design software

[steve f]

Hi guys and gals,

 

I currently own Mill 3 v9.1 and have been doing alot of product design lately and finding Mastercam's stronger areas lie in generating toolpaths not designing. I'm investigating Rhino 3D right now but would like any input on a good, stable industrial design software package. High end stuff like Catia and Pro/E are out of the financial question but any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

steve

[crazy^millman]

Well I would look at Solidworks giving Pro-E a run for it money and 90% of what I am seeing from desigers is coming in a Solidworks format.

[steve f]

Millman,

 

I've seriously considered solidworks in the past and may end up getting it in the future, but for now mcam is adequate for most of my "mechanical" type design. I'll be a little more specific. I'm looking for software that really works well for organic surface design, the real complex stuff involved in reverse engineering, and something with solid modelling as well where it doesn't involve so much of a fight...specifically when it comes to filleting.

 

thanks,

 

steve

[cadcam]

Steve ,following Ron have you had a demo from the solidworks guys.

I to suggest it and looking in to buying a seat for my self.

 

This when i do the stuff like you are talking about. I do as much as I feel mastercam can handle then I send the rest to SW guys and I get what i need.

 

Jm2c

[kwolf]

If you can't buy Pro/E then the best solid modeler will be SolidWorks in my opinion, although SW doesn't have enough capabilities when it comes to organic or free form shapes.

For surface design and free form shapes you can try Rhino or Delcam PowerSHAPE.

Rhino does a better job when you want your surface models in another CAD especially in solid modelers. You can create water tight surface models in Rhino easily, something that's most of the time impossible in PowerSHAPE.

We started using Rhino since v2 mostly for creating surfaces out of CMM probe datas (not point cloud), free form shapes and repairing IGES too. It has features that you can't find them in many CADs.

v2SR3 is the most stable and fastest Rhino ever. Although they included new features in v3 but it's likely that you can see something that v2 does and v3 can't.

Rhino had to change their codes for v3 since they used some of Alias codes and Alias wanted them back. So they wrote v3 from the scratch.

 

About v4 of Rhino. It's still under development and next beta will be out soon . The emphasis will not be new commands for surface creation but editing and solid features, surface draft for instance. Something that many expect it.

 

Who knows? Maybe v5 will be a solid modeler with alot of surface features.

[Chris Rizzo]

We run Mcam and Solidworks, and I've played with a buddies Rhino a bit. Solidworks is great for design but it kinda falls a bit flat on some of the super-organic stuff, or maybe I just don't know how to make it work! The I.D. crowd seems to love Rhino though...

m2c

[BernieT]

I think the next best thing after Rhino would be EDS NX for organic shapes. Very powerful. As I remember the price was in the mid $20k.

[Eazy]

Not sure of the price, but all our modelling is done on UniGraphics. We do a lot of aluminium casting tools for Inlet and exhaust manifolds, so free form is a must. The models a transferred to MC in parasolid format. Works very well.

[Wally]

Solidworks is the way to go. We picked up each suite for about $4K. Transfers parimetrics great to MasterCam. And, will open Pro-E files, except for Wildfire. But they`re working on that for the next upgread.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

FormZ is pretty cool for about $1200 - $2500. It's more of an art/design tool with geometric functions. Very organic shapes can be created pretty quickly. I've seen it at the shows several times. I wanted to get it just to play. Cool Stuff.

 

If the budget allows I would get SolidWorks. It is becoming the dominant solid design package.

 

Mike Mattera

[MachineSMMC]

SolidWorks is the way I went about 2 months ago. I will never look back

[gcode]

I've been using SolidWorks for a couple of years now and can't imagine working without it.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Rhino is an awesome organic modeller, but if you want you can check out its big brother MAYA.

[steve f]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

 

My best solution may be to get both SW and Rhino as that seems to be the direction alot of people tend to lean. SW has practically become an industry standard for mechanical design but I don't know much about it's surface design capabilities. I have sat through a couple SW demos and it's quite impressive for 90% of the stuff out there but I would also like to see a Rhino demo designing some real crazy surfaces. The reverse engineering tools in Rhino are a real attraction as well.

 

thanks again,

 

steve

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Go to rhino's website www.rhino3d.com and download the trial version. (Its fully operational for 30 saves.)

[Phil Orenstein]

quote:

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FormZ is pretty cool for about $1200 - $2500.

---

JM2C. Form Z is very organic. It can do some very fancy scultptural work. But I've had a lot of headaches bringing it in to MC. We tried Iges, wireframe, but nothing worked well to gave us clean geometry.

 

Phil

[kwolf]

Phil,

Can it export Parasolid too ?

[Dan_AKA_ROY]

What I love about Rhino among other things is its ability to take "a lump of clay", turn on control points, and shape it however you want.

