Pro-E Help, Solidworks is Out

[Mr. Wizzard]

My company will be switching from Solidworks to Pro-E for their design software. I, personally, love the way Mastercam and Solidworks mesh with one another. I can open parts and assemblies with no problems, whatsoever. I can bounce back and forth for fixture design, part model changes, etc...

It really works great for me.

Pro-E, not so much.

Can you guys chime in with your opinions on both and some suggestions on how best to deal with Pro-E files, assemblies, etc...

Will i be able to bounce back and forth for fixture designs, open assemblies in Mastercam, etc....

thanks in advance!

[Todd Tracey from Fastech]

Do you have the Pro-E translator?

[gcode]

X4 comes with a ProE translator at no charge..

but.. of all the major cad packages, ProE is the most troublesome. I usually run them through

Solidworks import diagnostics before passing them on to Mastercam

[Josh T™]

quote:

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ProE is the most troublesome

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I agree 100%. Before X4 I would import Surface IGES files with Wireframe from ProE. That seemed to give me the best results. Make sure the system tolerance in ProE is set to 0.0001" for the accuracy settings.... I believe it defaults to .0012

 

HTH

Josh

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

"...X4 comes with a ProE translator at no charge..."

 

GCode...It does?

[gcode]

quote:

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"...X4 comes with a ProE translator at no charge..."

 

GCode...It does?

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my mistake.. I was thinking of the STEP file

translator

[peon]

I import all the pro/e files as a step file, but if the solid is bad, I'll import it as an iges with surfaces and wireframe. I've had very bad luck importing parasolids generated from pro/e. If you have UG, parasolids work awesome. I have never tried the pro/e translator.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

I always load Pro-E files in Solidworks in order to get them into Mastercam.

[Mike-T]

I have the translator, For the most part it works fine. occasionally I'll have to step or parasolid out to Mastercam. I havn't tried to go from Mastercam back to Pro. Doubt it would work since all you would get into pro would be the brick. I have brought in some assemblies, nothing big. All components would have to be in same Directory as asm file. I don't think pdm would play nice.

[Mr. Wizzard]

I do have the Pro-E translator, but it's hit or miss with things. Sometimes, i can open as a solid and it will work. Sometimes, i need to import as surfaces to get it to work. Sometimes, i need to import as surfaces and it doesn't work, gaps and missing faces and all.

Some things work better if the engineer just saves it as a .step file. I'm just not sure if I haven't found the right settings, yet, or if these issues i am having are typical.

Thanks for the replies, though. Keep 'em coming if you have more insight or suggestions.

[Metalmuncher]

We use Pro-E all the time, save the file as a .PRT and they come in fine as long as you have solids

[Redfire427]

If you don't mind my asking, why are you switching from Solidworks to ProE? That sounds like a huge step backwards in my opinion. Do you realize PTC customer help is brutal, plus it is located in India? Just wait until you have to make your first call for support. Your company will regret their decision.

 

We will be going the other way in a few months after using ProE exclusively for 4 years. ProE is a ridiculously cumbersome piece of design software with very poor export capabilities. If you are used to the ease of which files are imported from solidworks to Mastercam, you are in for a shock. Regardless of what settings you have set in your config file for importing ProE files, you will get tons of garbage that ProE buries in the background. This is ofcourse if you have a ProE translator which is an add on to Mastercam.

 

If you do a head to head comparison between ProE and Solidworks, the later will come out on top every time. Try comparing things like:

File size

Quality of imported file

Time to clean up imported file

Customer support

Extra cost for file converter in Mastercam ( none required with Solidworks )

Time to import file

Ease of training or finding existing person trained on ProE vs. Solidworks

 

Be prepared to suffer.

[Mr. Wizzard]

quote:

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If you don't mind my asking, why are you switching from Solidworks to ProE?

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I completely agree that Solidworks is preferable. Let me just say that the "higher ups" who make the decisions do not know how to use Solidworks, Pro-E, or Mastercam!

Awesome, huh?

[peon]

Have the higher ups considered UG? I'm currently learning pro/e and hate it! I learned how to pull trodes in UG and made some simple fixtures and thought it was much easier than pro/e.

[Mr. Wizzard]

quote:

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Have the higher ups considered UG?

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The "higher ups" consider nothing, but what is waved in front of them, like a dog treat for a puppy.

Nobody who actually uses the software is consulted on things like this.

[peon]

I understand R&D. My condolences

[Guest]

quote:

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Nobody who actually uses the software is consulted on things like this.

