sharing some thoughts about exploring SW09

Hi folks,
Finally got the 09 DVD down here in NZ last week and been playing around
with stuff that's new to me coming from 05 - yup 08 is sitting in the box
never used...RIP

....which brings me to my first comment...
The 08 style command manager is an utter POS (sorry SW programmers) - tried
hard to like it but now putting back ye ol' familiar toolbars per my 05
install - dunno how people can be complimentary about it even with 09
alterations
As far as I am concerned it is very inefficient and hides stuff away I want
to see - maybe in Office you want to pack all those little options and
nuances away but in SW I like my surgical tools laid out where I can pick
them

In Realview the glowing selections are a little overpowering -be nicer if
the extent of the glow could be user set - but then I have complained about
fuzziness of UI elements before to no effect -tufts of irradiated wool and
streaks of crayon...cant we have a little finesse for Barbie as well...oh
well at least no magnifying glass handle - reflective floors are already
banished here though ...

3D sketch planes
I cant use these for mirror planes? (pity) or make dragged copies of them or
otherwise reference them? Odd things these - seems like exposed planes for
insert loft section in 05
Instant 3D ( old move and resize with bells and whistles?) I'm still playing
with -does seem fairly fast to update although I note that the screen
doesn't always refresh properly after it recalculates
Some readers here may remember me suggesting an enhancement for something
called a 'kite' - basically a plane on a bit of anchored string - I don't
think the 3D sketch planes we have now are quite there yet in terms of easy
placement and use...fully articulate and gimballed is what I'd like

Boundary surfaces
Must say these are quite cool and fairly responsive with a new pc (3.8ghz)
No excuses for not getting something swoopy how you fancy it now but they
seem to have a very crude preview? and visually they are a little busy with
combs showing (as is freeform) - still, looking forward to creating with
these
So far it seems very flexible but I get the impression I would like to be a
little more precise in the placement of curves and points - how can I do
this other than by eyeometer? say I wanted a point 25% up a curve and a
curve 25% along a side...
Speaking of combs - straight line caps on the combs..called curves in the
option settings though...made less noticeable by increasing the
density...hmmm

I am finding sp0 surprisingly stable for newly hatched prodigy although
there are obviously bugs and mistakes but I haven't encountered anything too
gross yet -not the dog arse piece of rubbish I was expecting based on
previous sp0 experience however I wont use it for production for a while yet
Installation and activation went well - didn't bother about MS search
although I still got .NET3 ( shouldn't that be mentioned in the software
requirements and then you have to MS update anyway...)
Another oddity - I haven't understood why its necessary to separately
download all those weldment profiles etc - why cant they be on the DVD?

Anyway there's a few thoughts feel free to chip in with any of your own
observations.
Let you know how further excursions go

neil

 

We aint using 09 for production yet, but been playing around a little
like You. Have to say that one of the things I really liked about 08
was the new UI ....really made things easier and left a lot of
workspace. I don't need to see the tools/toolbars, as long as I know
where to find 'em it's good enough and the S keyboard shortcut tool
bar is right underneath the cursor all the time. Three things in 09
which comes to my mind directly, which will ease up things for us is
the new speed pack config, the centerpoint slots and the new "convert
to sheet metal" feature.

// Krister