CoCreate

Hi all.

I know this question has been asked before but I'm unable to locate the
thread. I'm looking for insights to the strengths and weakness of CoCreate
versus Solidworks. CoCreate's "dynamic" modeler seems to be very flexible,
but along with that flexibility must come trade offs. I haven't see
anything that suggests it has a good 2D drawing packages. Your thoughts and
opinions welcomed.

Thanks,

Tony

 

It's been seven or eight years since I've used SolidDesigner (now OneSpace
Designer, or something like that), but I'll give it a shot.

A dynamic modeler and a history-based modeler are very different and play to
different strengths. Simple examples illustrate the differences best. In a
history-based modeler, to move a boss, you need to find the feature in the
feature tree and change whatever sets its location. In a dynamic modeler,
you select all of the faces and move it. If you're doing families of similar
parts, the first is great. If you're working on an imported part, the second
is great. For people who like to think ahead and plan things out thoroughly,
the first seems more appropriate. For people who would rather try something
out quickly and cut and try till they get the result they like, the second
may feel better.

We design plastic parts that have hundreds of features. Sometimes it's hard
for me to remember how and why I built features the way I did, and I can
imagine it would be really difficult for someone coming in to the part cold.
A dynamic modeler would be great in that situation. On the other hand, most
plastic parts get made by shelling a basic shape. With a history-based
modeler, I can go back and change the original shape, then watch the shell
and all of the other features rebuild. (Granted, often with a "tree of
blood"!) With a dynamic modeler, it could be very hard to pull the right
faces into the new shape, depending on how the shape changes.

Some of the engineers I know who have switched from SolidDesigner to Pro/E
or SolidWorks have been really happy with the change. Others live with the
new software, but wish they could go back.

As far as 2D goes, back in the old days, SolidDesigner was a solid modeler
with links to ME-10, a 2D drafting package. When I quit using it the links
were getting quite strong. ME-10 itself was a nice 2D system and had a
really strong market share in Europe. My memories are fading, but I'm pretty
sure it beat the pants off of SolidWorks for drafting. I had to use AutoCAD
LT a bit in my last years with HP, and I couldn't stand it, compared to
ME-10, but maybe that was just because of the familiarity factor.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

You have listed one of the great strengths of UG or NX as they now call
it. You can treat a model as a dumb solid or as history based. It has
the capability to do both and also treat some dumb geometry as if it
had it's roots in feature based modeling.

 

Nice to hear that management is occasionally capable of making good
decisions.

:>)

jon

 

Hello Tony-

We have used SolidWorks since 1999. We have been working with a client that
uses One Space Solid Designer for the past 30 months. 2 years ago, I had 2
weeks of training in O.S.D.

Jerry Steiger's post accurately describes the differences between the two
applications. From my point of view, I find OSD very difficult to understand
and use. It just seems cumbersome and many more mouse clicks are required to
get a task completed. OSD seems to have difficulty exporting .step and .iges
files accurately.

Good luck with your new project.

Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

We have used CoCreate ME10 (now OneSpace Drafting) and SolidDesigner
(now OneSpace Modeling) since 1991 when CoCreate was HP's Mechanical
Design Division. ME10/OSD is a superb drafting product, and
SolidDesigner/OSM is an attractive dynamic modeling product. As others
have accurately noted, models created using OSM can be easily changed
without any consideration of how the model was constructed (there is no
history tree).

Two years ago we reassessed our design tools and chose to migrate to
SolidWorks for essentially two reasons. First, we found SolidWorks had
more, better-integrated features for a similar price. Second,
CoCreate's presence is not as strong in North America as in Europe and
Asia. This limited our ability to attract designers with CoCreate
experience.

 

My office used to use CoCreate exclusively and have migrated to
SolidWorks for a variety of reasons...most of which boil down to
dynamic VS history-based modelling. A couple of points I'd like to
offer:

1. SolidWorks *can* handle solids 'dynamically'. The addition of the
'delete and patch', 'replace face' and 'move face' commands goes a long
way to bridging the divide between the two methodolgies. If the history
bothers you on a particular part, you can always export then import a
parasolids file.

