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egifford12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
March 1, 2013
Question

Dual Monitors

  • March 1, 2013
  • 25 replies
  • 8778 views

I'm curious as to how many of you out there are running Pro/E (Creo) on a dual monitor setup. I'm trying to separate the coolness factor from what is truly gained by having two screens. Having been a Pro/E CAD operator full time for many years I can see it as being helpful in several scenarios:



  • when assembling a component, having it open in a separate window on the 2nd screen

  • having a reference drawing open on the 2nd screen

  • reference part or assembly model open on second screen

  • PLM system open on second screen

  • other applications open while Pro/E is on its own screen

As a CAD admin I'd have to build a business case for it, we'd be looking at buying minimum of 50 monitors. I know I'd have some users that wouldn't want a second screen andsome to whom it would be a constant distraction. For those of youthat are using two screens, what are your thoughts? In what ways do you feel it improves your work process? I don't see it as something that is easy to quantify to justify the cost, especially if it starts the "two monitors" snowball rolling down the hill (all of a sudden it's $20k in monitors).


What technical issues / glitches have you run into?


I started a survey over on the PTC community page here: http://communities.ptc.com/polls/1312


Thanks


Erik


(WF4 M220, PDMLink 10 M030, Dell T3400-T3600, Win7 64, Nvidia Quadro 600 typical)



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25 replies

D
dandersonjr1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 2, 2013
Dual Monitors or a large 40" monitor are more efficient.
It really boils down to how efficient you want the users to be?
It's the same decision as we look back to when we went from the board to
CAD.
How much eye strain do you want to force on your users, what would that cost
the company down the road?

With the savings over the course of years how many more projects could you
complete or what is the value of a customer having their problem resolved 2
seconds sooner?

Sometimes people just need to use a little common sense and not just look at
the dollars and cents.



I do not have dual monitors at work but have been asking for them for years.
(do have 3 of them at home in fact)



Just my 2 cents.

Don Anderson


J
jeffsampson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 2, 2013
body{font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:9pt;background-color: #ffffff;color: black;}Erik,I agree with the items you list, most of which I do quite often. I have most of my non-CAD programs on the second monitor (email, word, excel) so when an email pops up, it's easy to read without having windows get hidden or losing track of where you were. It's also helpful when you need to have reference data or a pdf file to look at as you are doing your modeling. Pulling dims from a supplier drawing into your sketch is much quicker with 2 monitors. Even editing notes in Word and copy>paste into a note in Pro is helpful. I just switched jobs this week and I'm back to a single monitor - it's painful!
Jeff
--Jeff Sampson -
What technical issues / glitches have you run into?
I started a survey over on the PTC community page here:
J
JonathanHodgson13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
March 4, 2013
Hi Erik,

We've had dual (4:3) monitors for a few years now and wouldn't go back - for me they're more useful than a single widescreen.

They allow for a multitude of usage options - not so much within Pro/E, but for working between applications.


* Reference drawing on second monitor (Pro/E)

* Source model for a feature copy/paste on second monitor (Pro/E)

* AutoCAD and Pro/E (we define our layouts in 2D then model in 3D)

* Excel and a CAD application

* Mechanica on one with status windows, etc, on the other

* CAD for screengrab on one, Powerpoint on the other

* Excel or CAD on one, email composition on the other

* Web or PDF catalogue (circlips, bearings, fittings, etc) and CAD or Excel (or Mathcad of course)

In all cases, it both saves the time taken to Alt+Tab between windows, and allows you to keep two applications in view so your thought process isn't interrupted whenever you need to 'flick back' to the other one. It's particularly valuable when transferring or referring to sets of numbers - such as tolerances and fits, or bearing capacities for calculations.

I agree that it's hard to justify with a simple financial value, but here's one: it may often save printing out reference drawings or catalogue pages. Otherwise, you could perhaps compare it to a faster CPU in that it will speed up your overall workflow by a few moments, many times a day.

We have nVidia FX 3800 cards in our workstations and I don't think we've had any problems; the second monitor was pretty much plug-and-play. These cards only have one DVI connector, so the second monitor needed a DisplayPort to DVI adaptor... that's about it!

HTH and good luck,
Jonathan
O
ocorten-212-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
March 4, 2013
Great summary of use cases.

