Unigraphics vs. SolidWorks??

[DanielleBacon]

Hi All,
I currently use SolidWorks 2005. I'm looking into using Unigraphics. I've never used this package before. Is it similar to SolidWorks at all? I know that SolidWorks and Solid Edge and ProE are all very similar...as in the basic modelling is the same. But i have heard nothing about Unigraphics. Is one more highly regarded than the other? Or is one more specific to a particular industry? If anyone can give me any advice it would be appreciated!

Cheers,
Danielle

 

[HellBent]

Hey Gild...let me guess....you're about 25 years old...the best at what you do....and always right.

lol....I was you once. I spent about 2 years fighting the trasition to solids before I came to accept their benefits. Try modelling for a week without ever going into the sketcher. Draw your curves in 3d, learn the "edit curve" menu and create some extrusions based on single profiles with offsets for your thickness. Until you learn these methods you haven't realized the full potential of designing in UG. I've reduced design times by as much as 50% by teaching designers these simple methods over the common sketcher mentality. I won't even charge this time.....I'm getting too old for this crap...lol

Take care....

 

[J-C]

Hey Hellbent (Nice name btw),
No doubt you are probably good at what you do, and UG may be the best choice for your work. UG has excellent surfacing tools and can do things needed for automtive applications that Solidworks doesn't cater to.

Yeah, I do draw a rectangle to create the box you speak of, though both UG and swx have a rectangle command that just requires placing the corners. Just my prefer way to create that shape and see the dimensions. I do use thin extrudes from time to time though in Swx which is done by sketching a line and assigning a thickness to offset, mostly for thin parts though.

I fully constrain with dimensions because our parts must remain parametric to be sized. Multi Bodies have been in Swx for the last 4 versions or so, along with boolean functions, and other features to related to working with solid/surface bodies. Sounds like you haven't seen swx in a while.

I'm 31, pretty good at what I do, and never right as far as my wife is concerned. I started on Autocad, then spent a few years on Catia V4, went Solidworks for 5 years, and now work with UG. I've never really fought any transition and have mostly been the cause of them. Even with UG here where I work, I'm delving in deeper then most users here do, using functions they never have, and trying to learn some GRIP programming.

Non parametric modeling is not an option for us as we build familes of parts that must size correctly. The non parametric way sounds an awful lot like Catia V4 and I'm glad I left that method behind. For what you work on, it may be easier to do it that way, especially for really complex geometry. We only have a few parts that have some freeform surfacing and it's not really that difficult geometry, certainly not like a car body or something.

Solidworks is quite capable, though not always the best for every task, of course I seen people do impressive thing in Microsoft Paint, so the individual has alot to do with it.

Checkout Paul's site, excellent industrial designer and a master at getting Solidworks to do the impossible.

http://www.zxys.com/

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP0.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[DanielleBacon]

Thanks for all your advice guys! I am a good designer, but obviously I am young so have room for improvement! And I will look at the job rather than the 3D package they use... As someone said it may be good to use a different one, and get a different perspective... I just don't want to lose of all my skills in SolidWorks and 'fall behind'!.

Thanks again,
Danielle

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
I think you just don't have to worry about loosing your skills in SW: in 6 years I shifted from Pro/E (the "old" one, not Wildfire), to ThinkDesign, to SolidWorks, to UG, with some small experience on Catia: of course, when I open a Pro/E now, I've got 10 mn of panic, but it's like bicycle riding after 6 years you don't touch a bike: everything comes back to mind in very short times.
Then, if in the meantime versions have evolved, it's just a matter of asking the employer for a short course...

Regards

 

[HellBent]

Hey Gild...you're referring to it as "non-parametric". It's just as parametized as your sketch....it's just not constrained and faster to create.

What type of product are you modelling?

 

[J-C]

Danielle, I don't think you'll lose your Swx skills, if you go back, it shouldn't take more than a few hours to get back into it.

Now if could just keep the Zoom to Fit commands straight, it's the "F" key in Solidworks, and "Control F" in UG, keep catching myself control "F"ing when I work at home, which pulls up the "Find" function...

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP0.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[J-C]

Semi-Parametric shall we say..., and probably not necessary for the stuff you do. What kind of products do you work on? We do medical implants(Knees, Hips, Shoulders, etc.) and the instruments that go with it. The implants can have some complex geometry, and they run in size families. The instruments are fairly simple geometry.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP0.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[wes616]

Danielle,

Don't worry so much about the particular package (even loosing skills in one... it's like riding a bike... once you know, you don't really forget). Plus remember when you get to be as old a hellbent they'll be using fancy 4-D Block Modeling, where you the designer plug your brain into a machine that will moments later spit out a 3D printout (and no one will make drawings).... or was that a dream i just woke up from?

Wes C.
------------------------------
In this house, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics! - Homer Simpson

 

[HellBent]

I've done any and everything from shit-bags that get stuck on your butt when you're bed-ridden to the new engine pylon ribs on the Airbus A-320. You name it...I've probably designed one over the years. I've owned a product development company for about 12 years and do everything from blank sheet of paper to parts in hand. Concept design, production design, mold design, cnc programming, mold build, machine design and build, etc..etc. I recently took part ownership in a mold shop so my emphasis will probably begin to lean more towards the manufacturing side but I'll still be doing a fair amount of product work as well.

