So, they want me to learn SolidQuirks.....

I've just re-activated my SW license after 3 years. Crew just doesn't seem to move on and everything is another "paid module". Its easy for me to see why people are migrating to it I'm afraid. PTC just seem happy to send out endless videos of the CEO etc whilst Dassault send out tips and tricks tutorials that actually help.

I did a three day intro, and what was clear it that SW is intuitive, you spend more of your time doing the engineering / inventing / design as opposed to learning the system.

I've been using ProE then Creo as a product designer for about 15 years, and I still feel it is the most unintuitive CAD package I've ever encountered. Just try copy and paste in a drawing as the most basic example - why does it feel like something from the 1980s, well, perhaps because thats when half of it was written.

Good luck with SW, I think you will like it. 

Stephen

Sooo, my new boss, the one who wants us to convert to SW so badly, had MCAD come in for a demo today.  Prior to this, I sent them some surfacing files and other models to try and reproduce.  The guy who came in, showed a new model containing my model (brought in as a STEP) and one next to it he did in SW and it looked good at first.....until I looked at the geometry.  He was not able to reproduce the models I sent, but rather kind of cheated.  Yes, he didn't have a ton of time to work on the models, but he had all of Friday, and the weekend, and this morning, and was not able to reproduce any of them.  There is no graph feature, and the curve by equation wasn't as powerful.  No trajpar, so instead of doing things easily within the VSS, you're forced to make several curves, and they're not as easy as doing it in Pro/E.  No spinal bend either.

I figured he wouldn't be able to make most of them, but I was more disappointed that instead of simply saying he couldn't quite do it, he showed us a zoomed-out view of "sorta" the geometry that I wanted, then claimed he had made the geometry and then wanted to switch to something else.....until I stopped him and showed that he had not actually made the geometry.  I'm sure vendors like that HATE me, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't make them do the hard stuff.

From what I see, SW has closed the gap.....not not there yet.  Maybe for many, or even most, people, these tools never get used by them and they don't care.  I DO use them as part of my job (Industrial Design), and I DO care.  I'd have to say I plan on becoming an expert in SW also, but for new designs, I'd still recommend Pro/E for it's power.

Think of this analogy:  How often do you need to use the emergency Room at the hospital.....but aren't you glad it's always there? 

But hey, they brought lunch for us! 

I made 2 identical parts.  In Pro/E I have the ability to define different sets (series of line elements, or faces) of rounds within the same feature, and define the type of round I want.  For each set, I can choose from a section that is circular, conic (with 2 editable parameters), a C2 Continuous (with 2 editable parameters), D1 X D2 Conic (with 3 editable parameters), or a D1 X D2 C2 (with 3 editable parameters).  In SW I only have the option of a conic, and I didn't see a way to add the equation { (sd5 = sqrt(2) - 1 } to create the true arc, and just had to truncate that to .414.

Also, i can sketch a curve on the surface of a part, and can make the radius change to follow the curve and have my choice of section type above.

So, I did a surface analysis of these 2 parts (the reflection analysis tools having a bunch of options whereas the SW "zebra stripes" has none), and the Pro/E part had nice smooth transitions from the planar surfaces, and the SW part had abrupt contour changes everywhere.

You can expect all goodness.  SW is SO much better and more intuitive than Creo.  We are fighting to stay on SW.  Corporate is forcing Pro-E.

The ease of 3D Sketch, you can replace a part with an assy, when creating an assy you can move items after you place them with out rolling back and losing the ability to reference those later place components.

Switch with happiness.  SW in your future is reason to give thanks on turkey day.

I did a blend in my ancient version of creo, and asked the local guy to recreate the models.  On several of them, he got somewhat close....ish, but that's not good enough for me.  Some were way off.  I can honsetly say he was not able to reproduce a single model the way I had it, and needed it.  Here's an example of part where I joined 3 different diameter tubes at different angles.  In creo, we have an "n-sided Patch", which, while the interface is a little cumbersome when setting up the C2 edge constraints, actually did a great job, in 1 feature.  Nice smooth patch.  In SW, it appears he had to do a bunch of patches (more features, more complexity, more time spent, more fragile), and still couldn't get the smoothness, and even had a pretty bad curvature reversal.....NOT something you want in a mold.  The SW quilt is on the left, the creo part on the right ("zebra" and section curve analysis).

what's up Bart, its been a while man!

anyway, I have used both, and they both have pros and cons, I am not a super user like some of you guys, but stand behind pro-e, I like SW but I prefer pro-e, I don't understand whats the hate about SW guys have towards pro-e but its kind of silly.

when I learned SW after about 10 years on pro-e I did what most probably do and I tried running SW like I would pro-e and SW choked and choked and choked.it does not like large assemblies with flat model trees, you got to make a bunch of sub assemblies to keep it happy. even though SW guys love the whole picking mates from all over the model tree order, I think that's what makes it choke with the larger assemblies if you start thinking about how it has to calculate all its mates scattered all over the model tree instead or organized like pro-e.

I do like the fact u can pick faces and get the mates menu to pop up same with the constraints menu in the sketcher, but other areas are just pretty lame. as mentioned before the flexibility to create datum planes and axis etc etc etc is very sorry to say the least.

3d sketching is cool but nothing to write home about.

weldment module is pretty cool, but sheetmetal module is a little clunky, last I used it you couldn't do a swept flange in sheetmetal, something really simple to do in pro/sheetmetal.

SW guys are non stop about the extra clicks u got to do in pro-e like its the end of the world, YES SW is more intuitive, no doubt about that, but its almost like a pilot saying he rather fly a Cessna because a F16 has too many buttons or a racecar driver saying a YUGO is more intuitive than a Formula1 racecar.

anyway, i think if SW guys gave pro-e a honest try, instead of just gripping how much better SW is or trying to run pro-e like its SW, if they got to that magical point when u understand just enough about pro-e to where u could sort of stumble your way thru the other modules, maybe they would have a better appreciation of it, and at the bare minimum its not a bad thing to have on your resume but my experience is some SW guys almost rather do a career change before learning pro-e...

Carlos