SolidEdge and stability

My apologies in advance to Ken.

Well the Computer Graphics class is back in full swing. The SolidEdge
mothership wasn't able to deliver a new student version of their latest
product in time for the IT department to make the images for this
semester's classes. So we are still on SE14. However, this probably
doesn't change what went on or would have gone on this evening.

Twelve newbies in a room are struggling learning the concepts of
sketching, constraints and a host of new skills. About a third had
numerous problems with crashes and lost a lot of time. Not surprisingly
these users were also the ones having the hardest time learning to use
SE. And what may have been causing the crashes more than anything else
was that they had not learned to paint within the lines the SE sets
forth for sketching. Hardware can pretty much be ruled out. All the
workstations are identical with identical software installed on them.
The only logical conclusion is that their actions confused the GUI and
it's timers and intent zones and put it into some kind of ambigous
state that caused the software to crash.

Now I'm not digging SE, just making an observation that probably
applies to SW just as much. These problems that were occurring, were to
me unreproducible but frequent. It is not unlikely that SW also suffers
to a certain extent with this type of problem. There seems to be a
certain rythm, for lack of a better word, that some users get into that
seems to avoid the movements and actions that cause problems. And vice
versa, other seem to have a set of actions that seem to precipitate
trouble.

 

So how do like SE cmopared to SW? It was alomost a tossup back we when
selected SW in 98. I just didn't like the ribbon concept that much. Too
much walk you through the steps which was slower workflow to me once I
learned the commands. Maybe it's changed though.

 

I really shouldn't say much since this is such an old release. But I
don't like not being able to go back and change anything in a feature.
Once certain decisions have been made you have to delete the feature
and follow a different path to get where you want to go. The sketcher
sucks for making constructions because it is too smart.

 

What do you mean by the above statement, could you give an example?

Again, could you give an example.

I've had experience with both SW and Solid Edge and have been giving my
recommendations to my company. On my Pro's Con's list for each I don't have
anything that would fit your descriptions above. Could you elaborate?

 

Hopefully your company is not going to consider SE14.

Try changing a linear dimension to a doubled dimension where
appropriate.

When you model in SE look at the ribbon bar. In certain operations once
you go past a step it is forever grayed out.

I really don't want to get into a SE vs SW discussion as this thread is
about stability.

 

SE's current release is 17.

Me neither, as they really go nowhere (although they can be quite
entertaining sometimes). I thought maybe you had an example of a SE
shortcoming that I hadn't seen. Could be the difference between SE14 and
SE17.

 

- Bad first choices will sometimes have this result, but MOST
features can be Edited to modify their entire definition if necess-
ary, without deleting. Catch-22: more robust models come with
experience.

- If you manage the Intellisketch options, you can control how
much 'assistance' the solver offers whilst sketching profiles. This
is a matter of personal preference & experience, but it IS very
configurable.

As for stability, main causes of crashes/aborts are:

a) Updates (service packs) not installed
b) System configuration (RAM, swap-space, hardware config,
BIOS settings, conflicts from 'rogue' software)
c) Graphics driver, or poor Open-GL support at hardware level
d) Housekeeping issues

Agreed, new Users tend to work randomly rather than methodically
and hence tend to experience more hangs/crashes etc. All the more
reason to get an experienced user to lead the class!

Rick Mason
Sydney, Australia.