Future plans of Elements Direct

[mverhoeven]

Hi All,

The future of Elements Direct is pretty clear now, it seems:

1. Elements direct has entered 'maintenance mode', as no real development efforts are made anymore, it's in some distant corner of the website, and the original development team doesn't exist anymore.

2. Creo Direct (positioned as the new direct modeler where we could migrate to) is not going anywhere and isn't positioned as next step for Elements Direct anymore. It's not even mentioned as Creo CAD anymore (only parametric is there now).

3. Parametric has some 'direct capabilities', and they seem to work hard to make transitioning to Parametric as easy as possible (migrating 2D drawings for example).

So, PTC has clearly decided that Elements Direct is going to be phased out. I would like to know what the future plans of users are. I can think of a few options:

1. Switch to Parametric

2. Switch to another CAD system

3. Hold on as long as possible and keep maintenance

4. Hold on as long as you can keep it running without maintenance

5. A combination of the above

For our business the direct modeling is vital and there currently is no good alternative available. Also, we have a lot of software developed on top of Elements Direct. So we decided to hold on (for now with maintenance), but start investigating other CAD options and keep an eye on all the developments. My first impression is that we will definitely not switch to Creo Parametric. PTC doesn't seem to keep our interests high on their priority list and parametric doesn't match with our business. I think we will start testing Solid Edge Synchronous technology as our first step. At this point maintenance is only an insurance for future platform support, but even new versions can be tricky. For us version 19 already had more new bugs than features, but there was windows 10 support. Not sure how long we will keep maintenance. It's a gamble how long the software works nicely on new versions of windows and graphics cards.

What are your plans? Are you going to switch as soon as possible or are you going to hold on as long as possible?

[ThomasKirkman]

My hope has always been the PTC sells elements/direct modeling off.  It is a good program despite PTC.

Regards

Tom

[mverhoeven]

That would be nice, but I don't see it happening. If the core developers are gone it is hard to get the knowledge back. But I don't understand why they bought it in the first place. If they don't need/want the direct modeling technology, why buy it? I can't imagine they needed it to make the flexible modeling extension, as that is completely different technology. It part still puzzles me.

But I still keep some (very small) hope they change course and put more effort into it, because I really like CoCreate Modeling. It is very well designed, very powerful and very nice to work with.

[GerardLeclercq]

Same feeling, but still hoping.

No other good solution. Even SolideEdge, which is still parametric, but hidden under the name Synchronus Technology. And it has his big brother too, NX. SE could disappear as well.

[mverhoeven]

Thanks Gerard, I will keep this in mind when evaluating SolidEdge. I would like to prevent a new switch shortly after switching...

[udyna]

It seem pure direct modeling market is becoming smaller and smaller. 

The fashion design style is parametric+direct modeling, so Creo Parametric add flexible modeling extension and new app Creo Direct. Creo Direct can data exchange Creo Parametric with "zero" gap. So after Creo Direct 5.0, 6.0 or 7.0.... become more stronger, PTC WILL expire Creo Elements/Direct Modeling completed.

[ThomasKirkman]

That may be great for them, but we are heavily invested in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling.  With many lisp routines created for it as well as having customized Model Manager.

Creo Direct does not work with these custom lisp files.  This leaves us little choice but to stick with what we have.  When support is over, we will start looking elsewhere for our cad packages. 

[tivancso]

It is my understanding from the TC meeting that I had attended that the direction of Creo Direct is not a replacement of Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. Creo Direct development is hard pressed to make it a mature enough of a product to replace Elements/Direct Modeling in a realistic time frame. So the plan for Creo Direct as mentioned to me was for it to become a concept modeling tool. With PTC focusing on adding direct modeling capabilities to Creo Parametric these have to be in step with what they add to Creo Direct since it is the same if not similar functionality under the hood i.e. Sheet Metal added to Creo Direct and that functionality being added to Creo Parametric Sheet Metal to improve its functionality to match what Creo Elements Direct Modeling's Sheet Metal already has in it.

And as of yet I have heard no official announcement from the product managers that Elements Direct Modeling/Annotator or Drafting is in a sun setting position this is only happening for Model Manager.

Regards,

Thom

[mverhoeven]

Elements Direct is not sun setted... yet. When you cease development and only do bugfixing, in software this means it will be way behind in a few years and thus will be sun setted. Otherwise they will need to invest a lot of time to 'keep up' and that is not realistic.

[tivancso]

Until PTC stops selling seats of Creo Elements Direct then I would worry about it disappearing.

