Is it me or has PTC lost it's way

[Johny]

Have been a user of Pro-E (now CREO, for some unknown reason) since release 2001 and although, initially the program had new developments with subsequent releases, the later versions are a joke!

The sheet metal module has not changed significantly from Wildfire 3, to produce a paper 2d drawing is such a long winded process that it makes you want to give up. With each release they change the position of the menu structure so you have to spend the next couple of months looking for commands. The mapkeys that you spent so long setting up, no longer work. It's a mess!

My discipline is sheet metal and CREO is rubbish at it. It does not even have a library of standard primitives that most CAD programs have been using since the eighties. By that, I mean 'Conical Frustum's, 'Square to Rounds', 'Pipe Branches' etc. These are from known formulas that sheet metal workers have been using for decades. These basic formulas include triangulation and radial and parallel line developments. Why should it be so difficult to develop sheet metal work from within CREO? I believe that Solid Works has this ability but we are stuck with CREO for parity with the companies we deal with.

My other major gripe is the 2D Drawing side. Surely by now, a certain amount of automation should be entering this module. If you get it to auto dimension, it does not do it intelligently but throws every dimension on to the drawing. Does anybody use auto dimensioning in CREO? The alternative is fairly long winded which is why most of our customers just throw a model at us and we are left with dimensioning and producing drawings for manufacture and inspection. The use of BOMS and tables are not very intuitive and this side of CREO has not changed from 2001 days.

All in all, a huge disappointment. After all the hype about CREO it has failed to live up to expectations. We are only a small company and only hold 4 licenses, but we have decided to drop our maintenance cover for the foreseeable future as we find it hard to justify a product that is going nowhere. Perhaps we will pick it up again when PTC finally realise that their customers are not prepared to support their 'bloatware' when they can't even fix the fundamentals.

Does anyone else out there feel as I do? If so hit them where it hurts and drop your maintenance payments until PTC listen to what their customers want.

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[Patriot_1776]

To further expand on that Brian, I was recently contacted by a PTC employee wanting to know my specific thoughts on the abysmal creo dwg interface. As is my style, I let him have both barrels. He seemed like a really nice guy talking via e-mail, so, hopefully all this b!tching and moaning is getting noticed. He indicated that he was a high-level manager in charge of programming. I mean, as much as I complain, I'm truly trying to help them. Even up to spending uncompensated hours of my PERSONAL time trying to help. Up until this release I still believed very strongly that Pro/E was the best CAD modeling software. As for my complaints, well, they're all true as I see it but I'm just not diplomatic about it, how's that? But, I've never been one to dance around an issue. Identify it, fix it, move on.

[BrianMartin]

In my normal working environment, I don't tend to dance around either. It's not always good for one's career but I prefer the direct approach rather than a bunch of subtle maneuvering. Who has time for that?

But with respect to PTC... I can tell you from experience that diplomacy works better than being direct. I don't mean this as a general knock on PTC. However, I'd be lying if I said my interactions with PTC staff have always been pleasant and professional. Were I not in a position that demands tact and a cool demeanor, I might not have bitten my tongue during the more vivd exchanges I've had.

Still, I really do advocate working within the system and keeping things civil. Years ago, while working for one of the toughest bosses I'd ever had, I stomped into his office. I closed the door and began to catalog a littany of rampant and repeated failures and mistakes from other team members. His response: "Brian, no one wants to be an a--hole" (except, of course, he cursed fully like a sailor).

His point was that most people are doing the best they can within the parameters of their job. So I have to assume PTC's programmers, developers, and product line managers are doing what they think is best for PTC customers and the company. And I think these people are TRYING to listen to their customers... but they're just not getting it right. It's like we're speaking different languages. We say "make it faster" and they hear "change to interface to eliminate mouse clicks". That's not what we meant... we meant "remove the bloat". They hear "too many commands cluttering the screen... hide them all!" We switch gears and say "for pete's sake make drawing mode better" they hear "let them add a shaded view to the drawing!".

We need to find a more effective way to communicate what we really need. And I think the best way to do that is to continue to be civil and work the avenues we have available to us.

Thanks!

-Brian

[Patriot_1776]

I got some feedback from PTC, and I'm going to ask if I can share it here, and see what everyone's feedback is. So, I think maybe they're starting to take us seriously. Which is great, because we are loyal users, or we would be switchin' instead of b!tchin'!

And, actually, they offed a GoTo meeting with me, and I can show them personally what bugs the cr@p out of me, so they can see it first hand. Honestly, I think that's the best thing any software company can do. REALLY see how the typical user uses it.

[James62]

I would also think PTC's devs are doing what they think is the best but they obviously lack feedback cause they are sitting on their ears or the beta testers of Creo are just incapable. Meaning they don't have enough experience with any other CAD or any kind of real working environment.

