Solidworks vs UG 7

[PlasticFantastic]

For the last few years I have been banging my head in frustration. The company that I work in we have two sets of engineers. One set uses UG and another team uses Solidworks.

CAD files are given to both teams, but I love it when the Solidworks team is involved because I am a Solidworks user and can hand over native files. When working with the UG team they have to reconstruct the parasolid that I hand over to them (which seems to me like a big waste)

This would not be much of an issue if UG wasnt so slow. From my point of view every feature seems to be nested and calling up top level assemblies seems to be a big problem. Changes in UG take about twice as long as changes in Solidworks. (please proceed to educate me as to what I am not seeing)

Apart from disparaging remarks like calling Solidworks a toy and "Saladworks", I have not heard any solid reasons that UG is better for our purposes (we design a range of products from GPS hand-held to large assembly products 500-1000 parts). If anything- the geometry from SWX we hand over tends to be cleaner! We have robust models that can be modified faster. My team is a human factors engineering team and hand down the ergonomic interface elements down for further detailing.

What did you get for the money that you paid. Perhaps UG needs power users to unlock its power. If anyone can give me good info I would appreciate it very much. Is there a particular threshold beyond which the power of UG is fully utilized?

I feel like I have never been given a straight anser either way and would love to hear a UG engineers point of view. Thank you for your time.

 

[PlasticFantastic]

Sorry if I sound belligerent. These are some answers that I thought would be best answered by seasoned UG users (our team uses NX2)

 

[geo12]

Hi plasticfantastic,

There were lot of discussions about these in these forum.
Its all depends on where to use and why to use.

Please search thru this forum and you will find more about this.
Please check this "

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=11036"

 

[PlasticFantastic]

oops-only checked the Solidworks side. Typically the surfaces I send out of Solidworks tend to be better quality than the ones I get back. The frustration is that UG is not modeling the pants off of me. The changes in Solidworks on heavily featured parts tend to be faster than in UG. So whenever I hear that UG is better I wonder what exactly is better or faster.

 

[ewh]

PlasticFantastic,
The company I work for is similar in their approach as yours. I am a UG driver and often hand parts over to the solidworks operators, and I share in your frustrations.
We use UG because we work with complex shapes that are not easily defined and manipulated in SW. One of the advantages of UG (which we do not take advantage of) is in the seamless compatibility between the design and manufacture of parts.
I agree that in most instances, SW is indeed faster and easier to use to create and modify parts. It does lack however in meeting the needs of our customers to model and control complex aerodynamic forms. Unfortunately for us, we will design, model and detail parts in UG, only to have the final assemblies done in SW. This, to me, seems a waste of valuable time and effort whenever any changes are required. The excuse given is that we have more SW licenses and it would be cost prohibitive to buy more seats of UG. Penny wise and pound foolish in my opinion.
Hopefully, there will be more posts explaining which circumstances UG is the better program.

 

[aacharya]

I have the following point of view....

If the design work requires just making fast simple shapes, then solid-works scores over high end cad softwares. eg. designing of printing machinery or for that matter any machinery design.

At the point, where the design turns a bit complicated, the high end start scoring points like aerodynamics, free form designs etc.

that apart, mid-range softwares like solid-work / edge are desinged for faster performance for purely design related works and does not encompass the wide variety of funcationalities like mfg, analysis, motion etc.

rgds
Anil acharya

 

[feadude]

I have not used SW. I have used UG for the past 8 years. It was a great package until NX2. Now when I open large assemblies it takes 5 times longer than what it used take for the same assembly in V18 or earlier. It loads 45% and then just hangs at 45%. Sometimes it never opens the assembly. Windows 2000 task manager says "UG is not responding" and I have to kill the program. This is really nerve braking because I just have to seat in front of monitor and watch and can not work while waiting for large assemblies to open. GTAC has checked my computer and graphics card and they say there is nothing wrong.
Any UG users have had this problem. Recommendations are appreciated.
Here is hardware spec:
1 gig ram, dell workstation PWS420 x86 family 6 model 8 stepping 6, nvidia quatro pro graphics card

 

[PlasticFantastic]

So Anil,
If the Solidworks models have higher surface quality, which in our case they do (granted we dont do class A), what other advantages does UG have. So far most people have hit on surface creation and analysis tools as being the plus- but Solidworks has been really pushing on the surfacing front, and can create at least c2 tangency.

Maybe the crux of the answer lies here-o you know that UG is too powerful for you?

 

[looslib]

The advantage of UG is that with one package I can take a design from raw concept sketches through to the finished part.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand

 

[cowski]

feadude,
Memory is important, UG will happily use up all you have and then some. I'd recommend at least 2 gigabytes if you have large assemblies. Also, I have heard that UG will convert older part files up to the latest version when it opens it (someone else please confirm or deny this). So if there are many older files in your assembly it may be taking time to convert the file as it opens it. If you open the file and don't save it then it has to do it again next time. This can significantly increase load times.