[mverhoeven]

Thanks for that info Thomas. If you told me only existing customers could still buy new licenses I would believe that as well. So, good to know they are not there yet. But for us: when they stop selling licenses we have a problem. This would mean we can't get a license when we need an extra engineer, and migrating to another system takes a lot of time. We cannot migrate in a year, it will probably take a few, so we need to be prepared a bit.

[mverhoeven]

Why does it seem direct modeling is becoming smaller and smaller? Most history based modelers are adding 'direct modeling'-ish functionality, because changing models in a history based modeler is seriously more complex than in a direct modeler. To me it seems Direct Modeling is becoming more important. History based modeling has it's place, but it is over used. But Direct Modeling also has it's place. It makes you a lot more flexible and in today's market flexibility is more and more expected. We, as a full engineering-to-order company, can only exist because of this flexibility.

Creo Direct was pitched as the follow-up for Elements Direct, but that strategy is gone. They don't even mention Creo Direct anymore in the Creo CAD section of the website. Also, have you tried Creo Direct 4.0? It is a joke compared to Elements Direct. It is at least 7 years in development and they still are not close to a 'One space' approach as Elements Direct has. They are not even half way and the last 20% is the most difficult to achieve.

I do think they will kill Elements Direct (as I explained in the question), but the question is: what to do next? For us Parametric with flexible modeling is not an option. It is not usable for our needs.

If they had a real Elements Direct replacement, where I would have to rebuild all of our lisp-code and migrate from Model Manager to something else I would accept that, but currently, they have nothing but are killing Elements Direct...

What a waste. PTC has done a terrible job of serving our interests.

[Kevin]

The link to Creo Direct is now under the Creo link. It would be nice if PTC would make things easier to find.

[bhug]

Dear very concerned customers:

As PTC has executed its Creo strategy since 2010, we have seen a remarkable response in the marketplace from all of our customers, including our Creo Elements/Direct customers. Some of those customers have been excited to adopt Creo to access the broader capabilities that it offers, while others have decided to stay with Creo Elements/Direct in anticipation of the future expansion of direct modeling capabilities in Creo.

Some of you, as stated in this discussion thread, are concerned that PTC would soon ‘sunset’ our Creo Elements/Direct products, leaving you no choice but to move to Creo. As we stated from the early stages of the Creo strategy, we have no intention of doing this. In reality, we remain committed to support both types of customers. We will further support and develop Creo Elements/Direct Modeling for many years to come and we will extend direct modeling in Creo . We see the market requesting parametric and direct modeling capabilities in combination, and our strategy is to offer both within Creo as evidenced by the advances in Creo 4.0. Be encouraged to take a look at examples such as:

• New Flexible Modeling capabilities in Sheet Metal (view video)
• New Geometry Search capabilities that can provide powerful geometric de-featuring recipes when stored as queries in parametric features (view video)
• Adoption of geometry-based selection and interaction workflows with context sensitive mini toolbars throughout Creo Parametric (view video)

Going forward we also plan to expose more flexible modeling capabilities in the assembly environment, a key aspect and benefit of the direct modeling environment you use today.

Although Creo Elements/Direct 20.0 shows fewer enhancements compared to previous releases, it continues to add value. This includes for example:

• Full Windows 10 support
• New out of the box native import capabilities for Solid Edge and NX as well as updated version support for existing data exchange capabilities
• A mix of usability and productivity enhancements including improved DXF/DWG drawing import, a new cable spline editor in Cabling (planned for M010) and more
• Hundreds of solved customer SPRs removing reported issues to increase software performance in your day to day usage.

Focus over the past few years has also been to develop and/or improve

• our Creo Elements/Direct Windchill Workgroup Manager
• a set of migration tools that will aid you in moving your data from Model Manager to Windchill as smoothly as possible allowing you to benefit from the industry’s broadest and best product lifecycle management solution – Windchill
• increase data upwards compatibility allowing you to leverage the design intent stored in your Creo Elements/Direct data within Creo. The recent releases add associative drawing import, automatic transfer of Round & Chamfer meta data, as well as Unite technology support. The latter allows to open and embed native Creo Elements/Direct assemblies inside Creo assemblies to ease coexistence and transition scenarios.

All of the above reflects the importance for PTC to protect your investment in the product. Whether you stay with Creo Elements/Direct and adopt future versions of it (next version is currently in planning) or whether you want to move to Creo to benefit from its broader set of capabilities and integrations with the whole PTC product suite.