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Been there done that, nearly 1/2 Million later, 8 months of minimal production and ALOT of stress before the issue was rectified as it should have been to start.

 

an expensive misstep

[Watcher]

quote:

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Do you realize PTC customer help is brutal, plus it is located in India? Just wait until you have to make your first call for support. Your company will regret their decision.

 

We will be going the other way in a few months after using ProE exclusively for 4 years. ProE is a ridiculously cumbersome piece of design software

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Prosin... don't take me wrong... but I could not disagree more... Many big players in CAD/CAM arena settled or are planning to settle down their R&D and support in India. Indian engineers are very skilled, polite and well versed in the solutions they support. As a Pro/E admin, I could not be happier with their technical support channels. I always get an answer in less than 2 hours... average, - Standard support package. I agree that it was much worse in the past, but it got better...

The calls are not always routed to India... it depends on the module you are concerned about...

 

Regarding the CAD capabilities of Pro/E, when comparing SW and Pro/E you are not comparing apples to apples. Each package has its own strengths, but I think it's a bit hurry from you to say that Pro/E is a "ridiculously cumbersome piece of design software". Its learning curve its higher than other softwares in some areas, but there are very powerfull fully parametric capabilities that are unique in Pro/E. I've read many times in this forum that users that do not get up-to-date with the latest enhancements or releases got stuck somewhere and blamed Mastercam for their own faults... this happens alot with other packages too, including Pro/E.

 

I just thought that I could chime in to the discussion to point out a different opinion...

 

[Redfire427]

Nothing personal at all. I welcome your perspective.

 

Sending customer support over to India is nothing more than a cost saving exercise by many large corporations. If you think that this is not going to affect the level of service you have been accustomed to, then you may be in for a surprise. This same train of thought is what killed the mold industry in North America because the corporate buzz word was to send everything to China. Now, here we are in 2010, and we are seeing a huge reversal in this trend. Customers are no longer satisfied with cheap parts made of inferior materials, mold shops in China using pirated software for design and manufacturing that you and I are paying for, production molds that fail regularly once commisioned, etc, etc, etc. and in the end, it cost the company even more money than if they had kept the work local. It also has the potential to affect the relationship they have with their customers and tarnish their reputation.

 

As far as keeping up to date goes, we have maintenance on both ProE and Mastercam so we are running the most current versions for both. If you are happy with ProE, you fall into a very small group of people. Understandably, it all depends on what you are doing with the software and what the capabilities/education/experience your engineering department has. You are correct in your statement about some of the unique capabilities of ProE, however, the few positives don't outweigh the overwhelming negatives.

The only honest way to evaluate the two systems is to lay out a pros and cons comparison using the items I listed in my comments above. That however, is only a starters list to get the OP thinking. I agree that no single CAD or CAM software will be a perfect solution. All have their strengths and weaknesses. I actually did an in-depth CAM comparison evaluating 10 different CAM packages over the course of a year. You must truly educate yourself to see through the smoke and mirrors that so many systems offer. Mastercam included. It would be easy for me to say Powermill is a far superior CAM package compared to Mastercam until you look at the fine details. I'm not knocking either product, but, one has more resources geared toward some features, and the other system is geared toward other areas. Both are great products, but it all boils down to what's important to you and whether or not it will get the job done efficiently.

The bottom line is that it is usually far better to stick with an "industry standard" software, rather than some niche software like ProE. The "industry standards" got to be in that position for a reason.

 

My main question to the OP would be: What are some of the reasons for the "higher-up" to change to another software?

Other than the fact they don't know how to use it, there must have been some fundamental reason for change. Was Solidworks not capable of performing some functions required for your field of expertise? Training issues? Cost?.....There must be something.

 

Carmen

[HevyMetl]

Let me first say that the guys I have worked with who have serious problems with ProE usually are pissing and moaning about it didn't work that way in (Insert Cad Package Here) and that goes for any software change. Embrace it and add it as another tool in your package of “look what I can do.” The Cost of Proe maintenance is HUGE when compared to many cad packages. Customer service for me has been great. I think a lot of that depends upon you Maintenance supplier and the size of your company. The ProE website is difficult to use, but once you have access, it has a lot of useful information. Pro can be buggy at times, but so are other cad packages.