2. SolidDesigner is VERY stable. It locked up periodically, but you
were able to kill the offending process without taking down the entire
program. For instance, if I'm trying to do a complex fillet and it
hangs for hours on the operation, I can kill the fillet command from
the DOS prompt, save my work in SolidDesigner, and restart it. Very
rarely did it ever crash catastrophically (something I can't exactly
say for SolidWorks).

3. I don't have any experience with it, but I understand that CoCreate
has added some parametric tools to their modeller. They *might* make
SolidDesigner behave more like a history-based modeller...but I just
don't know.

 

BTW: I didn't care much for ME10 at all....but we used the old
UNIX-style interface. I'm sure it's much better now with the Windows
interface. Still a lot of clicks per command, though.

 

Comprehension issues again.

 

Their 2D package is the old ME10

 

The applicability of CoCreate's dynamic modeler to your business depends on
the type of product you build and your engineering process. History based
systems shine when 1) the same engineer owns the design throughout its
lifecycle and 2) if families of parts are an important consideration.
History based systems preserve "design intent" which is good, provided
design intent doesn't change and is communicated. Dynamic modeling systems,
on the other hand, are better in environments where designs tend to be
one-off, where collaboration among engineers means many people will be
working on the same product design, and where vast change is anticipated but
the NATURE of the change cannot be anticipated.

Hope this helps.

 

Long time since I've used CoCreate but 2D drawing used to be a real strength
(in the days when SldWks 2D was considerably more of a dog even than it is
now).

I agree entirely with SFB's take on the respective merits of the underlying
philosophies.

Taking a more in-depth look at the points he makes:
Dynamic modelling reminds me of route-finding on back country roads in an
SUV with multiple large scale maps and a compass, always making simple
choices based on the destination of the moment, no grand plan.
History-based modelling is more like taking to the freeways in a low-slung
Grand Tourer, using a small scale map which only shows the major arterial
routes. You will of course need to plan the entire trip in advance: this is
easy when the whole trip can be seen on one map, and the options are laid
out starkly; harder to do in the first example where the same destination is
five sheets away from the starting point.
Given a Perfect World, method 2 is always going to get you there faster and
in better shape, using less gas, but in the real world you may find yourself
having to go half way back to Chicago, if, in the last sector of a trip to
St Louis, you discover that, right now, where you really need to be is
Nashville, or you still want St Louis but the freeways have got jammed. Or
maybe an officious state trooper gets under your radar screen and puts a
crimp in your high performance. Forgive me if these are bad examples, but I
hope you get the idea.

The freeway jam analogy reminds me that the history modeller combines high
performance with high demands, like a freeway running near to maximum
capacity. Consequently (AOTBE) it will throw more obstacles in your way --
moves which should work, instead bug out in this particular situation, with
this service pack, etc.
A dynamic modeller is lower performance in terms of 'built-in intelligence',
hence there are lower demands in terms of overhead, inter-dependent program
routines, yadda yadda.
This makes it a lot less vulnerable to bugs, just as country roads are less
prone to immobilising you irretrievably, especially in a proper 4WD.
The dynamic modeller just puts metal on here and takes it away there, with
little regard for, or vulnerability to, the finer points of how it got there
in the first place, just as a 4WD lets you move from point A to point B with
little regard for the small topological details of the terrain, whether the
traffic information systems are working, or whether you made the right call
twenty-eight miles earlier.
---

Examples of where << vast change is anticipated but the NATURE of the change
cannot be anticipated >> arise whenever detail engineering is outsourced
relative to conceptual design, or (say) when Company A's new product is to
be built on dedicated production plant from design-build company B.

As another "for instance", Dynamic modelling is particularly strong on
capturing "as-built" mods made on the shop floor in a one-off environment;
the modelling methods are much more in tune with this sort of change.


HTH

Andrew Troup