We switched over to a dual setup many years ago when we moved away from CRT's.

We gave the users two options to choose from:24" TFT wide (1920x1200)22" TFT wide (1680x1050) +
19" TFT (1280x1024)
We had them both setup in a separate room so they could come and experience the difference before choosing.

With 50 users their choice was divided about 50/50 between these two options.
The choice for one 24" Wide screen was made for the larger working area in ProE.


Kind regards,

Olaf Corten




Olaf Corten
CAD/PLM Manager
Besi Netherlands B.V.
Ratio 6, Duiven
Phone: +31 26 3196215
Mobile: +31 644548554
www.besi.com






From: "Hodgson, Jonathan P" <->
To: "-" <->
Date: 04-03-2013 10:08
Subject: [proecad] - RE: Dual Monitors



Hi Erik,

We’ve had dual (4:3) monitors for a few years now and wouldn’t go back – for me they’re more useful than a single widescreen.

They allow for a multitude of usage options – not so much within Pro/E, but for working between applications.

· Reference drawing on second monitor (Pro/E)
· Source model for a feature copy/paste on second monitor (Pro/E)
· AutoCAD and Pro/E (we define our layouts in 2D then model in 3D)
· Excel and a CAD application
· Mechanica on one with status windows, etc, on the other
· CAD for screengrab on one, Powerpoint on the other
· Excel or CAD on one, email composition on the other
· Web or PDF catalogue (circlips, bearings, fittings, etc) and CAD or Excel (or Mathcad of course)

In all cases, it both saves the time taken to Alt+Tab between windows, and allows you to keep two applications in view so your thought process isn’t interrupted whenever you need to ‘flick back’ to the other one. It’s particularly valuable when transferring or referring to sets of numbers – such as tolerances and fits, or bearing capacities for calculations.

I agree that it’s hard to justify with a simple financial value, but here’s one: it may often save printing out reference drawings or catalogue pages. Otherwise, you could perhaps compare it to a faster CPU in that it will speed up your overall workflow by a few moments, many times a day.

We have nVidia FX 3800 cards in our workstations and I don’t think we’ve had any problems; the second monitor was pretty much plug-and-play. These cards only have one DVI connector, so the second monitor needed a DisplayPort to DVI adaptor… that’s about it!

HTH and good luck,
Jonathan
A
AdamDorsch1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 4, 2013

Erik


We went to dual monitors in the CAD group here a few months back for the reasons you listed as well as some that Jonathan listed. I cannot see ever going back. Having the ability to have multiple screens open at once without having to shrink them to one side of the monitor or the other or having to bounce between screen is a huge time saver.



We are running dual 23" flat screens.



Adam

P
ptc-19327451-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 4, 2013
As probably mamny others have noted, we use single / dual monitors
typically as follows:



Dual Monitors:

* 2 NC sessions up at the same time to check differences /
similarities

* 1 Pro-e session on one monitor, one reference design on 2nd
monitor

Typically two monitors are used when comparing two different things.

We were having weird issues with side menus (old menus) coming up on the
wrong monitor for a session, but I think that has been pretty much
solved.



Large Single monitor

* Larger working space for menus, designs, etc...

* My older eyes like a larger monitor.

It seems though that lately by having pro-e change from side menus to a
ribbon, the advantage is a wide monitor is diminished.



All things considered, monitors are pretty inexpensive and reusable
across workstation upgrades, but having a decent card to drive them is
important. We are using NVIDIA FX3800's which work pretty well with
C-E-P 5 and Win 7.



Do whatever makes your users happy,



Christopher F. Gosnell



FPD Company

124 Hidden Valley Road

McMurray, PA 15317
D
DonSenchuk12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
March 4, 2013

I started using a dual setup in 2006. For myself, on the few occasions I've had to temporarily move to a single monitor there were many times the single-monitor setup felt much slower.


There have also been studies done about the productivity increase.


http://www.corecommunication.ca/4-studies-which-show-that-using-a-second-monitor-can-boost-productivity/


Three of these show an increase from a low of 9% to a high of 52% in productivity. (The fourth one only studied larger monitors compared to smaller monitors for a range of 39-74% increase in productivity.)



