Help!

[Michael Reynolds]

My college is exploring software to replace Unigraphics (cuz after release 17 UG will no longer support alfa processers). My co horts are looking into Solid Works, and I personally think this is a mistake. I don't support using mastercam for this program becuase of the modeling restrictions (ie, assemblies). I think Pro E would be a good bet, and think that Solid Works is more of a lower end software than say Pro E,Mechanical desktop, or Catia.

 

What do you all think???

(Mcam would be the "cam" part)

 

Thanks for your input (my boss will be monitoring this!!!!)

 

Mike R.

 

[ 03-01-2002, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: Michael Reynolds ]

[cadcam]

Well if I had my choice, it would either be UG or Solid Works.

Solid works is preaty powerful.

Love the files I get and probably easer to learn then the other's.

I am working on getting a seat of SW2001

[d0gFartz]

Get the AutoDesk Inventor Series.....ya get Acad2002,MDT6 and Inventor 5.3 all in one bundle

[Ryeker]

Got to agree with Dog on this one... MDT6 & Inventor... All in a bundle... Sweet...!!!

[Kenneth Potter]

quote:

---

Get the AutoDesk Inventor Series.....ya get Acad2002,MDT6 and Inventor 5.3 all in one bundle

---

Humm hey Dogfartz

 

Whats the price range for that Autodesk package deal?

 

Kenneth Potter

[bryan.davis]

Stay clear af the Autocad products they are extreamly over-rated, take a serious look at Cadkey, it can blow the hell out of inventor, and with CK20 on the horizons its going to blow the hell out of a lot of other packages

[Kenneth Potter]

Thanks Bryan Davis

 

I will stay clear from Autodesk Stuff & I,m well aware of how powerful Cadkey is. I just want to know the pricing of this Bundle so i can have a good laugh

 

Kenneth Potter

[kwolf]

Hi,

 

I personally think that SolidWorks are far better than any Autodesk product. Actually SW is faster in assembly than Inventor or MDT. And I think SW is more stable too. You have export/import options that can not be rivaled by any competitor.

Besides Mastercam can read native SW file and in V9 you can import your part file with configurations. And something to remember : Mastercam ,UG and Solidworks has the same parasolid kernel. But MDT and Inventor is ACIS based kernel. However you have the opportunity to save your SW part as ACIS V6 or higher or Pro/E without any extra cost.You can export VDA/IGES/STL/PROE/PARASOLID/ACIS/STEP/VRML/HOOPS/ZGL ... and import VDA/IGES/STEP/PROE (feature by feature up to V20)/UG II/MDT (feature by feature)/Inventor (feature by feature?)/Solid Edge ... . The learning curve is shorter than any software I've ever used. In fact when you accustomed to SW it's very difficult for you to work with anything other than SW.

Other options for SW are Piping - FeatureWorks -MoldBase -ToolBox- e-drawings -PhotoWorks - Animator - Utilities

You can find more at WWW.SOLIDWORKS.COM.

 

However if you want high end software you can select Pro/E .It has many features but the GUI is not friendly and creating the same features requires 3-4 times clicks or time than SW.

 

Hope it helps.

 

P.S I've heard rumors that MDT 6 is the last version of MDT series. If anybody heard that please inform me.

 

[ 03-02-2002, 08:04 AM: Message edited by: kwolf ]

[bryan.davis]

Ive not had any direct contact with SW, but from what Ive heard it is extreamly good, I dont know where it comes in the price range, but anybody who takes a serious look at AutoCAD is either brainwashed alla Autodesk (well they have been perfecting this techinque for over 20 years now!!!), or completely unaware of Cadkey which is cheaper than Autocad, yet has more functionality

[lovell110]

Mike,

Presently we us SW in engineering and I import their files direcly into mastercam with no trouble. I cant say whats good or bad about the other softwares out there but my guys just laughed at the idea. That was enough for me!

[Michael Reynolds]

Thanks for all your replies, and it seems I may

stand corrected!

Thanks again, all!

 

Mike R.

[Die Sinker]

I am self-teaching myself SW 2001Plus now. I am able to draw some parts we need. It is not that difficult to learn, even with the online tutorial. Still not Mastercam's ease of drawing, but can be learned. Have used MC for over 10 yrs. self-taught, some classes. SW and Mastercam work great together. SW is about $3500. Hope this helps.

