SW2004, Splines still SUCK!!!

SW can not be a serious contender in the industrial design market

Actually the most basic building block in a hybrid modeler
is support for disjoint solids. I would agree that splines
are next, though. I guess SolidWorks users will have to
wait till SolidWorks 2005 and for D-Cubed to develop decent
spline control in 3D DCM. Using ACIS as SolidWorks main
modeling engine would also help greatly as Parsolid contains
very little in the way of surfacing routines where as ACIS does.

For those who need a solution now and don't want to wait...

Concepts has no problem with any of this whatsoever. Concepts uses
Spatial Corp's, ACIS to get the job done. Spatial is a Dassault
Systèmes company. ;>)

For $995 you get a modeler that has parametric solids and quality
surfacing that is associative... both surface to spline and surface
to surface. It's not for large assemblies, it doesn't do sheet-metal,
it has no CAM but when it comes to pure modeling it blows the
doors off of SolidWorks in many areas. Not all, but many.

Perhaps this can help for those stuck with SolidWorks less
than adequate surfacing ???

Concepts offers a free demo that can be downloaded at:

http://www.cadsoft-usa.com/trybuy.html

Here are Concepts features:

.. Same intuitive user interface for
2D and 3D tools

.. Snaps for intelligently locating x y
z coordinates, tangents, and
perpendiculars

.. Concept Explorer to examine and
modify associative relationships and
construction history

.. Customizable key short cuts

.. Prompt Window for prompting
designer through commands

.. Data Entry Window for explicit
creation and modification of
geometry.

.. Object show/hide tools

.. Layers and Sub Layers

.. Tool Tips

.. User defined views, work planes,
and pen styles

.. Precise kernel serves as foundation
for NURB and analytic based
geometry definitions

.. Points, Lines, Arcs, Circles,
Ellipses and Conics

.. Splines construction methods of
Through point, Control Point,
Bezier, On Surface, and Sketch

.. Add, remove, elevate, smooth
spline control points

.. Dynamic modification of position
and tangencies

.. Dynamic curvature plots

.. Project curve to plane

.. Best in class offset, trim and
relimit curve tools

.. 2D Fillet, Chamfer, and Corner

.. 1 & 2 Rail Sweep

.. Extrude by Vector

.. Cover (Coon's and N-Sided)

.. Skin, Skin with Guides, and Skin
with Draft

.. Nets (MxN curve networks)

.. Offset

.. Blend with user defined takeoff
magnitudes

.. Fillet

.. Rebuild, Elevate, & Join

.. Thicken

.. Match G1 or G2

.. Trim and Untrim

.. Associativity for all creation and
modifications

.. Gaussian, Zebra, Draft Analysis

.. Best in Class Filleting and
Chamfering Tools

.. Shelling

.. Extrude, Sweep, Lathe

.. 1 & 2 Rail Sweeps

.. Protrusions and Cutouts

.. Booleans (Add, Subtract, Union).

.. Trim and Split

.. Stitching and Healing with user
defined tolerances

.. Primitives

.. Holes

.. Lofting between Faces

.. Parametric Features

.. Associative History Tree

.. Deform Face

.. Remove, Offset, Move, Replace,
Match Face

.. Bend and Bend Along Curve

.. Draft Faces

.. Generate drawings automatically
from 3D models from templates

.. Pen Weights, Patterns, Styles

.. Horizontal, Vertical, Radial,
Diametric, Center Marks, Leaders,
Callouts, Angular Dimensions

.. Tolerances and User Settings for
Dimension Attributes

.. Stacked, Dual, Fractions

.. Hatching and Fill Patterns

.. Bill of Materials

.. Text (Normal, Angle, Path)

.. Raytracing with Anti-Aliasing

.. Unlimited Point, Spot, and distant
lights

.. Adjustable soft and hard shadows

.. Drag and Drop from Material
Library

.. Backgrounds & Foregrounds

.. Material Editor for controlling
reflectance, color, displacement,
transparency, and texture space

.. Walk Through, Fly By

.. QuickTime Object VR

.. QuickTime Panoramic VR

.. QuickTime Event Recording
Data Exchange

.. DXF/DWG

.. SAT, IGES, STEP

.. CATIA v4

.. Adobe Illustrator (up to v9)

.. Rhino Import

.. STL

System Requirements

PC

..Microsoft Windows XP
Professional or Windows 2000
Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon class
processor

..128 MG RAM or greater (512 MG
to 1GB recommended for large
parts)

..Mouse Point Device

..CD-ROM Drive

Mac

.. OSX (Carbon)

.. OpenGl

.. G4 Processor

.. 512 MB RAM

.. CD-ROM Drive

.. Mouse (recommend 2 button
mouse)

jon

 

I would think it is a no brainier at this point in time that the

Very bad indeed. Very, very bad !

