verification on rebuild !!!????

Dear users,

Can anyone shead some light on why "verification on rebuild"
in the options list is soooooo important to have turned on?

We have experienced so many problems creating CAD geometry
without it on and then after turning it on everything is RED.

Enlighten me

 

Verification is turned off by default for performance reasons. For most
models, the extra error checking is overkill. For models where there is
any sort of even marginally "questionable" geometry, you might consider
turning it on. There are people who recommend having it on all the
time, but I'm not one of them. I use it occasionally. Turn it on,
ctrlQ, Tools>Check, turn it off. It can pack a 20% - 60% (approx)
performance hit, which is why I like to work with it off, but making bad
geometry also costs time, which is why I turn it on and use it now and
then.

As for what entails "even marginally questionable geometry", I don't
have a good definition, but definitely anything that has slivers, 2 or 3
sided patches, puckers, dark spots, missing faces, a lot of edges coming
together at a single point, other features that fail randomly or for no
apparent reason, etc are good candidates.

It seems to take a bigger toll on solids than on surfaces, and shells
and fillets are said to be the biggest culprits.

There is a thread called "Verification on rebuild" from July 29 2005
where this was discussed in greater detail.

Matt

 

If you have problems before using Verification on Rebuild (VOB) then
you will likely have more after turning VOB on. The other tool for
checking the integrity of a part is the TOOLS/CHECK menu pick. Not
everything reported by TOOLS/CHECK is fatal. Usually General Faults are
fatal. Think of VOB as the smoke detector in your house. You won't have
that annoying beeping with the smoke detectors off during a fire, but
the end result of having them off will not be pleasant. Like a smoke
detector, VOB can tell you about a problem before you get too far
along.

If you are creating geometry that doesn't pass VOB or TOOLS/CHECK with
the feature option, then you really want to find out how to create good
geometry.

 

You have to decide what takes more time: SWx rebuilds, or having your guys
go back and redo entire models because they are bad.
I work with it on because most of my time is spent designing (thinking
through stuff) not waiting for the computer to rebuild. It just sucks to
lose half a day of work because there was a problem in the model that you
didn't know about.
Another risk to working with VOB off is that once a model is bad other
features will have trouble merging with it. When this happens folks blame
the new feature, not the real culprit because they don't know what the real
culprit is! I saw a model from a customer where the guy worked for three
months working around problems in the model that were caused by one of the
first features - three months of wasted work that could have been avoided if
he worked with verification on rebuild on.
When I showed my guys verification on rebuild and let them make the choice,
they all have decided to do the same. All it takes is losing two hours to
an insrcutiable error to get a guy to convert.

I won't tell you how to work, but I urge you to at least consider turning it
on and Ctrl+Q your models at least once a day. Of course, this takes time
and runs a lot of risk in losing up to a day of work, but some guys think
its more efficient than running with VOB on. Maybe corporate guys can
absorb losing hours or days of work, but consultants like me have to make it
right the first time because we eat the cost of our mistakes. If a rebuild
goes long I can check my email or do some research - and remember, the extra
rebuild time is a few seconds, so I was already looking at my email anyway
and wouldn't notice it.

 

Ed, this doesn't happen much, but I've got to disagree with you here.
This statement seems a little over blown. I've never had to redo an
entire model because of having verification off. Usually, it's a single
feature that has to get tweeked or created a different way. I don't
typically get through an entire model without turning it on unless its
pretty simple. I'm not suggesting working with it off all the time,
just using it selectively.

Last week I was working with it on, just to see if I could get used to
it, but I found I probably don't get as much email as you do. My
computer is only a single processor, but it has turned in the fastest
times I've seen for some of the benchmarks posted to this ng. Anyway,
with it on, SW still missed a bad solid face (created by cut with
surface using a plane), which didn't manifest itself unil 15 features
later, when a move face command created an invalid solid, and I had to
go finding it manually.

Anyway, I'll stick with my earlier opinion that the importance of
working with this on all the time is being overstated, partially since
the errors are rare enough, partially because depending on what you're
doing the performance hit is so large, and also now that it seems that
it isn't 100% effective anyway.

matt

 

Matt,

I've had things go south more than once because I didn't have VOB on.
And while working for a VAR I saw a lot of cases where VOB would have
prevented a tech support call. I don't think Ed is exaggerating.

