PTC advert in UK - 10 ways solidworks Slows you down - PTC BS or not ?

Saw this advert in UK Mag 'Eureka'. www.ptc.com/go/proof (has it
appeared in the US ?). Normally i'd dismiss such negative campaigning
as 'they must feel insecure if they have to swoop so low' and as just
'marketing BS'.

Most of it is - and I am sure if solidworks picked on its best features
vs Pro-E'sd worst (eg in flexibility in exiting sketches), they would
produce a similar list. BUT.....

Although I've never used Pro-E, I was actually impressed - especially
the filleting example on page 4 ... that always bugs me in solidworks
and I hate to have to find work-arounds .... I just want to design.

If there is someone here with:- Up-to-date, Equal AND Un-Biased
Experience of BOTH Pro-E and Solidworks [is THAT possible ;-) (Maybe
Paul S ?).....

Is this just PTC BS or are these valid points ?

 

It is ironic that the reasons given for going with PTC are the reasons
we went with SW back in 97. I don't necessarily believe more than 2%
of what marketers say, but then performance was on the top of the wish
list for several years and as far as SW denial it was up there with
loss of reliability.

On the other hand, PTC doesn't seem to tell us what the various parts
are that they used to compare software other than the terms Tester,
Hammer, etc.

 

HumanAmp,

This is very interesting reading. I cannot comment on the actual comparison
to Pro-E since I have never used it. I too was impressed with the filleting
example on page 4. But I do disagree with the BOM example. They claim that
SW BOM is very slow. if you have everything set-up properly like you should
have anyway (file properties, custom properties, etc.), SW BOM takes just a
couple of seconds.

 

I haven't used Pro in a while, but having just worked on a large assy in SW
2005, I'd have to say SW is a out of control bloated pig. The files are
just getting too large for even hot rod computer systems to manage well and
getting larger with each new version. Fillets can be a pain in SW. Pro is
hitting on valid points that SW has been ignoring for years.

 

HumanAmp,

The fillet examples shown in PTC's ad are completely bogus!!!

SolidWorks can accomplish both of the examples shown with NO workarounds, or
power user tricks. I have created similar examples (in less than 5 min.) if
anyone needs proof.

I assume the other "reasons" stated are also inaccurate, but can't prove or
disprove them without data to support their claims.

John

 

30 mins to save an assembly. That's a bit absurd. I can't imagine any assy
(in SWX or IV) that would take 30 mins to save. Makes me question all of
their results.

Kind of like those TV commercials where they display "cleaning power" or
such as a bar graph.

"Why look honey, Brand X's bar is bigger. It MUST be better" <rolleyes>

 

We count time opening and closing assemblies in 30 min. increments.

 

..... I have created similar examples (in less than 5 min.)

No proof needed (the broader topic is of no interest to me; I have foggy
opinions and will keep 'em to myself), but would like to see STEP
translations if it's no trouble.

TIA,
Jeff

 

Thanks for the replies, and especially Paul. Maybe I should swallow my
'pride and prejudice' and check out Pro-E. !!!!

I need both more speed and curvy stuff. I guess I will have to get my
head round pricing structures; Pro-E base price seems similar to
solidworks but which modules to choose for a small industrial design &
engineering office ??
And are theVAR's/annual subs as bad as I have heard cf. SLDWKS ?

 

....Pro-E base price seems similar to solidworks but which

At the risk of making too broad a generalization (or pandering) I'd say
Foundation Advantage is all you need.... but, check PTC's site if you're of
a mind. I'm almost sure I saw a Foundation + ISDX for about 5K US, just
not sure where. I'd just make sure you aren't having to trade anything
that comes with Advantage for ISDX (?).

 

Paul,

Do you get commission for this? # : < )

 

Like all marketing, it's part fact part BS. SW corp. is just as bad.

No doubt , Pro is faster than SW in most areas indicated. I "do" question
the magnitude, 10X seems to be stretching it a bit.

If SW wants to survive, that is keep current customers and continue to grow,
they'll have to address performance. They can no longer hide behind faster
hardware. CPU's have pretty much peaked for the next year or beyond.
Consumer applications and games are what drives CPU development, not CAD.
These things can be handled quite easily with what's currently available.

The next generation of CPU's will require massive capital investment by the
chip makers. Development is always ongoing, but I would imagine production
will be put off until there's enough potential market. That may be a while.


Regards

Mark

 

yep,..

Not a bad deal. Be sure to ask how much annual maintainence is. Might
take a little of the luster off.