SolidWorks Corp. obviously thinks they can get away with it.

Have I mentioned Concepts, lately ??? ;>)

www.cadsoft-usa.com

$995.

jon

 

Huprich and Banquer-type rivalry

You really want you very own personal stalker ?

jon

 

"I've never found myself to need to tell Paul S. to STFU or
Jon Banquer that he missed the spaceship."

I guess I will just have to pray that my "spaceship" does not
need complex aesthetically pleasing lines which require C2
tangency and curvature continuance because if it does, and it
was designed with SolidWorks 2004, I'm in real deep shit. ;>)

BTW, did you know that Mars is really not made of green
cheese ? ;>)

jon

 

"Maybe there are too many bugs in D-Cubed's initial code?"

That would be my guess. Also, as I have mentioned many times
before shouldn't much of this not really be in D-Cubed 3D
DCM not just 2D DCM ?

"Is SolidWorks just the middlemen in some of this bug
reporting stuff?"

Actually I think SolidWorks Corp. pushes and lends more help
to their 3 party software component suppliers than any other
vendor.

The problem is that SolidWorks Corp. is really not capable
of doing what other CAD/CAM companies do.... not relying so
heavily on 3 party software component suppliers and doing it
themselves.

jon

 

I don't think they are serious either, that unfortunately comes from the

Good point about the user base, which is largely mechanical. Another
very real possiblity is that the labor needed to improve these tools
may not translate to any proportional increase in revenue for the
company relative to developing another program function which may be
more lucrative (actual or percieved).

Sombody in that company has to be setting priority on what gets
programming resources and what does not - marketing always has input
on what they think they can sell. Their primary stated focus is
mechanical design. I think ID (and things like splines by extension)
are maybe taken as an afterthought. When I think of ID software I
think of things like alias and . . . umm . . . umm . . . things like
that (that's at least what my IDing brother uses).

We should not lose sight of the fact that SolidWorks corp is a
business in business to do what businesses do - make profit.
Unfortunately, what a customer wants and needs may even be known, but
perhaps it is not deemed as soemthing that will return revenue to the
company. Maybe this is the case with some of these functions.

Personaly I have waited in vain for many improvements in things that
seem blatantly obvious to me as anemic (not splines but things perhaps
as badly needed for my situation). Perhaps the coders for SW also
understand these particular limitations as well as I do but have no
compelling reason to improve them (yes - we all have things about the
program we know can be improved and are perpetually asking why? - Look
how long it too for them to implement the ability to re-pick the
sketch surface for hole wizard features - at least 3 years and this
was a reallllllllllly obvious bad thing).

You can be sure someone is doing ROI analysis on what to blow off and
what to fix. Unfortunately the little things get blown off, but it's
the little thinks that make the whole darn watch tick - who cares
about the diamond encrusted gold plated bezel if the thing won't tell
time accurately?

Regards,

SMA

The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good.

 

To Jon - I have begin on this laughing too much

Glad it made you laugh, Habib. :>)

Hope others get a kick out of it as well.

Best wishes,

jon

 

To Jon - I have begin on this laughing too much onto the floor too now!!

Habib

 

There are many non-ID mechanical applications that require curvature control
or at least better spline manipulation:
..Gear teeth
..pump involutes
..nozzles
..airfoils

Also, equation-driven curves would do wonders for SW's credibility, which
would do wonders in turn for their marketability.

 

http://www.frontiernet.net/~mlombard/

go to macros library link, look for eqcurve. run the macro, type in an
equation, and it will build a spline for you in a sketch. other people on
the SW site have 3D equation macros

matt

 

yes I think a wish list/forum would be a good idea.
I think we need to get specific requests worked out that really would
enhance how users actually tackle real world projects.
it seems to me only the people with a real interest in
surfaces -minority?-are going to be motivated enough to push for change.
unless we articulate our requirements to SW and get them a priority the
functional improvements we seek will be continually bypassed in favour of
marketing fluff.