 

Gary Armitstead

Santa Fe Enterprises

Burbank, CA.

[d0gFartz]

quote:

---

Ive not had any direct contact with SW, but from what Ive heard it is extreamly good, I dont know where it comes in the price range, but anybody who takes a serious look at AutoCAD is either brainwashed alla Autodesk (well they have been perfecting this techinque for over 20 years now!!!), or completely unaware of Cadkey which is cheaper than Autocad, yet has more functionality

---

So what your saying is that me working for a VAR has brainwashed me???.....I can tell ya this i worked in a shop for 10 years where we used mastercam and cadkey so i think i have the background to say this.....if there was any cad prog that ABSOLUTELY SUCKED cadkey was it and still is.Ive used dealt with SolidWorks,Solid Edge,Cadkey,Mastercam and Inventor and outa all of em the only ones i`d even considering buying is solidworks,mastercam and inventor.Solidworks is nice no doubt but working for a VAR who used to deal it i can tell ya between them and solid edge i dont know whos worse,they email ya an average of 3 times a day with what they think is dirt they dig up on autodesk and you should use this and that against them when you run into them,funny thing is 85% of there dirt is always wrong.Mastercam doesnt email there VARS with all kinds of dirt on other cam systems saying use this and tell em that when you run into joeblow cam.IMHO i think this is why Mastercam and Autodesk are number 1 because instead of looking to see what they think is wrong with everybody elses system they only worry about improving there own and staying number 1

 

quote:

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I will stay clear from Autodesk Stuff & I,m well aware of how powerful Cadkey is. I just want to know the pricing of this Bundle so i can have a good laugh

---

heres a good laugh........without giving exact pricing an MDT4 & 5PP user can upgrade for under 1800.00,MDT6 user its under 800.00.....brings tears to Works and Edge VARS eyes

 

[ 03-02-2002, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: d0gFartz ]

[Phil Orenstein]

I'll take a stab at it. AutoCAD and Mastercam have been the industry standards from way back when, till today. CAD and CAM products lower on the totem pole usually trash the big guys to promote their own. You are probably familiar with the lies and abuse that Mastercam has heaped on it from the other CAD/CAM forums and alt.machines.cnc (eg: Mastercanopener etc.). The same goes for Autodesk products. The fact remains that they are still the leading products in the industry. And as a user of both, I can say that AutoCAD and MDT are fast, efficient and powerful. Pro-E, which we use at our company, is the top of the line, but hard to learn and is lacking some essential surface manipulation features (which Mastercam surface modelling makes up for). I'd say go with Autodesk or Pro-E.

 

Phil

[L Hanft]

Mike we have switched most of our stuff to SolidWorks.... price! Pro-e is expensive, even at educational prices. SolidWorks cuts a mean deal for education and student packages are available for reasonable money. check out the prices at Journeyed web page. Also, you might just want to check out Rhino..... it's only $149.00 educational price and I use it first as a file translater.... but am begining to use it more for parts creation. SolidWorks can bring in native Rhino files.... I have to agree that SolidWorks is becoming more of a "standard" cause more companies can afford to own and use it. Pro-e is still used by many of the big dogs cause it has great project management stuff, but the learning curve is steep and long, for student that don't have much time to get up to speed and create a drawing/part SolidWorks is superior cause it is fairly intuetive..........

[bryan.davis]

quote:

---

So what your saying is that me working for a VAR has brainwashed me???.....I can tell ya this i worked in a shop for 10 years where we used mastercam and cadkey so i think i have the background to say this.....if there was any cad prog that ABSOLUTELY SUCKED cadkey was it and still is.

---

Ive got to wonder what version of CK you are talking about, certainly CK has had its low points, and few of them lower than CK97, but then so have many other packages.

 

But I challenge any Autocad user of any experience to show me something that I cant reproduce in Cadkey with equel efficiency, and then Ill show him all the things I can do with Cadkey that he cant do with Autocad, this IS the bottom line, and when you add to this the pricing then Autocad is completely blown out of the water!

 

AutoCAD has only ever had one thing going for it and thats its popularity, NOTHING else, yes it is a well proven and workable package, but you get all the functionality of AutoCAD at far better value in other packages.

 

OK, popularity isnt the only thing AutoCAD has going for it, its Marketing department is the other thing, and Ive got to say that in the past 20 years Ive never seen such an over-rated product so effectively marketed as Autocad, some of the stunts these guys have pulled off are truly epic and have paid off in grand style.. NOTE this isnt heresay, this is 20 years of personal experience!