On the other hand PTC alone makes themselves as a company look like they realize that big percentage of CAD real working enviroments are multi-CAD these days but that's all.

There's a white paper written by PTC about why should a user of WF5 switch to Creo Parameric 2.0 explaining like 10 reasons why to do so and 8 of these reasons are just funny. I didn't notice there a single word about ISDX enhancements or CAM enhancements that have been released with Creo Parametric 2.0.

Maybe I am just a bad reader

~Jakub

[GrahameWard]

Jakub, if you have a link to that White Paper I'd like to read it.

[KrisR]

Maybe this one?

http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/standards/fileothumbredirect.jsp?&im_dbkey=128393&icg_dbkey=841

[James62]

That's the one.

At the same time i posted my last reply here they came up with these vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTEvIP6L7DE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJEHEpjFDFM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJffH5U8Svo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZYaBZ9Pzg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGzqUmyyYBc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I69MS0vOXbo

[BrianMartin]

Yeah I rate this white paper a solid... MEH. But the videos... are pretty cool.

From reading this White Paper, it looks like more of the usual cutting edge, industry-leading, state-of-the-art, world-class useless babble we hear at every other release. My feeling is... don't break your arm patting yourself on the back. Cut it out with the leading edge, best-in-class, UNIVERSE-DOMINATING new features that are really just a rehash of old concepts (or concepts already achieved by other CAD software). The White Paper makes me feel like saying "how about a little less MARKETING and a little more SUBSTANCE?"

But then we come to the videos...

I think the videos linked above are actually quite nice. These show a side-by-side comparison of features which proves the speed improvements the company is touting. These VIDEOS do more to convince me that Creo 2 might hold some real benefits than all of the market-tested, slicky-boy sales lingo used in the white paper. In fact, the videos are the antithesis of that White Paper.

This just reinforces the feelings I've had over the past year when dealing with PTC. It feels like they're TRYING to reinvent the way they work. There are flashes of creativity and brilliance starting to peek out of that monolithic (and somewhat bloated) corporate structure. Sometimes you see the same old sales junk (White Paper) and other times you see some creative new ways to communicate the value of the software to customers (videos). It's like there's a bit of an internal battle going on. I hope the old ways of doing business and dealing with customers get chucked out the door to be replaced by a more flexible, responsive, customer-focused business model. Oh, how I wish it to be true.

[TomD.inPDX]

I would like to first say hi - "HI" and give a little outsider's perspective to this discussion.

I am a longtime owner of Pro/E 2000i that was derived from the brief PT/Modeler platform. Not a bad deal for an entry level cost perspective.

Background: ComputerVision 4X was my 1st 3D CAD package. Amazingly comprehensive and seriously powerful in duplicating the drafting board I cut my engineering teeth on.

Next came Cadkey. Amazing what such a simple wireframe modeler could do. I still own a license of Cadkey '99 that introduced solids. Some serious work was accomplished with this package.

That is when PT/Modeler hit the scene and a contract came up that made it worthwhile to purchase and learn PTC. After only a few years, my maintenance wasn't paying for itself each year (literally). Not only that, after a short period I got a real job and they used Pro/E release 20 and never upgraded beyond that.

Soon after, Unigraphics NX was stuffed down our necks. Talk about chaos! The system was so open that anyone could really mess up great work in no time at all.

All this time Pro/E 2000i was rotting on my aging windows NT machine. Not even fired up for almost a decade. I knew my entire investment was dependent on a single card in that old tin box.

I again changed my work situation recently and once again faced the wide open world of CAD from a contractor's perspective. I was given a contract using WF 3.0. Talk about pain! I couldn't find anything. The -only- advantage I found was being able to put shaded images on drawings (rather than pasting pix in the drawing). Seriously, that was the -only- improvement I found in 10 years of updates.

Next, I was given a Creo 1.0 eval period and the training sessions. I actually saw improvements from WF 3.0 to Creo 1.0. And I mean serious enhancements in usability from my perspective. I use the very basic command set. And I want control of my drawings. I never had much issue with this on Pro/E. I was actually impressed with the subtle changes in Creo 1.0.

Then... I go to Solid Works. 1st time exposure... easy to use... drawings were not intuative but I managed. Did some serious surfacing at the time. It was a good experience from a comparison perspective. Obviously I didn't put my money there. There is still a lot of instability in the SW engine.

Now I am back in the PTC fold. Having just upgraded my maintenance after all these years, I look forward to working with Creo 2.0.

Now here is where I really get frustrated with PTC. I paid for my upgrade about 10 days ago. I -still- don't have my license. I still cannot contact anyone that can walk me through issues. I still cannot just sit down and do work for something I just put up my 1st born for.

