro/e wildfire by lamit)

Can any of you give me some advice on what to do. (one thing more, the company will just have 3 or 4 cad users/licenses)
 
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tiasimo,

Pro/E will be a good choice in my (perhaps biased) opinion. There are some great opportunities to combine the engineering principles present in modern ship design and the Behavioral Modeling and optimization capabilities present in Pro/E.

I found some links that may be helpful as well:

PowerPoint Presentation

Good luck!



Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew
"Luck is the residue of design."
Branch Rickey

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
 
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If your needs steer you toward CATIA, then UG is worth a look, as well. CATIA and UniGraphics have abilities that make them very well-suited for aerodynamic (and hydrodynamic) design.

Pro/E lacks some of this capability, but you may not need it. If most of your design is mechanical, and you are not designing the hydrodynamic surfaces, then Pro/E will probably be suitable.

Exactly what type of design do you do on yachts (hulls, interiors, engineering spaces, etc.)?

My opinion is that Pro/E would be quite suitable for designing structural elements, but not the best tool for creating and managing complex and mathematically sensitive surfaces such as outer hulls and propeller blades.

[bat]Due to illness, the part of The Tick will be played by... The Tick.[bat]
 
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I think PTC would (obviously) disagree with you. Take a look at the case study. Good coupling of the MCAD and CFD details.

Quote: Team Prada Engineer Doug Peterson

"Our CFD process is unique in that Pro/ENGINEER coupled with ICEMCFD and MECHANICA Motion can automatically produce highly accurate parametric meshes for design optimization. Usually CFD uses data imported from IGES that is not parametric and requires large amounts of manual CAD time.

We have worked since 1996 with Pro/E and ICEM to be able to get a boat sailing in water in 3D. The process we used was to mesh up a block around the boat that represents the sail, then update the mesh to change the shape of the sails. For the integration process for flow over water of a 3D model, we used Pro/ENGINEER, ICEM CFD, and Pro/MECHANICA Motion Analysis Structure. Now we have the process loop down so we can analyze a yacht in an evening. Our normal traditional approach was to make many approximations, and put that together with the integration process we use now (Pro/E - ICEM CFD - Pro/MECHANICA Motion) but we've eliminated a lot of the approximations to make the data results truly accurate."



prada02.gif


Pro/E also has tight integration with CFDesign from Blue Ridge Numerics.


Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew


Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
 
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I always like engaging in these debates with you, Matthew. I always learn new things. I knew we would need to get into details to get to the heart of this matter.

IF tiasimo's employer is going to go all the way and couple Pro/ENGINEER with ICEMCFD and MECHANICA Motion, then PTC presents a very sound solution.

I must qualify my recommendation to state that it is from the viewpoint of which CAD design tool (not suite) is most suitable from a near stand-alone basis.

My biggest concern about Pro/E is its inability to access critical informatin about mathematically sensitive complex surfaces. Pro/E does not give users control of or even ability to see polynomial surface degrees. UG allows a user to see what degree (cubic, quintic, up to F(x[sup]33[/sup])) a surface is in u and v directions, and even change it. CATIA has similar abilities. UG allows the user to manipulate B-surfaces by their actual poles and knot points of B-surfaces and B-curves. Plus, UG has some real nifty Alias-like free-form spline-drawing capability.

If the user is in a position where he/she must manipulate and change a lot of non-parameterized models (i.e. imported from another system), UG has many tools that allow for movement and replacement of faces in a model without the overhead of creating a parameterized version. This is a huge advantage when dealing with outside design influences such as industrial designers who are always shifting their design intent without notice.

It has been three years since I have worked on Pro/E. I am definitely interested to know how Pro/E is shaping up with respect to these issues.

[bat]Due to illness, the part of The Tick will be played by... The Tick.[bat]
 
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Tick,


I enjoy the conversation as well. You should really not bias your comments against Pro/E until you are conversant on the current state of the engineering, analysis, and optimization tools that work within Pro/E. Other packages may provide some additional functionality on some aspects of surfacing and solid modeling, but until I see a demonstration otherwise, I know of no other package that can handle the engineering content of design like even the basic package of Pro/E can.After all, it is called Pro/ENGINEER not Pro/SOLID MODELING!

That said, I must remark, that the particular packages that Prada is using may not provide the best combination of tools for a new user. ICEM is now an independent company from PTC and MECHANICA Motion is being phased out in favor of the Mechanism Dynamics Option (MDO) package within Pro/E. The surfacing issue, I am not an expert on, but I do not think this is a significant disadvantage because of the formulations that can be made by using some pretty simple relations in the Behavioral Modeling Extension (BMX) functionality. Dealing with data from another package and being able to manipulate it is now addressed in Wildfire, with new functionality (Warp?). Again, I am not personally a user sure of the advanced surfacing tools, but all the demonstrations and user presentations indicate to me that Pro/E has competitive tools. I think if you include CFDesign or other CFD tool that can be easily integrated into Pro/E you have a compelling reason to use Pro/E for engineering a system like tiasimo seeks to.


Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew
"Luck is the residue of design."
Branch Rickey

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
 
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Matthew:

Really, I was trying to be objective, only coming from the point of view of someone who has done a good deal of freeform modelling in UG and Pro/E, as well as worked with customers who model in CATIA. I didn't think my critique of Pro/E was harsh or even necessarily negative.

Moreover, I am trying to give an opinion relevant to one who potentially does not have the power to make the purchasing decision for an entire suite of products. This would be an important factor, no?

I was trying to be especially conservative, knowing that I was conversing with someone who is on the PTC adviory board.

With all due respect, I think that before you even utter the word "bias", perhaps you should disclose the full extent of your involvement with PTC.

[bat]Due to illness, the part of The Tick will be played by... The Tick.[bat]
 
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Tick,

I am sorry you took my comments as combative, it was not my intent. I was, however, looking to elicit some acknowledgment that your commentary on what Pro/ENGINEER can do is incomplete. I did not think I accused you of being harsh or negative, just wanting for completeness. Please remember, that this is a forum for an engineering software package, on an engineering focused site. The context for questions posed here are assumed, therefore, to be of an engineering content. Remarks on just the ability to perform certain solid modeling and surfacing tasks falls short in this context.

The standard (foundation) package of Pro/ENGINEER is complete with the BMX and MDX modules. I do not know the current pricing strategy, but PTC feels pretty strongly about their price competitiveness in the market. I am pretty sure a CFD package would need to be purchased regardless of what core MCAD package is deployed. CATIA and UG no not have built-in CFD capabilities to the best of my knowledge.

Also, to be clear: I have no direct link with PTC. I am a long time user of the software, and a member of a technical committee for simulation and behavioral modeling (not an advisory board, sorry to be pedantic). I have also presented at the PTC/USER World Event as well. I have no bias. I too have worked with many other packages in different environments. I am always interested in a better way to do things.

I hope you understand my position and that I was not looking to offend.


Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew
"Luck is the residue of design."
Branch Rickey

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.
 
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Both programs have packages specifically for boat design. Catia will be 2 to 10 times more expensive. I do not know if UG has a boat design package. Get demonstrations and licenses of the packages you would want from the sales guys. They are probably not in the demo you have. Both also have lots packages for electrical cabling and plumbing.

As far as surfacing goes. I do not know if boat hulls need the freefrom style surfacing techniques mentioned earlier. Pro/e is very good at making complex surfaces that are well defined with dimensions. The surfaces are Bezier instead of nurbs with U and V lines. (there are some that think bezier surfaces are smoother.)

Pro/e I much better at assemblies than Catia. Catia only has coordinate system assembly. pro/e has constants like insert that let you model it like it would be built.

Catia needs more ram than pro/e. Also pro/e runs 64 bits on windows if you need more than 4 gigs of ram.

Which one is better supported by your fea or cfd packages? Would you buy the integrated packages like mechanica? As Matt said Pro/e is very good at optimizations through BMX.

Also in Barcelona you will want to look at native langue support. I have gotten error message from Catia that were in French.

Also you will want to look at which one has a better revision management or PDM system. Intralink, windchill or enovia.

Please let us know what you choose and how it works.


ProEpro

Pro/E FAQ
 
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Thanks to you all

For the moment I think we are going to go with pro/e. We had a sales representative in the office this morning and the offer looks good. Anyway tomorrow we are going to a catia v5 demostration.

Form your comments, I can not understand some of the technical information you give, is too much for me. I don't think we need to go that deep in the surfacing issue. Is more a Large assembly with a large ammount of parts that matters. And the possibility to make modifications to that large assembly, without having to redo everything.

For design of complex surfaces, eg the hull, we use other software, like maxsurf, which has stability and hydrostatic calculations. then we export it to other software, at this moment Microstation, to do the rest of the design (that one is the one we want to change).

Is good to know that there is a possibility of cfd studies with icem and proe. At the moment we are not doing cfd studies. we do channel tests, but is an issue we have to study for the near future.
 
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Dear tiasimo ,

we are exactly in the same position as you are in right now. We have looked at the following packages:

- Solid Works
- Catia
- Pro/E
- EDS
- Ship COnstrcutor
- Solid Edge
- some other…..

