A SolidWorks Performance Story.

Very funny

Best of luck in Autocad.

Matt

 

Brian,
Out of curiosity, did you look at Solid Edge from UGS?

Ken

 

Have you looked at VX ?

If not, why not ?

jon

 

Have you a clue?
If not, why not?

 

If people hate it so much (solidworks), take it away
from them and give them a drafting table and a pencil.
I bet there'll be a lot of whinning to get it (solidworks) back
My point is that although it's not perfect (nothing is)
It's certainly better than the old way.

 

Ken,

Yes we did. We also looked at some of the higher priced packages
briefly but decided to stick with something in the lower price range.
Solidworks sales team put on a really good show. We provided them with
sample parts and had them come back with a partial mock up of a die. It
really blew us away. They touched briefly on the 2D and how our
production would increase and so forth. I even contacted some
references that did die design with the software that loved it. They
were smaller shops with less complex parts all done native in
SolidWorks. We also looked at add-in products such as FormatWorks to
clean up our imported data. We definitely went through our due
diligence on these products. I also want to set the story straight that
my post is merely an editorial on my experience with the software. I
will readily admit that i love modeling in SolidWorks. Its easy to use
and has many great features. The thing that it lacks however is
performance and slow performance adds up at the end of the job.

 

My uncle worked for GM and used UG and in a Vehicle assembly which I would
say approaches 10,000 parts he was complaining about how slow it was and
that every day when he opened it that he had to suppress everything that he
didn't want to get down to the area he was working in. Anyway I say that to
say the grass is always greener I would imagine @ 30,000 for an extremely
run down seat of UG and 1,000 - 3,000 for 1 to 2 day classes on each area of
the software and I am talking small areas. When you are done come back and
let us know how horrible SW is. My colleague came from a PRO-E background
and he said that he practically made their tech support cry they hated to
talk to him. This isn't to say SW is perfect it has it's strengths and
weaknesses but for the price range it is a powerful tool. Besides that I
don't know of a CAD comunity that has so much pull in the direction of the
software, I don't feel like I have a say in what happens to MS or Adesk
products. You work as an engineer. With unlimited time and money you can
accomplish just about anything. Well unfortunately there is a limit on
both, for both you, me, everyone here and at Dassault. You spend your
resources on things that affect the biggest part of your user base. I know
there are many people that use Large assemblies and we get into the low
thousands, but you have to make some trade offs when you get further up
there into large assemblies. You simply can't use some of the features of
the software that are resource intensive as Matt mentioned. If you own a
Chevy Cavalier and try to race it at 125mph and complain that the
speedometer says 125 on it but the piece of s#!t doens't handle very well at
125 better buy the Corvette and quit your griping.

Corey

 

Chevy Cavalier and try to race it at 125mph

So you are, in effect, saying; "Try Pro/E and quit your griping" (in this
case the Corvette and the Cavalier, your analogy not mine, cost the same)
vs. gripe, hope someone pays attention, etc.? Assuming the complaint is
valid, my assumptions re relative large assy performance are valid (I'm
not); I guess that's a valid enough recommendation. 8~)

 

Any former Pro-E users want to comment on Assembly Performance comparison.
I was going more toward UG with the comparison though. Anyway I just hate
it when people say that such a usefull tool is complete crap because they
want to throw the max number of parts it can handle at it and expect it to
run like a champ. Most anything when used at it's top end will not perform
well software machinery whatever.

I guess I wish the criticism was more constructive then just all out "SW
SUCKS" because that just isn't true.

Corey

 

Hold on buddy. I never said we are throwing the maximum number of parts
at it and "expect it to run like a champ". We're making assemblies up
to 6000 parts, well under SWX claimed threshold. However at this level
it's a complete and utterly useless program.

SWX has well scripted and rehearsed sales demos that mislead their
customer base. This isn't anything new from them or anyone else.
However to respond to your Cavalier analogy and Matt's assertion that
if you get taken by a salesman you're a fool (btw this is quite rich
coming from a current/past SWX reseller) consider how you'd feel if you
order a car that is supposed to perform like a vette but upon taking
delivery you find it's more like the Cavalier? Then to be told all the
time that it's your fault, you're not driving that Cavalier to it's
potential. "Sir, I know plenty of our customers are running their
Cavaliers in F1." That's about a fair comparison to SWX position and
it's laughable.