[kathy]

Too bad you losing UG. I'd give my eye-teeth for a seat of UG.

 

We've lookd at Soildworks, Inventor, bimho, they just don't have the design to mfg that the big guys do. We have Pro-E here, it's ok, bit I've seen some real messes come out of it. Guess it depends on how it's used.

 

Kathy

[BernieT]

quote:

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after release 17 UG will no longer support alfa processers

---

Hi Mike, can you explain this a little more - like what are 'alfa processors'? Thanks.

[Michael Reynolds]

I'm not much of a computer hardware guy, but alfha processors don't support windows. I think they only support Unix platforms. I'm sure others can explain this better than I!

 

C-ya!

 

Mike R.

[kwolf]

Hi,

As far as I know , MS has an NT4 version for alpha processors. I don't know MS has XP for alpha or not.

[William Grizwald]

Have you looked at the future of the Alpha systems? Fewer software vendors are porting to it anymore. I predict support for the Alpha will die very soon from ALL vendors.

 

I would not base your decisions on a dying (though still fast) processor.

 

Wm

[Charles Davis]

Haven't seen the new Autodesk Inventor stuff, but have used SW a lot. Taught myself SW in less than 4 weeks. It rocks; very easy to use and powerful.

 

Great that we import the sldprt directly.

 

I heard today that proE just came out with a lower cost system with a different (and simpler) interface, but have not heard that elsewhere.

[kwolf]

And I'm sure it won't be user friendly enough like SW or Inventor , you know. And why?

'Coz it's maybe their first proe with real graphical interface . At least SW and Inventor have it since their first releases. There's much to do with proe interface than any cad software I know. I worked with so called new UI V2001 , but it has nothing to compare with SW in this field .

 

[ 03-04-2002, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: kwolf ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

If you want to teach "What's out there in industry", then you have a few choices. Solid Edge is a very nice package though not nearly as popular as Solid Works which is quickly (if not already) becoming THE Assembly Modeler to have/use. Inventor is an Excellent product and I would go so far as to say it SMOKES Solid Works/Edge in it's rendering capability. I've done some really cool rendering with it ans compared it visually the others and there is no comparison. As for Ease of use, it depends on what you have been using. If you are used to the AutoCAD way of drawing, and have legacy DWG stuff, then migration to Inventor is easy. BUT the thing with Inventor, it is not as popular as SW at this point. AutoCAD came up short on that one, they failed to see the importance of Solid Assembly Modeling as early as SW and clearly have a market advantage at this time. SW supposed migration of legacy DWG data is not what they say it is, it works, but not nearly as clean as Inventor.

 

Now for my thoughts on the High-End, if comparing CATIA and Pro/E? I'd take CATIA in a heartbeat hands down. CATIA V5 works on a Windows 2000 Pro Platform. V5 does not quite have everything that V4 for Unix has but in a school you're not likely to encounter the limitations. The advantage to going with CATIA would be for your students. CATIA guys/gals make far more money than SW, SE, Inventor people. So with all of that said, my personal final reccommendation would be to go with CATIA because when it all comes down to it, we as educators have a responsibility to the students to give them the possibility to have the most earning power possible.

 

JM2C

[kwolf]

Forgot to tell you, I had an opportunity to see a demo from Missler's TopSolid (France). They started CAD/CAM in 1982 and developed surface modeler. But the current product is TopSolid.It's an MCAD like SW,PROE ... with advanced surface creation and is based on parasolid kernel+a kernel of their own (Exact Surface) .It's been designed from its ground for dies and mold industries.Cavity/Core spearation , mold parts catalog, standard libraries, parting line and parting surface ,assembly of mold can be easily created in it. You can have dynamic analysis of your parts in software as well as thermal analysis of cooling system etc..

The software is easy to use and learn and even shines in every aspects including rendering.With just an old Riva TNT card you can have dynamic rotation of a fully rendered part (textured...)

They have integrated products with Topsolid for mfg,3D calculation for CMM,production control,data management,sheet metal design and mfg,mold design..

And I heard MoldFlow would provide them with a plastic adviser for topsolid soon.

 

Another software is VX Vision, I heard it's a hybrid modeler based on their own kernel and with products integrated with it for mfg,cae,.. and again with an affordable price.

 

Hope it helps