What we want it model the yacht (luxury sails ships 30m-60m) as complete as possible, including interiors. What that in mind we have left over:

- Catia
- Pro/E

Now we need to shift again if we look at the support on both packages (based on the installed base here) I see that there are about 3-x times more Pro/E packages then Catia packages around, also found on universities. So in sense it is easer to get new personal that can support pro/e then Catia. One other thing is that we couldn’t find good Catia support here and apart from that we needed to buy new HW because Catia needs resources. Also we think that our engineering department needs more courses in Catia to get themselves up and running. We have seen many Catia Demo’s but we are not confident that OUR engineering will handle the package well, Catia CAN handle the geometry no doubt about it, I’m sure but we are to ‘small’ for IBM/Dassault/Incat/Rand to get full support.
The only thing we don’t want to do is hull designs, we already getting a hulls from designers (maxsurf mostly) and they can be loaded into Pro/E without a problem. We did some testing with that and compared current frames with frames generated by our current package. The are within 1mm the same. One big issue for us was expanding/flapping out double curved (hull) surfaces and make them ready for our CNC cutting machine. Our best bet is using expander for Rhino ( we need to do some testing with it and compare it with our current production (anybody a other idea???). All nesting will be done with the ‘default’ packages PTC provide us. So it will be a matter (I hope) of export to Rhine, expand it and then import the 2D back or 3D flat solid into Pro/E for nesting.
Currently we are really confident about Pro/E also the price is really great for what it can do but unfortunately we don’t have the packages yet….


Ries
 
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Matthew,

I believe that the shipbuilding modules of PTC or not in development anymore. From what I have heart is that they where build for a company or created by a company which would be marketed but never happened. Also when I look at all PTC so called ‘shipbuilding’ articles I always see the same screenshots over and over again.

But if I look at the currently possibilities in wildfire and other modules that connect to it I don’t find any specialities then is typical for shipbuilding (except for hull creation/calculation). So my currently conclusion is now that Pro/E is fully capably of doing all geometrics for shipbuilding except creating a good faired hull…

Ries
 
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Today we had a presentation of catia V5 from the representatives of dassault here in Barcelona

The software looks impressive, I don't know if better or not than pro/e, but my concern is:

Why there is such a difference in Price!!!

Pro/e 6000€
Catia V5 15000€

For the same capabilities, not talking of course of a shipbuilding package.

I think at the end the price is going to decide for us.

RVT, the dealers of pro/e told us that the shipbuilding part is dicontinued for the wildfire version, but that they can automatize pro/e in order to have a Yacht building tool, which as far as I've seen shouldn't be hard to make, either in pro/e or Catia.

One important thig rvt mentioned before, is the labour available for modelling in any of the sioftware, and actually we know people modelling with proe but not so many modelling with catia.
 
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Tiasimo...

I just briefly read all the advise to your posting. And I wish you the best with your decision.

I'm a long time CATIA user. Most of my experience is with the basic mechanical design products in CATIA, but I have also worked at Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding with the shipbuilding products in CATIA. I know I'm biased, but I think CATIA is the best, most-complete package available today.

If your company had thousands of engineers working concurrently on the design and construction of submarines or aircraft carriers, it would be very easy for me to recommend CATIA to you. I'm sure you've seen all the shipbuilding specific products that are available in the new CATIA V5.

Given that your company is a little smaller, I would suggest you limit your CATIA evaluation to the the basic design products of CATIA. This will make the price much more comparable to ProE, simplify the training, yet give you a great features-based, parametric, hybrid solids/surfacing design tool that I'm sure will satisfy your evaluation criteria.

...Jack
 
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Hi

I use both programs from almost 1 year. ProE is almost only MCAD software. CATIA has better surface modeling modules. Much better. Maybe the best in 3D CAD market.

CATIA is much easier to use and more powerfull. Designing in CATIA takes less time. CATIA is two times more expensive (base, standard versions) - but gives you much more!

ProE would be good for some parts - for example interior, etc.
CATIA is good for all, from A to Z.

CATIA is leading CAD software in many industries. It is standard in automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding. Becomes No.1 in many other areas.

WBR, RSth



 
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Hi Tiasimo,
Interesting that you say you are designing yachts in Barcelona. I was based there for 4 years between 1997-2001 working on different yachts in Port Vell and the yard. Are you a start-up? When I was there, I dont think there was a yacht design place. I guess its taking off now with the extensive work they did in the yard.

I am now working in a company in Switzerland and we recently went through this process you are going through now. I think Catia is the better, but we ruled it out because of price. (Its not that much better). ProE wildfire is what we took in the end and for you I think it is the most suitable although it can be quite frustrating to use. Inventor is more user friendly but i think it is more limited on larger assemblies and for making complicated surfaces as you find on yacht hulls.

As for the language, Pro-E can of course be installed in English, the only problem is that a lot of the defaults are in inches and it takes a while to get it set up correctly.

Let me know how you get on with it. It would be interesting to stay in touch.
Antony
 
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Thanks Anthony.

after a few weeks we have it more or less clear
We believe that Catia is the best software of the two, but its no the best value for money. Here The best is pro/e. and we will be buying it in the next month.

Our reasons mainly are that both Pro/e and Catia, can go a lot further in capabilities than what we will be able to in the next two/three years, which means that the price comes to play. Our company is quite new and cannot afford an Investment of 60000€ for having 2 computers and two licenses of Catia. Going with pro/e, the thing changes as it will be 24000€.

Thanks to all
 
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