SWX lies to potential new customers, PERIOD. Sure it can be argued that
you need to do more research blah blah blah when buying software but at
the end of the day you need to choose a product and a lot of that
decision is going to be based on the sales demos.

We are a manufacturer who needs large assemblies. This is not a secret
to our VAR yet they insisited the software is suitable, that's
misleading and this entitles the customer to be angry.

I've also never said it's complete crap. If you're making large
assemblies it's useless if you're making top hats it's a suitable piece
of software.

As for constructive criticism what would you like me to say? Would you
like me to submit to SWX a recompiled improved version of SWX? It needs
to get faster instead of slower. I've been saying that for years. I've
submitted tons of SPRs and spent countless hours dealing with VARs and
SWX. I'm done wasting my time trying to help them improve their product
and as far as I'm concerned everyone should be sick of being perpetual
beta testers for something that never gets fixed.

 

I understand, Corey, and was just offering a different way of looking at
what you said. It would be interesting to see some good comparison
statistics; "good" means not the stuff that usually comes to the top from
people that once saw someone use it and still think it takes $20k US to get
there. (What this industry needs is an open source of info beside the
[mostly] foot licking journalism, advertising-posing-as-review kind of
trade rags that exist today. Guess there's no money in it.)

 

OK
What is the nature of your 6000 part assembly.
Is the tree lit up.
Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex castings with
fillets, rounds and draft.
Do you have the ability of having simplified configs?
Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported a transaxle and
an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unmanagable, even in
small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)?
Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW in larger
assemblies)?
Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins?
How much RAM do you have?
Is your RAM reliable?
(there are a few utilities that will check for you, I think MS either made
one or is promoting the use of it I don't know a link off hand)
Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt) performance check
list?
Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it local?
I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mode but they are
worth a mention.
I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you are using it
wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or so worth.

I guess if you come in here and asked some of the Gurus in here tips on
handling Large Assemblies instead of simply flaming the software because of
it's shortcomings.

Corey

 

But is it better or worse than other tools of the same class (Inventor, SE,
UG, Pro/E). A Drafting table isn't exactly an "orange to orange" comparison


Ken

 

~What is the nature of your 6000 part assembly?

Typically using subassemlies. Top level might have up to 20
subassemblies and each subassembly has more of the same for as many as
10 or 20 or more levels to the BOM.

~Is the tree lit up.

No

~Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex­
castings with
fillets, rounds and draft.

Mostly plate steel with the occasional high feature parts like a motor
etc. Most of the parts do not have an abundance of fillets etc.

-Do you have the ability of having simplified configs?

Yes and they are used sometimes but normally we don't use a simplified
config because most of the parts are already simplified. We do use a
lot of conifgs though showing alternate positions etc. Switching
between configs in a large assy is brutal.

~Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported­ a
transaxle and
an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unman­agable,
even in
small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)?

Not ususally, occasionally you get a part from a vendor that's as you
described but typically we avoid that. It's only been an issue once
that I can recall.

~Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW i­n larger

assemblies)?

Rarely and if so only momentarily if required for mating.

~Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins?

No.

~How much RAM do you have?

One Gig.

~Is your RAM reliable?

Seems to be. I crash from time to time but not so much that it's a
problem.

~Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt)
pe­rformance check
list?

No.

~Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it ­local?

Off the network. We tested a stand alone box though with no other
software and not even connected to the network and load times were
almost identical. The assemblies load MUCH slower than the transfer
rate on our network.

~I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mo­de but
they are
worth a mention.

Try to use both features as much as possible but unfortunately you're
always needing to resolve things anyways to work with them. Large
assembly mode is fast until you actually need to work with the
assembly. Drawings are slow regardless of what we do.

~I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you ­are
using it
wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or ­so worth.


You're right.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you regularly use large assemblies,
that is to say over 3,000 parts? Do you work with multiple sheet
drawings of these assemblies showing alternate views, cropped views,
sections etc.?

I honestly think that most people who are of the opinion that there is
nothing wrong with SWX performance are not using large assemblies. I've
modelled complex shapes and castings etc. and find that challenging
work but the speed is always fine. A complex part with 200 features
performs fine. A complex assembly does not.

 

Keep them *simple* whenever possible.
Don't model standard threads, fasteners, etc. in great detail unless
*absolutely* needed.
Entity count is entity count. And a simple bolt can have more
data than all the rest of your *needed* part combined.

This was true decades ago and still is. And all of that
unneeded data really impacts things.

