Deform and Flex -- RANT

Is it just me or are the Deform and Flex features, crap, badly
implemented and poorly documented?

When they first came out I remember having a quick play with them and
just as quickly dismissed them as little or of no use to me.

About a year and a half later I thought I'd give the Deform feature
another try. This could be quite a useful feature what really lets it
down are those "Connector" whatsits, if you can't fully define them then
the model can't be fully predictable! If it's not predictable then it
has no use in an engineering CAD program, fix the deform feature or
transfer it to Cosmic Blobs where it belongs.

Note happily running SolidWorks 2005 SP5, until they sort out the fiasco
with SolidWorks 2006 SP3.0 SP3.1 SP3.2 SP3.3 SP3.4

Rant over; look forward to your opinions.

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

John,

I've kind of ranted against the deform feature in the past as well, but
I just had my first production use of it. I had a surface that had to
transition from one level to another, and used the deform to do it.
Could have done it with a loft more easily, but I wanted to see if it
would work. I agree with all the obscure icons it's impossible to know
what it can do or how you're supposed to use it.

Flex is something I've had more use for. It's a bit obscure as well,
but not quite as bad as deform.

My reason for ranting was that they wasted good development time on the
deform tool. They try to sell it as a "freeform" or "industrial
design" tool, but its not because in many cases you can't really predict
or control the shape you're going to get out of it.

Anyway, just my opinion.

matt

 

I agree. Does this feature exist in Inventor or SolidEdge?

 

Hi John -

Guaranteed that they are guilty almost across the board of implementing
weak "new" features and never optimizing them. That's for sure. I
feel that all the time using SW - I'm jaded, so I just don't expect
them to optimize - my basic idea is the same as yours - look at the new
feature, shake my head and say "nice start, see you in a few years once
if ever you decide to optimize this one" . . . (note to self . . .
sheetmetal edgebreak still can't do internal corners - nice try BIFF! -
oops wait its only been out for 4 years . . . perhaps I'm being harsh .
.. .)

SMA

 

I've used the Flex tool on an imported model to bend it to make another
similar shape.

 

Makes for great for sales demos to the unaware though.

 

I don't use the deform tool but I've made fantastic use of the flex
feature. It is very predictable and controllable once I got the hang
of it. I've used it in quite a few production parts from injection
molded housings to fabricated steel. My rant is about indent - I find
it very very confusing for some reason.

Zander