 

I recently have had the discussion with development as to whether it is
a good idea to have it off by default. I agree with Matt and also Ed
only because I know the kind of stuff Ed works on and I followed the
same practice (VOB On) when I was doing CPD at IDEO. But when it comes
to machine design and doing simple stuff I don't think it makes sense
to have it on. So I see benefits both ways and I'm glad we have it but
I am wondering what you guys think about having it off by default,
especially for the new user and the potential of lack of
discoverability.

Mark

 

There are many things like Verification on Rebuild (how'd it get dubbed
voB, why not voR?) such as ctrlQ, several of the sketch settings and the
various functions of the Alt key that SolidWorks for one reason or
another doesn't do well at communicating. First, the software is too
deep for new users to know everything. Third party consultants like me
have a bonanza with obscure knowledge that people don't know, because
seemingly complex problems are sometimes actually very easy to fix if
you know the settings inside and out.

In terms of "discoverability", improved documentation would be most
useful. I've been trying to push a "CAD Admin" training class for
SolidWorks which would cover topics like this. A series of white papers
written by experts in various types of design would be extremely
helpful. There are a lot of things SW could do to get the word out and
unleash more software power for more people. There are tons of very
useful and at the same time underused functions in the softare.

Matt

 

Off by default still makes sense. VOB is needed when building what I
would call Class 4 geometry. That is the stuff on Ed's performance list
that really slows down the computer. It is also the place where SW is
most likely to need the extra checking. Class 1 Prismatic extruded
holes without draft or complex filleting certainly doesn't need VOB and
that is where the lion's share of SW users are IMHO.

Matt is right, I guess it should be VOR but VOB seems to work too.

 

I don't like the term discoverable. This implies that you must put things
out for people to trip over - this is why we have what become so annoying
help messages everywhere- and it also implies that there are so many nooks
and crannies to visit you must provide clues everywhere. People need a map
not a piece of string to follow.
The fault lies in not giving us 3 levels of user expertise and also not
giving a sufficient overview and discussion in the help.
While it is not practical to print help these days it is practical to
include a booklet with chapters pertaining to admin options, workflow, basic
best practices etc. Simply listing functions and icons is not enough in
itself.
SW is a large application to get your head around these days if you are a
newbie.
It should still be possible to park yourself up with a book somewhere for a
couple of hours and emerge confident that you know how to attack something
even if you are not familiar with all the bits in your face.
So yes the new and the sometime user should expect to produce correct
models.

 

I think when the term discoverable is used it implies that the user has
to perform some experimentation to find out how it works or what it
does. It isn't in the documentation to trip over or even find. It isn't
in the knowledge base either.

Being discoverable implies "undocumented" which also means that what is
discovered in one release or SP might not be there in another and
certainly won't have any grounds for generating an SPR if it does break
down the road. The problem is that a lot of behavior that everybody
depends on (including the VAR's tech support people) is not clearly
documented. Has a VAR ever told you that it works in 2005 when it
doesn't in 2004 and yet how it should work is not in the online help?

Just off the top of my head, discoverable things are things like you
can't model an object larger than 1km.

 

Ok I see your viewpoint but I think Mark was worrying that removing the
default setting would mean people simply wouldn't find the tool and run into
difficulties.
VOR and CrtlQ are in the help if people care to read it.
I am surprised that a user will get so far into using SW for complex work
and remain ignorant of it. How can you be aware of variable and face fillets
etc etc -presumably from reading the help in the first place and yet not see
that anywhere?
If there is a failing it is not so much as that it is not there but people
don't pay attention to it or that as I indicated previously the overview is
missing - people fail to see the whole mission.
If they make everything fail safe we will have pop ups everywhere and each
and every option will be turned on and SW will run like a slug.
Re undoc stuff - perhaps the good folk preparing the release notes for each
sp need to be more explicit about changes than the few lines they usually
give - and also indicate any noteworthy revisions in the help file itself -
although I apply the new file I am not actually aware if there is a new
paragraph in there and I don't re-read the whole thing each time to find
out.
BTW I was under the impression that if something works in the next release
it is because they simply didn't get bugs sorted by the time sp5 rolled
out.... {

(-aside- I wonder if SW64 bit allow bigger objects?)