PlasticFantastic,
I deal with mostly injection molded parts for consumer goods and I stronly suspect that UG is much more power than we need. Our model shop occasionally uses the machining aspect of UG, and we do what would be considered class A surfacing (though our surfaces are nowhere near as important as airfoils or car bodies). I have not used Solidworks or Solidedge so I cannot make a direct comparison, but from what I have read and heard either seems like it would work fine for us. I think there are 2 stumbling blocks for switching software: compatibility and user buy in. Even if we went with Solidedge (made by the same company as UG) there would be headaches with all our existing files (of which there are many) and we would end up needing a seat or two of UG until all of those files became obsolete (maybe longer). And users grow strangely fond of (and defensive of) the software they use (bugs and all). There would be much resistance (mostly undeserved) if we switched. To sum it up, it is my opinion that it is momentum keeping my company on UG.

 

[looslib]

Yes, Ug does do an on-open conversion of all files to the latest database format. Don't save the modified files and it has to do it the next time you open the file.

We run ug_refile_part on all library and purchased component files when we upgrade UG versions.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand

 

[feadude]

looslib
What is a ug_refile_part ?
where do i get this and how to use?
thank you

 

[looslib]

It is a program for refiling parts to the latest version of UG in background. It can do asemblies and the components or whole directories. Do not use it if you are using Teamcenter or someother DBmanager.

It comes with UG. Look in the the <loadpoint>UGII folder for refile_part.exe.

Help is available if you run it from a command prompt with no options or -h.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand

 

[feadude]

looslib
thank you

 

[enghoo]

I used SolidWorks at a company I previously worked for (I left when we got to SW 2001). After almost 4 years on UG I still think SolidWorks is better. NX2 is a considerable improvement over v18, but it's still more cryptic & less intuitive than SW. For example, in SW you can drag a part from its own window into an assembly in a different window, have it snap into place as you approach possible mating geometry, and when you let go of the mouse button, it's inserted into the assembly and the mating conditions automatically created. I have yet to come across a part I couldn't build in SW, and my understanding is that they have significantly improved the surface modeling capability. You can buy a seat of SolidWorks and add all the analysis & other goodies (fea, motion, mold design, piping, pdm) for half the cost of UG.

 

[J-C]

I've spent about 8 months on UG NX2 after about 5 years on Solidworks. Maybe I just don't have enough experience with the software yet, but I still don't see UG being better. For most stuff we do here, I can model circles around UG using Solidworks.

Even the more complex surfacing we do seems easier in Solidworks. UG does give you more options but often when you select them, you can't edit them later and switch an option, oh and the interface changes. Solidworks editing is way faster and consistent.

UG has the upper hand in expressions, selecting objects for use in features, and the ability to change all aspects of drawing objects(colors, etc.)

I hate messing with layers and modeling tolerances probably more than anything. They are needed for UG because of it's interface, but they aren't needed in the CAD modeling world.

Looking forward to NX3 or 4 whenever we get it as the interface is suppossed to be better.

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.

 

[Xwheelguy]

Tolerances not needed in the CAD modeling world???

Please explain how that's possible. Then explain how one is supposed to model freeform surfaces that are 100% accurate in relation to the adjoining edges & the relating curves that create the surfaces. Since numbers are infinte & the software's coding rounds off the calculations being used to create the geometry, where have tolerances not been used in some fashion? If there's a CAD modeler out there that's not using tolerances for surfacing/freeform modeling in some fashion, then I want it.

I don't mind hearing critical remarks about UG at all, because EVERY modeling software has some sort of downside to it. Had UG been introduced 10-15 years ago & originally spawned from a Windows environment, I would expect it to function more consistently or smoothly like Solid Edge, Solidworks, Inventor or some of the other (and somewhat unfairly labeled) mid-range softwares. However, UG is one of the older CAD softwares & has had code built on top of code as well as going through interface changes & now a merging of two completely different softwares (IDEAS & UG). Based on the replies here, it's usually surfacing & super sized assemblies where the 'mid-range' softwares stumble & those are the main reasons UG & CATIA are favored in the larger industries.

Unfortunately, there isn't a single software out there that can be called THE best without a doubt because it's up to you & your company to choose the one (sometimes more) that fits into what YOU need.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

 

[J-C]

Well I'm sure Solidworks has tolerances on it's features but the user doesn't see them and thus doesn't have to mess with them. Perhaps Solidworks automatically adjusts them as needed, don't know. Just seems that in UG, you are constantly tweaking feature tolerances to get things to work and it's frustrating. Simple stuff like unite or subtract or mirror.

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.

 

[ewh]

After 15 years on UG, I have yet to adjust the tolerances for anything but free form surfaces. I agree that it can sometimes get tedious creating valid surface geometry, but I don't understand why simple boolian operations (or mirror) would need their tolerances tweaked.

 

[J-C]

It is freeform features that cause the problems that need tolerance tweaking. The mirrors and booleans only fail with these features and hence more tolerance tweaking.

If you aren't doing freeform, I can see no reason to use UG over Solidworks, Solidedge or even Inventor. The maint is higher and you don't get everything you get with the "Mid Range" packages.

Jason Capriotti
Smith & Nephew, Inc.