I saw SW 2004 today...

We've been using the latest versions of SolidWorks since SW99. Over time
our patience has been stretched thinner and thinner. Even though the bugs
and crashes have been annoying, it's the speed that really kills us. Seems
like SW gets slower every release.

Last month I took Inventor training. This week two others go to training.
The purpose is to see if moving to another platform would speed things up
without sacrificing on the mandatory features.

Comparing SolidWorks 2003 to Inventor 6 at a solid modeling level, Inventor
looks to be an early winner. I won't list the reasons why. However, I saw
SW 2004 today. It looked quite promising for the first time. As
interesting as the new features were, the only factors we are concerned with
is the speed.

Speed? Not bad. Most things we tried were about twice as fast. If we use
draft mode in drawings, we could insert a view, that normally took five
minutes, in 10 seconds. If we inserted it the drawing with high quality, it
took under three minutes.

Now we have something to think about.

Hmmm

_________________________________________
Todd Bennett
Mechanical Designer

Celerity Group, Inc.
9660 SW Herman Rd
Tualatin, OR 97062

Phone: 888-724-3221
E-mail:

 

I feel your pain. We're going thru the same problems. Right now our
in-house "customized" 2D AutoCad is the winner ovwe SolidWorks.

I would vote for less features and better performance (especially on
common tasks) any day of the week.

Ken

 

What I'm starting to realise is that IN CERTAIN AREAS of the software, the
more bells and whistles they add, the more the user seems to have to
retrench back to simpler, more fundamental function.

Rightly or wrongly, I'm finding now that when I use (even the simplest)
in-context features in a family of subassemblies, the problems of getting
part updates to flow through a configuration tree can be a killer.
The need (which seems more acute than ever in the past) to open all the
relevant parts and assemblies, ensure they all show the appropriate
configuration, then force the rebuild of each, sometimes more than once, in
order to propagate the updates, often renders the whole procedure not
viable. Especially, (harking back to your performance issue) when rebuild
times for each assembly are measured in minutes.

It is sometimes much simpler, faster and better, in such a situation, to
simply create and oversee the relations manually.

My favourite feature in 2003? the reference triad thingy

Cosmos Express for free: WAY cool

Multibodies and boolean ops: Pretty damn cool

Just now, can't think of anything else I'd really miss, and my productivity
is still well down vs 2001+ SP6, simply due to reliability being so
intermittent, as well as the performance hit and insatiable hunger for
resources.

Extrapolating from the resource costs of the bells and whistles added in
2003, it seems likely that my new Dell M50 will not be able to cope with big
assemblies in 2004, due to "only" being able address 1 GB.
This means that the cost of ownership just got even higher. I used to be
able to survive two or three major SldWks version changes on one hardware
platform.

If SldWks would just keep working on 2003, making it faster, simpler, more
elegant and more reliable, they would have virtually unlimited access to my
loyalty and my wallet.

As things are going, both of these are likely to close ever tighter, as I
drown in frigging bells and am deafened by bleeding whistles, and pay
SolidWorks almost as much for the privelege as I pay the taxman.

 

"Comparing SolidWorks 2003 to Inventor 6 at a solid modeling level,
Inventor
looks to be an early winner. I won't list the reasons why."

Because you can't... No thin feature, no mirror body, no drag witness lines
on dims to change design intent, poor filleting, no advanced lofting, no
2D - 3D, no booleans, no local body operations, No scale feature, No top
down assembly design, no top down weldments, no assembly configurations, no
smart fasteners, no physical dynamics, no physical simulation, TEN TIMES
SLOWER THAN SOLIDWORKS WITH LARGE ASSEMBLIES, no dynamic collision
detection, cannot dimension between parts in an asssembly, no cavity
command, I could go on but I am bored of typing.

BTW when you create a drawing view with IV you get an unprintable
placeholder, when you accept the view, you get another temporary graphic
that looks like it is resolved, check your task manager however and you will
see your processor pegged at 100% until IV has resolved all the hidden lines
etc... if it ever does. then you might be able to print a drawing.

Dont think about it, go with inventor. you know it makes sense.

OK everyone else...sell your shares in celerity group NOW...

 

bob z. hates that little triad thingy. let's look more like autocrash -
yes, autocrash. autocrash is indeed the correct spelling.

--
bob z.
p.s. turn it up...

"people with less brain power than you are doing more difficult things
everyday"©

 

Of course you know that you can turn that little thingy off...

p.s. - I haven't heard from Joan yet

Richard

 

yes, you can. bob z. did right away. bob z. doesn't need anything else to
distract. he lacks focus.
focus, focus, focus!
:~)>

let us figure out what we can do about this Joan issue. maybe there is a
consolation prize that we can offer...

 

Ouch!

Even Joe didn't get this much trouble from us...

 

Hmm

1. A derived part is not a mirrored body, it is a new part that has to be
inserted into the original part. This is not a mirrored body, a one step
operation within one part.

2. Can you use guide curves in a loft now? that is advanced lofting and if
they have just added it in version 6, what has been the hold up, this is
basic required functionality for a production ready piece of software.

3. not crap there is no meaningful 2D-3D you have to go through so many
steps and the thing is so limited that is is easier to model it in 3d from
the start.

4. I am talking about true booleans subtract this body from that body, make
a body from where these 2 bodies intersect. derived parts, derived
assemblies, seems like IV is just derived itself.