 

"Do you think that an "advanced surfacing only" wish-list
(or even a wish thread) would help?"

Would be even better if you had an employee at SolidWorks
who actually wanted to see the proper "advanced surfacing
only" wish-list implemented.

Seems to me that Mark Biasotti should be the one presenting
this list....

Why Mark Biasotti ???

Because SolidWorks Corp. has at least 20 seats to gain just
from his account and he seems to have good relations with
SolidWorks employees.

The only thing that concerns me is that Mark Biasotti seems
to settle for very little. Perhaps with a group of angry
SolidWorks users behind him he might get tougher. :>)

How happy do you think SolidWorks management and employees
were with Mark Biasotti's Pro/E vs SolidWorks article. I'd
say not many !!! This is a good thing. That entire article
should be place on a website where it can be seen by anybody
and referred to constantly in this newsgroup.

jon

 

After feeling like shit and looking for an olive tree all day I will now
offer a branch to all. My remark last night to JeffN was out of line, and
Jeff, I apologize to you for it. I must say however,that I did feel a sense
of belittlement from my fellow Solidworks users.
We made Solidworks our primary cad software last year after banging our head
against the wall with our previous stuff. I can remember ranting aqainst the
ineffective beta programs with our prior software like you guys are doing
with Solidworks. I can certainly sympathize when things you have been asking
for and complaining about fail to get fixed.
I am coming from the perspective of seeing capability that our other program
couldn't dream about. After 32 years at this game, Solidworks has made it
fun again for me.
While we have no need for surfaces, we do create fairly extensive models
with a lot of moving parts and sheet metal. These two capabilities alone
were enough to make us switch. Assemblies, configurations, parametrics and
Cosmosxpress (limited as it is!) have been added bonuses.
While I will never claim to be a power user or submitter of problems, when I
do submit problems and they are fixed it certainly makes me feel good about
the company I am dealing with.
Do I have bitches and does the software crash? You bet. Am I an apoligist
for Solidworks, no way.
I too come here for enlightenment and have been able to offer the occasional
tidbit of help to others.
Also I think that even though the majority of us are using software paid for
by our companies the onus is on us to perform in our jobs. If the software
is blamed for lack of performance, management can only think that we didn't
do proper "due diligence" in our selection. While we don't have the same out
of pocket expenses that the "for hire" guys do our jobs certainly depend on
software performance and we have the same incentive to make it better.
Well thats all for now, I'll just lurk around here for a while.

 

Functionality is pretty independent of the kernel.

UG uses parasolid, and has incredible functionality. The kernel, be
it ACIS or parasolid, is just the last step in expressing the
geometric result of a surface modelling routine.

 

"Functionality is pretty independent of the kernel."

Wrong. Let me give you some examples of why your wrong and
how wrong you are. I don't mean to be rude but you are way
off base and I'm more than happy to prove it.

"UG uses parasolid, and has incredible functionality."

Yes it does. However the Parasolid kernel is devoid of the
surfacing routines that are in Unigraphics. UGS PLM Solutions
(their new name this week) is not about to give away the
farm ! When a company chooses to use Parasolid and they wish
to offer a full featured hybrid modeler that company *MUST
marry outside surfacing routines to Parasolid* and try and get both
to play nice. Good "F"ing luck ... It doesn't work very well.

Would you like a reference that will confirm this for you ?
This company clearly states that they have married their
surfacing routines to Parasolid. Why ??? Because the needed
surfacing routines are not in Parasolid. Just ask and I'll
provide the reference.

* Most people in this newsgroup have no idea that with ACIS
not only are the surfacing routines there but the spline
routines are there as well. *

If SolidWorks used ACIS as it's modeling kernel users of
SolidWorks would not be having the massive problems with
splines that they are having now.

Concepts users ACIS. Anyone can call Concepts and they will
be glad to tell you that the spline routines in Concepts are
a part of the ACIS kernel.

jon

 

"Would you like a reference that will confirm this for you ?
This company clearly states that they have married their
surfacing routines to Parasolid. Why ??? Because the needed
surfacing routines are not in Parasolid. Just ask and I'll
provide the reference."