 

IT all depends upon what you are doing. IF you are doing single prismatic parts then SolidWorks is sufficient and very efficient for your needs. Come into the realm of Family Table replacement parts in Mold Design and Solid works fails miserably....Come into the realm of complex surface design work and SolidWorks fails miserably. ProE works great when it is utilized properly. Come into the realm of mechanical simulation for complex automation functions and SolidWorks fails miserably compared to Pro. If you use ProProgram to automate many functions it flies. Electrode design is simplistic at best in Proe if you know how to use cut-out functionality in assembly mode, and if you can utilize surface design functionality it gets even better.

 

There is however a huge learning curve to become productive let alone efficient. We still have guys here after years who don't understand parentchild relations and the dangers there in if applied incorrectly. Proe part files and assemblies have always come in fine for me through the Proe Translator with solids. My datum planes, coordinate systems, axis, and curves always come in so that they can easily be layered off. The datum planes are very helpful when creating new Work Offsets.

 

Like others have said there are pluses and minuses to all packages. Don't fight the system your management is putting in place. Respectfully voice your concerns in writing with factual information backing your stance. Leave out your anecdotal evidence, because management will mark you as a complainer. Finally make the best with what you are given to work with. A lot of us make a living using Proe and Mastercam.

[pronc]

John,

 

I couldn't agree with you more. Sometimes changing or adding a new software is a strategic move for a company.

[Watcher]

+1 Gazillion to John!

[Mr. Wizzard]

My understanding is that 1, yes 1 customer of ours uses Pro/E and that alone is the reason to completely switch our entire engineering department over.

We do have some complex surface models, but 99% of the time, we do not. We have a couple engineers already using Pro/E. Fresh out of college, 1st job engineers.....

When I do import their models, with the Pro/E translator, I get faulty faces, gaps in surfaces.....blah, blah, blah...

That's why I'm trying to figure out if they don't use it correctly or if there is just an issued with Mastercam vs. Pro/E.

I definitley appreciate the comments with your views on the pros and cons, though.

Thank you guys much!

[Redfire427]

This is very typical. Also check your levels manager and open all levels and take a look at all the crap that gets imported into Mastercam. I have my config set to only import the solid ( nothing else ) but you still get ProE construction geometry as well as the odd surface for good measure. There is nothing that you are doing wrong, that's just the way it is.

[Watcher]

Hi everyone!

 

There are many Pro/E configuration options to configure model export. I could not list them all here... However I´m open to help anyone who wants to dig deeper…

One of the biggest problems that occur with Pro/E is that it works with two types of accuracy: Absolute and Relative. In a nutshell, Relative (The default) varies the accuracy of the part based on the model size among other things. Big features are less accurate than small ones. You do not have this concept on most CAD systems and probably Pro/E is the only CAD/CAM system that works this way. Accuracy mode has a huge impact on the way Pro/NC handles toolpaths for example... There is a reasonable reason for the two modes: Absolute mode forces Pro/E to consider the same accuracy for all features in the model, from a tiny edge to a huge curved edge. This increases the model size substantially and this is the reason why it is not enabled by default. As the accuracy varies, the topology/geometries of exported models are also affected. This works fine in Pro, but other systems out there do not see it this way. This option is only activated through the config option enable_absolute_accuracy = yes – It enables a hidden option.

 

There are a few other settings that affect model quality and export accuracy:

 

enable_absolute_accuracy = yes

 

step_export_format = ap214_cd

 

accuracy_lower_bound = 0.0000001 #this is very important option for model export. And yes, the value is very smaaaaalll.

 

default_abs_accuracy = 0.00003937 (0.001mm)

 

iges_out_trim_curve_deviation = 0.00003937

 

intf3d_out_surface_deviation = 0.00003937

 

After setting the option enable_absolute_accuracy = yes you will see a new option in the modeling environment: Go to the menu "Edit" > "Setup" > "Accuracy" : A new option named "Absolute" will appear. Set the absolute accuracy you want. The model will be regenerated. To set small tolerances the option accuracy_lower_bound must have tiny values.

 

If the part is complex and it was originally designed using the default "Relative" mode, you might experience problems during regeneration because now Pro/E mathematically sees the features, specially the small ones as they really are: tiny. So some references may get corrupted.

 

There is a very good explanation regarding Absolute vs. Relative at PTC website, but I´m not allowed pasting it here since it is copyrighted material for active maintenance customers.

 

There you are going to find the formula Pro/E uses to set the relative accuracy for each geometrie.

 

Most people don’t use these settings and if you are not using Pro/NC as well, the default settings cover 90% of the cases. So this is a good source of problems regarding Pro/E and model export problems.

 

After using these settings, don’t forget to set smaller tolerances for model export in Pro/E whenever this option is available at the export dialog.

 

JM2C,