There is a time and a place for sketcher constraints...I'll give you that. Various sizes of the same part is a good example. I'll use them when designing Mold Wizard library components, but that's about the only time they're of any benefit to me and that's just so they'll work with the component interface. Most times if I have a different version of a component to make I'll simply edit it's definition curves and save it out as a new part. I'm not typically designing a "family" of a part though. As a matter of fact I think the only time I've had to over the years was on some medical and pharmaceutical jobs and those were both in Pro/E. But when designing a specific component for a specific application the 3d curve method of creation will always be faster simply because you're not adding the additional sketch curves and constraints and the mouse-clicks that come with them. 4 lines instead of 1 to make a box is really the best example I can give.

Most people, especially those that come out of a package like SW, Pro/E, IDEAS, etc, never learn to model that way....they've always been locked into a sketcher and dimensional constraints. These guys are amazed when they learn that they don't HAVE to do it that way in UG and no matter what industry you work in, learning that functionality of UG will benefit your efficiency. Always locking yourself into the overhead of all of the constraints is often times not the best choice...nor the fastest. Having infinitely "adjustable" parts thanks to constraints and attributes is great, but in the real world it's very seldom used. For every 1 part that would benefit from it I can show you a 1,000 that won't. If all that extra "sketcher" time was put into those 1,000....that's inefficiency at it's best...and what companies have hired me to help eliminate.

I've had these same "debates" with designers many, many times. Most don't like to hear that there is a better way of doing things. It's not until they try it and see the results that they start to come around. It's a totally different method of design than most are accustomed to. Old school surfacers get it right away. The guys that took "the classes" take a bit longer...lol

Take care....

 

[J-C]

Just two different philosophies of modeling, and there are advantages to both. I've done this kind of 3d curve type modeling in Catia V4. In some cases it's faster, and in some it's not. I just find editing sketches and dimensions easier than editing 3d curves directly. Kind of like 3d vs 2d, there have been changes that would have taken a minute in Autocad vs half an hour 3d modeling due to disruptions in Parent/Child relations, repair work, etc.

Like I just did a fairly complex casting in swx with some curved surfaces, about 250 features total. The adjustments in size I had to make to this would have been a pain using 3d curves. How do maintain your design intent with 3d curves? Some curve functions are parametric but not all. I hear Nx3 added parametric curves so I'm eagerly awaiting when we upgrade finally, probably to Nx4.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP0.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[wes616]

Hellbent, what part o the country are you in... Maybe I'll come work for you...

Wes C.
------------------------------
In this house, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics! - Homer Simpson

 

[ewh]

You had better hope he's in TX, or you'll have to deal with your wife.

 

[HellBent]

lol...I'm in West Michigan.

Gild...as far as the curve functions....I can do anything I need to with them...shorten, lenghten, trim, offset, delta moves, move points, etc. Lines or splines...doesn't matter. With edit feature you can also substitute curves that define a feature if you ever need to and you edit the feature to control the offsets of your "single line" extrusion. For example..if I were creating an attachment boss in a plastic part...I would simply draw the circle representing the O.D. wherever it needs to be. I would then extrude it with an offset to establish the I.D. and apply the taper all at the same time (assuming the inner and outer taper are the same). If that boss ever needs to be tweaked I can either edit the definition curve directly with the edit curve menu, do whatever I want to it with the transformation commands, or edit the feature itself to adjust diameters and/or tapers. No planes to deal with or anything...just that one curve. You just draw your curves where they're supposed to be and tweak them when necessary. I would bet in most designs where I have say 500 features....I probably have less than 100 curves. I'll use the edges of those features to create additional features, etc..etc. So when I edit that one curve....everything else updates as well. It's not always that simple but you get the idea.

Take care...

 

[wes616]

Back in my early 20's I spent some time in Kalamazoo with this girl as WMU. Nice place... Good duck hunting... but i digress from the subject... sorry.

Wes C.
------------------------------
In this house, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics! - Homer Simpson

 

[HellBent]

No problem Wes...it's not a hot-spot by any means....lol.

 

[jdrawlinson]

Danielle,

I am the CAD Administrator for Goodrich hoist and Winch in Diamond Bar CA. I spend my days teaching people to use SolidWorks and NX.

Contrary to what is being said by all of the SolidWorks gurus who have replied to your posting, SolidWorks and NX are very similar; both have the ability to create sketch based solids. The difference is the sketch must be created prior to extruding the solid and the sketch remains separated in the feature tree. that is until the debut of NX 4 when the NX feature tree will behave in a similar manner to SolidWorks.

If you are going to get into NX, I would suggest finding a CAST session. You may also wan to try the NX training classes on i.get.it from CADPo (

http://www.cadpo.com).

Bravo for learning a new software package! The more arrows in your quiver the more marketable you are.

James Rawlinson

 

[J-C]

Their methodologies are mostly the same, sketch then extrude, etc. In fact they are more similar in that regard to each other than Solidedge is.



Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2