5. More derived nonsense.

6. Adesk themselves say the do not do top down design, rather they have the
"adaptive engine" (which is a bunch of macros) and dosen't work too well
circular references which part is driving and which part is driven.

7. Solidworks had smart fasteners first, smart being the ability to drag a
part into an assembly and have it snap into place with 3 mates without
having to manually reference edges /faces etc... or apply special references
to the geometry to make it intelligent.

8. No, this functionality is only available thru animation not just dragging
parts around and detecting collision dynamically using stop at collision and
dynamic clearance.

9. name one

10. can you? thats new then ok i will give you that one, is it parametric,
does it update when you move a part?

11. ahh no comment on the drawing performance then.

Well I know the former well enough to be CSWP, the latter I know as much as
I need to know to advise people to not base their companies future on a
piece of software that isn't very robust yet. I also know that you need to
be smart to use IV. You need to be smart to use it not to choose it, because
to use it you need to be smart enough to figure out all the workarounds
needed to get the job done.

 

slightly different question:

has SW fixed that problem where after certain operations all your buttons
(including save, open, etc) become disabled yet in SW2003 or SW2004?

One I think of off the top of my head is RMB->View mates--->then edit a
mate, and hit ok. All (nearly) your buttons are greyed out and can only be
made active again by clicking somewhere in the viewport window.

--nick e.

 

I'll take it that's a "no" then?

SWuser quipped:

 

I thought the correct spelling was "autocrap"?

 

makes this group look quite contented in comparison doesn't it....who needs
Stormtrooper skirmishes to break the monotony when you can do battle with
the whole product- serious stuff : )

 

Mike,

From the content, it looks like Ade$k is trying to bitch slap them and bend
them over. They've done this so many times before, it's amazing to me how
many people have stuck with them. Even if they reverse their position
they'll still lose. Who would want to do business with a company like that.
Kinda like dealing with the Mafia.

Mark

 

I don't think you have your facts straight. At even a cursory look, I can
tell you that many of the things you listed do exist. Some of the
techniques change between programs, but the end result is the similar. I
really could care less. When I work for you, I'll look for the features I
need to make your stuff. I didn't want to make feature-to-feature
comparisons, because it's not SolidWorks' features that are a problem, it's
the performance.

There are some areas that would cause a work around in Inventor, but you
could say that SolidWorks causes people to work around some things that
Inventor has built in. I wanted to know if I could be competitive any
longer with SolidWorks. It's not that there aren't some concerns with
Inventor, we are looking into these now.

Todd

 

Here's what I see: A lot of questions, a lot of answers. Some people are
hot. Looks like any other discussion group. I like the fact that AutoDesk
people run the group and often answer questions directly. I hate the fact
that AutoDesk runs the group and some posts are blocked.

Still, the questions/comments that get blocked aren't blocked because they
have a problem with Inventor. I had one blocked because I flamed
SolidWorks. They discourage most flaming. Like it or not.

Todd

 

Go on, I'll jump in just once more for the sake of accuracy, although
'SWuser' has it exactly right . . . "Guys SW and IV are NOT a religon it is
a tool, unless of course you are a Reseller".

inserted into the original part. This is not a mirrored body, a one step
operation within one part . . . . correct, but what you are describing
sounds more like mirror feature(s).

they have just added it in version 6, what has been the hold up, this is
basic required functionality for a production ready piece of software. . . .
.. Yes, which is why I objected to your original post - it was inaccurate and
ill-informed.

steps and the thing is so limited that is is easier to model it in 3d from
the start. . . . . sounds like you need some training.

make a body from where these 2 bodies intersect. derived parts, derived
assemblies, seems like IV is just derived itself. . . . I know what
boolean operations are, thank you! And for your information you can perform
all these with Inventor. 'Derived Part' is simply the description of the
Inventor function - sorry if the terminology upsets you.

the "adaptive engine" (which is a bunch of macros) and dosen't work too well
circular references which part is driving and which part is driven. . . . .
The "adaptive engine" has nothing at all to do with macros, it just
describes a facility that allows a designer to create cross part and
assembly relationships in a different way - it takes a bit of undersatnding
but once learned can be very effective. As for Autodesk saying that they do
not have top down design I can't comment, but if you ever get the chance to
use Inventor check out the 'Skeletal modelling' concept developed by some of
the users - it works!

part into an assembly and have it snap into place with 3 mates without
having to manually reference edges /faces etc... or apply special references
to the geometry to make it intelligent. . . . . They are called by a
different name, but your description is exactly that of the iMates on the
fasteners in the Inventor Standard Content library.

dragging parts around and detecting collision dynamically using stop at
collision and dynamic clearance. . . . Dynamic collision detection? It
moves, it collides, it stops or warns! How dynamic do you want it? Granted
Inventor does not have physical dynamics a la Works, but that was not what I
said.

<snip>Our biggest model now has about 30,000 parts (in its stripped down
version - fully populated it would be about 200,000 - obviously unworkable).
I don't work at the top end model very often - just to check mating of large
sub assemblies, but I do work with 10,000 plus sized models every

does it update when you move a part? . . . . Yes - it's been then a while.

we mostly do it's about the same as Works, but then we don't do big
assemblies, but remember :-

"Guys SW and IV are NOT a religon it is a tool".

I just don't like misleading information - either way.

 

you have to get rid of that 386