 

Our situation as well. We looked at Pro/E, UGS and Catia. Catia is winning
right now. They put on really good demos, react quickly to our requests, and
are extremely professional. The first UGS demo we got was not very good at
all. When we told the VAR that Catia was cleaning his clock, he put together
a web demo that showed us that NX3 would do what we needed, but the user
interface doesn't seem to be nearly as good as Catia. Pro/E didn't do very
well on a demo and has been extremely slow to react to our requests. They
are out of the running unless they do something remarkable in the very near
future.

This is a real problem with all three of the systems we looked at. If the
VARs are good, they will help you figure it out. The prices for what we
needed were all quite a bit above SW, but we think that we can easily
justify them with the time saved.

The Pro/E sales force seems to be less in-you-face than they used to be.
Maybe that's because we told them up front that if they tried calling our
managers they would be dropped from the competition.

I don't remember the support costs for Pro/E or UGS, but for Catia, the
percentage of the original cost (14%) is lower than SW . Of course, the
total support cost is still quite a bit higher, coming to about the
purchase price of SW for the package we are looking at.


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

 

I won't contest stuff I don't know, but...

As an Industrial Designer, I am still trying to figure out why we SolidWorks
users are 'supposed' to need ten hours of data translation between ID and
Engineering (page 5) while ProE guys don't need any- especially on a design
that only took 8 hours to make in the first place!!!!

All of our ID is done in SolidWorks, and actually has a lot of the
Engineering data already incorporated by the time of the handoff (draft for
sure, flat pattern if metal, other stuff as needed). 10 hours is just a
stupid thing to say - they should have gone ahead and called it 3 weeks
while they were making junk up

And of course, page 3 all depends on whose driving - a light that can be
modeled in 50 minutes in Pro is NOT going to take 6.6 hours in SWx unless
you are looking at really different skill levels behind the wheel.

The filleting stuff is legit... I will hold my tongue on why its kind of
silly anyway. However, from another sample I saw recently I have a positive
impression about Pro-E's success with executing features that can choke SWx.
\

I (of course!) agree with you that I would rather spend time designing
instead of working through intracacies of the software. I wonder if the
interface has improved enough to allow a schmo like me to even get to that
good stuff - I just hated,hated, hated working in ProE so much because I had
to be so conscious of the software/modes/dialog box steps (stuff that I
never have to really think about in SWx).

Thanks for sharing... it was interesting.

 

Ed,

Didn't notice this one, what the hell do you suppose they mean ?

Just went back and looked, what a joke. They're making stuff up.


Mark

 

As you and others have noted, this is all marketing numbers where the worst
possible slant is given to SW and the best possible to Pro/E, but there is
actually a germ of legitimacy here. If you, the CAD jockey, design in Pro/E
and your shop, the CAM jockey, works in Pro/E, then you have no translation
time and lots of nice synergies. If you work in SW and your shop uses a
system that requires IGES files, then I can imagine some poor shmuck
spending more time trying to clean up the geometry than I spent making it in
the first place. (I've probably come pretty close to that trying to get good
solids out of some Pro/E parts coming in to me.)

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

 

I did it too. The first example needs a face blend and SolidWorks
tells you to do a face blend. The second for me looked slightly
different but no error.

Ken M.

 

I am not sure what they mean, unless they assue that ID has to start in
Rhino or something if you use SolidWorks (bogus), and even then you have to
count on the files from Rhino being pure s***.

10 hours?... Check out the latest Industrial Design trends:
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
the handoff from ID to Engineering couldn't have taken a second over 9
hours.

 

The filleting stuff is legit... I will hold my tongue on why its kind
of

Hi all.

Regardless of "richess" of Granite One filleting, it upsets me to see
"surrender" on filleting issues re Granite one vs Parasolid.

A while ago, I made one very telling filleting test that shows
inadequacy of Pro/E's
and superb solution of Parasolid's filleting engine. Problem is, I
don't have anywhere to upload it for your review. If anyone is
interested in, I could email it - single SolidWorks file..

Catia v5r14 failed (did it, but looks uglish), ACIS did it almost the
same as Catia, Pro/E failed (LOTS of workaround without a bit of
elegancy - very ugly - Pro/E guy was sweating like a pig to no
avail...), Ideas v9.0 failed (ugly and unusable
downstream). Parasolid modelers, sure, all did it very nice.

Have to say that last time I've pushed this through Pro/E was original
(first) version of Wildfire. Can't say have they improved since.

To add on top of the test (and to explain what "downstream" meant in
the sentence above), shell was added to the model (by now, one would
really need to see the model...), only Parasolid makes it flawless. All
others introduce phantom surfaces (patches) or can't do it at all.

Cheers,
Mladen Meduric

p.s. Funny enough, I found these while looking for possible replacement
for SolidWorks!
But, if/when it happens, it ain't gonna be Pro/E - that much is sure!