BTW, On some systems you used to be able to use multiple
libraries .... one detailed, one with just the simple envelope
needed to work with for other needs, as an example.

"Instances", if you can use them, may reduce data at some
levels.

Complex surfaces (and all solids are made of surfaces bounding
things) take more compute time ..... more control points, higher
degree, etc. Surface *area* is rather immaterial in most cases.
But lots of little complex surfaces can be ........ sort of like
a bolt <G>.

 

The *number* of parts may have little impact beyond
just more files to access on disk.

 

Ummm .... just curious .... can you use subassemblies?

 

I checked one of our larger assemblies and it seems that it is right at 1000
parts. It isn't bad to work with at this level. I do know that Multiple
Sheet drawings of castings become a bear to work with. It doesn't really
make sence to me though but Fortunately I only have to do multiple sheet
drawings on a few castings here and there, and our larger weldments which
for some reason seem to handle multiple sheet drawings better. Are you
using Draft quality views in your drawings, this is an option that isn't
very apparent. It may help speed a bit. Cropped views can also slow things
WAY down also, as I understand they have to rebuild 3 times as compared to a
standard or detail view. AVOID CROPPED VIEWS AT ALL COSTS.

Corey




~What is the nature of your 6000 part assembly?

Typically using subassemlies. Top level might have up to 20
subassemblies and each subassembly has more of the same for as many as
10 or 20 or more levels to the BOM.

~Is the tree lit up.

No

~Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex­
castings with
fillets, rounds and draft.

Mostly plate steel with the occasional high feature parts like a motor
etc. Most of the parts do not have an abundance of fillets etc.

-Do you have the ability of having simplified configs?

Yes and they are used sometimes but normally we don't use a simplified
config because most of the parts are already simplified. We do use a
lot of conifgs though showing alternate positions etc. Switching
between configs in a large assy is brutal.

~Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported­ a
transaxle and
an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unman­agable,
even in
small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)?

Not ususally, occasionally you get a part from a vendor that's as you
described but typically we avoid that. It's only been an issue once
that I can recall.

~Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW i­n larger

assemblies)?

Rarely and if so only momentarily if required for mating.

~Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins?

No.

~How much RAM do you have?

One Gig.

~Is your RAM reliable?

Seems to be. I crash from time to time but not so much that it's a
problem.

~Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt)
pe­rformance check
list?

No.

~Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it ­local?

Off the network. We tested a stand alone box though with no other
software and not even connected to the network and load times were
almost identical. The assemblies load MUCH slower than the transfer
rate on our network.

~I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mo­de but
they are
worth a mention.

Try to use both features as much as possible but unfortunately you're
always needing to resolve things anyways to work with them. Large
assembly mode is fast until you actually need to work with the
assembly. Drawings are slow regardless of what we do.

~I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you ­are
using it
wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or ­so worth.


You're right.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you regularly use large assemblies,
that is to say over 3,000 parts? Do you work with multiple sheet
drawings of these assemblies showing alternate views, cropped views,
sections etc.?

I honestly think that most people who are of the opinion that there is
nothing wrong with SWX performance are not using large assemblies. I've
modelled complex shapes and castings etc. and find that challenging
work but the speed is always fine. A complex part with 200 features
performs fine. A complex assembly does not.

 

Cliff:

We use subassemblies a lot. Everything is broken into subassemblies as
much as possible. We don't use any fasteners whatsoever. We don't even
call them in our BOM, all we do is let the assembly guys figure out
what they need for fasteners based on the holes.

Corey:

I know the cropped views kill things, I try to avoid it but do need
them about half the time. When you get smaller subs on a large scale
drawing it's often the only way to show location, orientation etc.

Draft quality does help and we use it in larger drawings, at least when
we remember. Seems you need to turn it off a lot to print and if it
doesn't get turned back on that doesn't help.

Devlin

 

Cliff:

We use subassemblies a lot. Everything is broken into subassemblies as
much as possible. We don't use any fasteners whatsoever. We don't even
call them in our BOM, all we do is let the assembly guys figure out
what they need for fasteners based on the holes.

Corey:

I know the cropped views kill things, I try to avoid it but do need
them about half the time. When you get smaller subs on a large scale
drawing it's often the only way to show location, orientation etc.

Draft quality does help and we use it in larger drawings, at least when
we remember. Seems you need to turn it off a lot to print and if it
doesn't get turned back on that doesn't help.

Devlin