Thank you for your loyalty to PTC. If you have further questions, you can contact your PTC sales team or PTC partner.

[udyna]

Does Creo Elements/Direct Modeling 20.0 import support the following 3-rd software native file?

• SolidWorks 2016
• Inventor 2016
• NX 10.0
• SolidEdge ST8

[akhare]

Yes, Creo Elements/Direct 20.0 supports all of the above versions!

Cheers,

Ashish

[bhug]

Creo Elements/Direct Modeling 20.0 supports the import of the listed 3-rd software native files.

We are supporting:

• SolidWorks 2001Plus to 2016
• Inventor R11, V2008 to V2016
• UG V13.0 to UGS NX 10
• UGS SolidEdge V18.0 to UGS SolidEdge ST8

[PeterKehoe]

Those advances in Creo 4.0 don't do any good to those of us who want to continue using Creo Elements/Direct. When you start commenting about the direct modeling capabilities in Creo, we start believing that PTC wants to force us to move from Creo Elements/Direct Modeling to Creo. And talking about "upward compatibility" between Creo Elements/Direct and Creo further emphasizes that PTC wants us to migrate from Creo Elements/Direct to Creo; why aren't you also working on improving the ability to go from Creo to Creo Elements/Direct as well?

While I agree that having direct and parametric capabilities in combination is what is going to be the best in the future, I would like to see the parametric capabilities of Creo Elements/Direct Modeling expanded and improved rather than going to Creo.

[gzhou-2]

I fully agree with your idea. PTC is slowly guiding CoCreate Modeling customers to migrate to Creo Paraametric. It will take five or ten years, then completely retire CoCreate Modeling.

[ethomas-4]

What changes will be incorporated to Creo Elements/Direct 20.0 in relation to direct drafting (2D only). As CEDD becomes my program's standard for 2D work I am interested in what is to come.

[bhug]

Take a look to the Online Help Center and go to the “Whats’s New In Creo Elements/Direct Drafting 20.0” section.

Regards,

Berthold Hug

[ethomas-4]

Thank you! I will take a look.

[ethomas-4]

Hi,

How often is the "What's New" updated? (We are still working in 19.0).

Thanks,

Elizabeth

[tivancso]

Hello Elizabeth,

The "What's New" page is usually updated for each new version of the application released. You can also see the "What's New" information for the version you are running by clicking on the question mark drop down in the upper right corner of the main window and select the "What's New" option also the Readme option has good information in it as well.

You can also find a complete list of Fixes and Enhancements to the version 20.0 or 19.0 by going to the e-Support page and under the Software download area there is a link to a PDF file listing these.

Regards,

Thom

[ethomas-4]

Thanks Thom! Yes, I see the 19.0 "Whats new" information on my system. In the process of creating some charts and wanted to make sure I am giving good information.

That is great about the pdf you mention- I will check it out!

ET

[bcritchley]

Hi,

PDS Vision (UK), are having an "Open Day" at the end of this month, where we've scheduled several key PTC personnel to present and speak about the latest Creo Elements\Direct applications, it's direction and roadmap.  It should be a good platform that would hopefully ease various concerns that have been raised on this thread!  I appreciate not all of you are UK based, but for those that might be available to attend, we'd love to see you there, so please feel free to register on the link below:

http://www.pdsvision.co.uk/event/event

Thanks
Barry

[rlampa]

Hi all,
New to Creo (Rhino user) I got interested in Creo Elements/Direct 20.0, but I can't seem to find anywhere to download/try it nor where to buy it.

Can someone here post the links?

TIA,
// Rolf

[bhug]

Further information about Creo Elements/Direct Modeling you get here.

If you are interested in a free version check here for Modeling Express, a stripped down version of Creo Elements/Direct Modeling.

If you want a Creo representative is contacting, follow this link.

Regards,

Berthold Hug

[udyna]

Hi Hug, could you please share me the system requirement of Creo Elements/Direct Modeling & Drafting 20.0, before I log a case about system requirement about V20.0 and the support engineer reported he is still waiting for further inform product manager, now two weeks ago, until now no any update and response at all.

As you know, v20.0 was released after over one month, some customers are interested it and want to upgrade from 18.1 to 20.0, but no system requirement, it is very urgent for me. Thank you very much for taking care of this.

[tivancso]

Hello,

You can find the supported hardware by Partner for Creo Elements Direct Modeling and Drafting 20.0 on the e-Support site. At this time there is not an overall platform support document that I can find.

Regards,

Thom