In Reply to Erik Gifford:



I'm curious as to how many of you out there are running Pro/E (Creo) on a dual monitor setup. I'm trying to separate the coolness factor from what is truly gained by having two screens. Having been a Pro/E CAD operator full time for many years I can see it as being helpful in several scenarios:



  • when assembling a component, having it open in a separate window on the 2nd screen

  • having a reference drawing open on the 2nd screen

  • reference part or assembly model open on second screen

  • PLM system open on second screen

  • other applications open while Pro/E is on its own screen

As a CAD admin I'd have to build a business case for it, we'd be looking at buying minimum of 50 monitors. I know I'd have some users that wouldn't want a second screen andsome to whom it would be a constant distraction. For those of youthat are using two screens, what are your thoughts? In what ways do you feel it improves your work process? I don't see it as something that is easy to quantify to justify the cost, especially if it starts the "two monitors" snowball rolling down the hill (all of a sudden it's $20k in monitors).


What technical issues / glitches have you run into?


I started a survey over on the PTC community page here: http://communities.ptc.com/polls/1312


Thanks


Erik



R
rrich1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 4, 2013
Dual monitors NO, but I am using three. However, Creo is just on one of these. There is no way to make it play seamlessly on dual or three. If you wish to have another window on a different monitor you must drag it to there and resize it appropriately. The other monitors are invaluable in that you can open other applications (windchill, word, powerpoint, paintshop, or whatever) on them and see them at all times. You do not need to spend a lot of money on the side monitors or even get the same size as the main one. At work I use two 24" 1920x1200 monitors and my laptop screen of 1920x1080 but any combination should work. At home I have only two but will get a third soon. I have a 30" main 2560x1600 and a side 21" 1600x900 I run in portrait, the side one I picked up for $70 black Friday. I plan to add another side monitor soon for a triple screen setup at home also.

Again don't go crazy, buy some low cost side monitors. There are plenty of decent 23-24" 1920x1080 monitors out there for $120-$150. You can even find some 24" 1920x1200 for $250-$300. Better than your $400 estimate.

Some users will resist, but after a while they all come around. Having more is better, haven't you seen the Verizon commercials? Don't forget that 10-12 years ago we use to beg for a 21" 1280x1024 monitor that cost $2300 and weighed 100lbs. And we ran on workstations costing 5, 6, or even $12K or more. Now a good powerfull computer can be had for about $1-2K and monitors at $400 seem petty.

Technically our newest Dell laptops M6600 with Nvidia 4000 graphics have no real problems with the setup. I have only one of the recent laptops that is a little sketchy on docking, hooking a projector then redocking after the meeting but recently I put a new driver on and worked out the issues and now it seems to work pretty well. (Note I also switched out a very old 19" 1280x1024 screen for a newer 24") The screen swap may have been better than the driver update. Newer monitors are better at plug and play(identify) than the old early LCD types.

Side note. Some of the users in my company also use a third party software to add additional functionality to multi monitor setups. Multimon is one such software but I think they use something else now. Low cost ~$30-50 for software but gives you buttons for quickly tossing screens from one monitor to another, allows you to have the task bar on all the windows, allows different backgrounds on each monitor, flashy functions like this are provided with these softwares.

In all I would never go back to just one monitor.

Ron
J
JamesKasson1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 4, 2013
We are using dual 24" monitors here. The only thing better than two would be three. Years ago we used the NVidia software for dealing with window location, etc., but it was pretty buggy, so we switched to UltraMon and have been happy with that.

Regards,
James
J
JOES1-Visitor
1-Visitor
March 4, 2013

I just want to say that I in my opinion, all computer users can benefit from dual monitors. Maybe not a mail room clerk or the receptionist. All the uses & benefits have been covered rather well in this thread.

Personally I have two Dell 20" Ultrascans 1600 X 1200 couldn't be happier. At home I use two 27" 1920 X 1200 which might be a bit on the large size for Pro/Creo. I can't imagine going back to one monitor. Or having to give up my 1200 horizontal lines. Dual monitors enable higher productivity. At todays prices it seems to me to be a no brainer to provide them to users. Consider what we used to pay for 21" monitors & Unix workstations...!


Regards, Joe S.

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