Tell you what, you don't even have to ask. Here is proof of
what I have stated for many years in this newsgroup:

http://www.vero-software.com/corporate.htm

"Despite the limitations of the early personal computers the
products were always designed to run on the PC platforms,
first under MS-DOS and later within the Windows environment.
Initial expansion was fuelled by an innovative approach to
three dimensional modelling and machining. Having developed
its own surface modelling and been among the first practical
PC applications for free form design, the company went on to
propose the first PC implementation of the EDS Parasolid
modeller which has latterly become so popular with software
developers and is now the de-facto standard for solid
modellers."

As you can now tell from what is above, Vero Software was the first
company to license Parasolid kernel and marry their
surfacing routines to Parasolid.

* If Parasolid had the needed functionality, Vero would not of
had to marry their surfacing routines to Parasolid !!! *

Further, SolidWorks would not be having the problems it has with
trying to get surfacing to work with Parasolid.

The surfacing tools that are needed to create a true hybrid modeler
simply do not exist in the Parasolid kernel.

Concepts has no such problems... why ??? Because Tim Olson
the creator and owner of Concepts is smart enough to use
ACIS.

Note, Autodesk was smart enough to purchase ACIS code at
version 7 and rest their future on developing that code in
what they now call ShapeManager.

Simply put, when a company chooses to use Parasolid they get
the most robust solid kernel in the business. What they
don't get is a hybrid modeling kernel. As ACIS has gotten
better and better it has become a much more viable solution.

Alibre uses ACIS
IronCAD uses ACIS
Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt uses ACIS
Autodesk Inventor is based on ACIS
Cadkey Workshop uses ACIS
Concepts uses ACIS
Cimatron uses ACIS

ACIS is far and away a more complete solution than
Parasolid. ACIS, while still maybe not quite as robust as
Parasolid at solid modeling, is and has been good enough.

jon

 

This is how Don LaCourse describes ACIS.

http://www.cadalyst.com/features/0500kernel/

"ACIS is an object-oriented C++ geometry library that
comprises 35 DLLs and integrates wire frame, surface, and
solid modeling with both manifold and nonmanifold topology.
It gives application developers a rich set of geometric
operations for constructing and manipulating complex models.
These include blending, sweeping, imprinting, covering,
lofting, skinning, offsetting, slicing, stitching,
sectioning, fitting, and interpolating surfaces. ACIS also
offers a complete set of regularized and nonregularized
Boolean operations, and length, area, and mass property
inquiry functions. Its Laws Symbolic Math Interface and
NURBS-based deformation allow the integration of surface and
solid modeling. The ACIS kernel outputs a SAT file format
that any ACIS-enabled application can read directly. "

Now lets take a look at how Don LaCourse describes VX's UPG2
kernel used in Vision:

"UPG2 (Unified Parametric Geometry-Second Generation) is a
proprietary robust geometric modeling kernel unique to the
CAD/CAM system VX Vision (figure 6) from Varimetrix
(www.vx.com). UPG2 integrates solid, surface, wire frame,
and drafting geometry as well as process, tool path, and
other product information in a single, unified database."

The UPG2 kernel addresses the full range of 3D modeling
tasks, from industrial design through mechanical engineering
to mold and tool design within the context of VX Vision's
Unified Modeling environment. This environment adapts
hybrid-modeling techniques in a transparent manner so
designers can seamlessly work in and move among solid,
surface, and wire frame representations.

"UPG2 supports such functions as nonmanifold shapes,
unlimited undo/redo, object versioning, advanced free-form
surface creation, complex filleting and blending, and true
in-context modeling of assemblies. The kernel's Proximity
Compliant Tolerancing uses incremental, on-the-fly healing
technology rather than fixed, relative or adaptive schemes.
This provides substantial improvement in performance,
according to the company."


jon

 

re: "I don't mean to be rude ..."

I've noticed that you are very much so, to nearly everyone. Just an observation.

 

.....but I won't let that fact stop me from following up on your
suggested reading.

I had the opportunity to do some major model surgery on Pro/E
(pre-Granite) and parasolid in UG. Parasolid is nearly alive when it
comes to healing abilities. Definitely a cut above what Pro/E had
(was it ACIS?)

I don't know the politics that keep others from fully exploiting
parasolid's possibilities, but I have seen quite well what it can do.

 

I've noticed that you are very much so, to nearly everyone. Just an

I'm working on it.

jon

observation.