 

In Rhino you can select more than one control point to edit your surface's shape. And, its very workable. In Mastercam you can only select one control point at a time with limited functionality when editing. It's not MC's niche. Mastercam's designing powers are outstanding compared to most cadcam programs. Rhino is a free form nurbs modeler - they're two different animals.

 

In Rhino there are no arcs, no lines, etc. Well they are, that is, they 'look' like and are called lines and arcs. But they're actually all NURBS objects. Lines in Rhino are special flattened nurbs entities. Thus, for example, you can join a line with an arc because Rhino "sees" them as the same thing - NURBS objects.

 

I've been using the evaluation version and have been very impressed. We bought a license today.

 

Viewing shaded surfaces sort of sucks because Rhino uses meshes which has shading display problems. In Document Properties/Mesh... change to 'smooth&slower' to visualize parts better. They may not always look accurate, but rest assured they are extremely accurate. To view your parts render them, then they look normal. A renderer will make those 'jagged looking edges' smooth as a bell. Rendering is a very useful tool for observing your part's shape as it looks in real life. Like taking a photograph of your part design.

[kwolf]

In Rhino there are no arcs, no lines, etc. Well they are, that is, they 'look' like and are called lines and arcs. But they're actually all NURBS objects. Lines in Rhino are special flattened nurbs entities. Thus, for example, you can join a line with an arc because Rhino "sees" them as the same thing - NURBS objects.

... but rest assured they are extremely accurate.

[/quote}

 

+100

I've heard here or in other places that Rhino's just like 3D Max and its objects don't have enough accuracy or exact definitions. Well it's not true. It's a powerful CAD with free form features and it has all the tools for being accurate too. You can intersect a cone with an oblique plane and the result will be an ellipse which you can define its major/minor radii and its center. Many of these analytic features can be recalled when exporting to a solid modeler.

We have PowerSHAPE v5.x here, which is a pricy free form CAD from a well known company, and to my surprise my colleagues told me it hasn't got ellipse entity, nor real sphere,cylinder,cone.

 

Rhino has accurate analytic objects as well as its organic free form entities which makes it one of the best tool for engineering purposes especially tool and die industry.

There are softwares that more or less do the same job but Rhino costs at a fraction of their prices.

[Dan_AKA_ROY]

Good points, kwolf!! The price for a license is mindboggling considering all its powers.

 

Rhino's IGES converters are second to none. It can repair complex IGES files, flavour them to almost every program out there.

 

There are issues with Mastercam's Rhino conversions [3dm files]. They're working on it. However, just send or receive using the IGES file format. Very reliable. I machined surfs made in Rhino. No problem. I'm considering buying a license for home use.

 

I'll try out your ellipse example, kwolf.

 

Lots to still learn. Another Rhino plug: excellent support - online tutorials, manuals, a design forum, etc.

 

And, wow what it can do with bitmaps! Wild stuff!

[kwolf]

v2 can detect an ellipse as "closed clamped NURBS ellipse" and report its center and radii when you press F3.

v3sr3b (which is the latest customers release) shows it as "closed NURBS curve" , although it's the perfect ellipse but you should find its center/radii yourself. They'll change it soon to what v2 reports, maybe your latest beta fixed it so far.

[kwolf]

Hey I wanted to edit my previous post but here's what I got:

quote:

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FYI

Sorry, the time in which you may edit your message has elapsed.

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What does it mean?

[Phil Orenstein]

kwolf,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on Form Z. To clarify, I did not work in FormZ myself but we had Ind designers who sent us files that they created in form Z. I requested exports in iges, solid and then plain wire when nothing else worked. I believe it was Parasolid export, but don't quote me on that. There were missing surfaces and some files came in like an stl mesh with very low resolution. But the scultptures they created were flowing, organic and free form. One I recall was a Nascar tropthy - it was like an eliptical helical Brancousi-like form - really amazing.

 

Phil

[steve f]

I think you guys just about have me sold on Rhino. According to the descriptions it would fit my needs pretty close. I'm going to download the trial version this weekend or as soon as I can find some free time and give it a shot. I have information from a good source that mcam version x will be more compatible with Rhino than previous versions...have to wait and see.

 

Thanks for all the tips, keep 'em coming!

 

steve

[pimij]

I use Rhino everyday - I do 90% of my surface work in Rhino - its top notch! We deal in automotive parts - all kinds of odd shapes - and we build checking fixtures - we generally tear apart a part file and modify the hell out of it. The IGES and STEP translators are great.

 

It has some of the easiest tools for surface creation out there.

 

The rhino plugin for mastercam has its quirks - all entities in Rhino are NURBS - so lines and arcs come in as splines or broken segments - lots of broken segments. But its not that hard to deal with.