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SolidWorks 2012 Has Arrived 1

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macduff

macduff

Mechanical
Dec 7, 2003
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What are your first impressions? I'm not impressed very much with the additions at all. There's a couple of cool features in drawings. It looks like they want us to become "Buyers" with the cost tools. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to get a ballpark price on items, but every supplier will have there cost. I don't know if SW took in account for processing the part ie. paint, anodize, chem film etc...I didn't see it in the demo. I didn't watch all the demos due to lack of interest of the ones i did watch.


Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2010 SP 5.0
Dell T5500 Windows 7 Pro (64-bit)
Xeon CPU 2.53 GHz 6.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro 4000 2 GB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer
 
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What kind of an enhancement request is "should cleanly uninstall itself" anyway? The development and future of SolidWorks should be focused on things that do no involve uninstalling the thing! I'm mean its Windows, what're you gonna do? I understand they added a total uninstall but ... the point being?

Certified SolidWorks Professional
 
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Could this be the result of them listening to the requests to work on stability and performance over adding new features?

We have been mid crunch for over a year now and are still on 2009. Any opinions on weather or not 2011 was successful at improving stability?

Eric
 
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We’re not seeing value added improvements to jump to the newer versions every year. We will probably jump to 2012 later this year after a few service packs to get the bugs out. I wish Solidworks would concentrate on fixing the little software bugs (that we submit through ER’s) that bothers us each and every day. It would make our life a little better.

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2010 SP 5.0
Dell T5500 Windows 7 Pro (64-bit)
Xeon CPU 2.53 GHz 6.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro 4000 2 GB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer
 
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I hate that... You'll seldom hear me singing its praises, but AutoCAD gives users the option to backwardly save and you just accept the little message that says you will lose some of the features of the newer version. Fine by me! It's a complete pain in the a*** not having the same pleasantry in SW.
 
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autocad is a completely different system. it's much easier to save simple lines etc. a feature might be reworked in a new version of the swx or completely changed, which makes backward compatibility very challenging.
too bad they don't have the "read future version" like proE had it for the wildfire 2.0 (so that it could read 3.0 files)
 
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no and never will. there are good technical reasons for that (unavailability of features in the previous versions, changed features
Click to expand...
That's an old saw that's been around for years.
[ul]
[li]It was promised at SWW 2011, for the second time. [/li][li]It is not technically impossible either. Anyone who has perused a Structured Storage file can figure this out. And one reason the SW software keeps taking up more and more space on disk is because it has to retain compatibility with previous versions.[/li][li] Since 2009 SW hasn't made any earth shattering changes to the core, just cosmetic UI changes.[/li]
[/ul]

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CSWP, BSSE

"Node news is good news."
 
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Since 2009 SW hasn't made any earth shattering changes to the core, just cosmetic UI changes.

exactly.
although the option in the 2010 that you can retain holes, made in the assembly, in the parts themselves, is a much needed feature (for me).
 
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Quote:

"That's an old saw that's been around for years.•It was promised at SWW 2011, for the second time."

Um this has never been promised. It has been on the top ten, but it has never been promised to be included.

I like the comparisons to line Cad as well. The expectation for backwards compatibility. I want something better, more powerful, more stable, more features, but make it still work in the old stuff. So why are we not asking Chevy. "Hey why can't I put the engine from my 2008 Monte Carlo into my 1980 Monte Carlo without modifying it?"

Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
Certified DriveWorks AE
 
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I may be alone in thinking this, but quite honestly, I think SW is VERY expensive. For this reason, I don't think it's unjust to have certain expectations... I would happily trade yet more power and features (essentially more toys in my opinion) for things I expect should be in place, and I EXPECT stability.

The fact is that you CAN put a 2008 model Chevy in a 1980's model: hell I owned a '54 Ford with a 1990's Chevy in it haha! I expect a loss of some functionality: I understand it couldn't be completely backwardly compatible - like the Chevy, but - like the Chevy - a lot of things will fit right on and with a bit of intelligent modification everything will work perfectly well.

I just feel it's such a basic thing and SW just can't do it. Occasionally I think SW is ploughing on with more, more, more when there are basic niggles I'd like fixing first. Maybe this will all be academic in a couple of years when we get this big over-haul to the Catia style SW?
 
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I may be alone in thinking this, but quite honestly, I think SW is VERY expensive.
Click to expand...
How right you are. But not in the way you think. I purchased SW98+ for my business some years ago. To keep it in maintenance and upgrades all these years would cost about $31,000 in today's inflation adjusted dollars. I could have bought CATI, Pro/E or NX and had it all then for that kind of money. After a couple of years the easy to use interface would have been a moot point because a) I would have learned those packages interface and b) SW keeps changing theirs so it has to be relearned from year to year.

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CSWP, BSSE
Phenom IIx6 1100T = 8GB = FX1400 = XP64SP2 = SW2009SP3
"Node news is good news."
 
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Do you think all their ressources are working on SolidWorks V6 and they only care about maintaining SW as it is right now until that new version comes out?

I'm saying this because I come from using Solid Edge for several years and when they released V20 they seem to have concentrated all their efforts to make the software as stable as possible and they only added small improvements that were much appreciated by the current user base. We learned after the released of Synchronous Technology that they were working on it for a couple of years.

I wonder if we are seeing the same pattern here?

Food for thoughts!

Patrick
 
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So you have these expectations...What other 3D CAD system provides backward compatibility that does more then saving a file as a parasolid opening it and recognizing the features?

Kellnerp you bring up the cost of SolidWorks over time. What are the maintenance costs of those other systems over that same period of time? Also what is provided with the other systems maintenances costs in comparison to SolidWorks upgrades and tech support being included with their maintenance?

Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
Certified DriveWorks AE
 
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Patrick, very likely this is my theory too. I must say they did a great job with the marketing again, must have taken quite a few dollars to cobble together. Goshdarnit-diddly-dangit!

Certified SolidWorks Professional
 
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sldwkmin said:
What are the maintenance costs of those other systems over that same period of time?
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter because I've come to the conclusion that paying maintenance does not have a decent ROI and probably doesn't for any software. I said that if I had bought one of those I would have had it all. My point being that SW has dribbed and drabbed many, but certainly not all by any stretch, capabilities of those packages. For example, CATIA can do certain surface constructions that I have asked SW for since 1999. Pro/E can produce parametric curves, a capabilty SW still doesn't have. On the Simulation front, SW still doesn't have much of the capability that Cosmos/M had when I was running it on DOS. 2D simulation comes to mind. Such a basic capability should have been one of the first things SW should have been able to handle. Still can't do substructuring, structured meshing, and a host of other things.

Once you have a software package installed and running well continuing maintenance is a manufactured need, not a real need. When you have a significant amount of customization of that software in place, further updates can be expensive beyond maintenance. When you have software that won't interoperate with itself, the problem is compounded even more.

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CSWP, BSSE
Phenom IIx6 1100T = 8GB = FX1400 = XP64SP2 = SW2009SP3
"Node news is good news."
 
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