I have been working for the last 3 months using 2000i. And if it wasn't for remaining compatible with today's tools, I would be happy to continue. It was literally that easy for me to use. I needed to do a hardware upgrade, and I needed to do the SW upgrade. But I seriously never would have expected PTC to change their tune with regard to how users feel. "We" are not their customers... our bosses are.

So Creo isn't SolidWorks... it isn't UniGraphicsNX... it isn't even Co-Create (recent exposure)... but it is still a solid engine doing the things I know how to do the way I am familiar with.

...And you could never have sold me on WildFire as an upgrade at the time. They tried!

I, for one, am looking forward to putting out new designs with Creo.

[Anonymous]

Creo 1.0 is rubbish for sheet metalwork, which I use it for.. I have been using it since WF4. Basic things just do not work.

Not having an auto-save just sucks!

The latest is Regenerate and save. You have part X open, and part Y needs to regenerate on save, so you open up part Y on the family table, then it needs part X regenerated again and is suck in the loop. Unless it is fully regenerated it does not save fully.

In assemblies when editing the active part the background obscures the foreground and the dimensions also until you have the cursor in exactly the correct spot, then it re-appears again.

When creating parts the model tree does not update.

Making a copy of a family table member and not doing any editing crashes the whole family table.

Dark blue dimensions on a grey background, who thought of that needs to be sent to art school.

Axis on components randomly disappear in the middle of holes.

On assembly of components why does the Automatic setting always goto normal? It used to go to Coincident and align itself, but it does not any more.

The DXF output does not work with metalsoft.

Topology modeling system is flawed, you cannot split models up and many other things.

Recently I went to a Siemens Solid Edge day and saw a wonderful technology called Synchronous Technology that does not depend on topology. All the clutter of the brown index plains and axis are gone, not needed, you can see what you are doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnjrTE3immE&list=UUEI8mxEigB4qNHykqlAGwNg&index=31

After a day of Solid Edge Creo 1.0 seems dated and useless.

RUBBISH Creo 1.0 really is.

Today I was onto tech support and I told them a competetor's DXF works with metalsoft and Creo does not, I then said the competor is Solid edge, it is good, it works!

[rohit_rajan]

Before u start crying..learn the software properly....the base of solid edge, solidworks (parametric modelling) was and is Pro/Engineer....Pro/Engineer is a very fine and offcourse the most capable 3d cad parametric software....there are many things In Creo which even i do not like it.. but "rubbish"..is not a word for that!.

[Anonymous]

What I am saying that Creo 1.0 is not capable to do the things that I could do in WF5 elements, mainly in advanced usage of family tables and sub family tables. I have highlighted a lot of problems with the package Creo 1.0 recently to India tech support, serious enough to goto PTC development, no less!

I have had basic problems so bad with m050 that I have had to go back to m040.

I have even been told that Creo 2.0 is the bug fix to Creo 1.0 by support India.

[TomD.inPDX]

...
I have even been told that Creo 2.0 is the bug fix to Creo 1.0 by support India.

I've long suspected this

[rohit_rajan]

Yeah that's right...put the blame on others.....that's the way to go......!

[BrianMartin]

Hi Francis...

Be very careful what you wish for... you may get it. SolidEdge has it's flaws just as any package does. I can warn you from experience... do not believe everything you see on a one-day "demo". Yeah, it's a demo alright... as in "canned". Anything canned can be made to look as though it works like a champ. Get it back to your office and suddenly the holes start to show.

While I agree that Creo sheetmetal has a bit to go before it can compete equally with the sheetmetal package from, say, Solidworks, I would doubt that SolidEdge is doing anything revolutionary. The whole "asynchronous technology" is the same thing NX is built upon (another Siemens product). I'd love to give you a whole heck of a lot of information about my employer's use of that software and how well it's gone for us... but alas, I really can't without getting into trouble.

Just... be very careful what you invest in and do your homework before you fall for a sales pitch. Everyone and their brother comes after PTC. I've never seen one competitor perform a demo that didn't try to kneecap PTC in the process. Often the demo falls flat... and then the vendor goes into "bash PTC mode".

All I'm saying... is be careful.

Thanks!

-Brian

[Anonymous]

Hi Brian

Very well put viewpoint careful is what I am. I have had Solid Edge team put together specific demonstrations, including output of DXF files, which our metalwork supplier has tested, and they work without the problems that the PTC DXF has.

I have sent both samples off to PTC R&D to get this problem resolved, I hope!

I have used Bentley Microstation Modeller for the last 12 years and I could feel the same feelings coming thro with the latest Solid Edge. PTC are lacking in the ability to split the model without a rebuild, but in NX I found it very intuitive and actually modelled up something that was hard work in the PTC product during my test run afternoon and split the part. I still have to remake the 2 parts of that really difficult model, the topology design structure will not allow a split in the model.

[JeffBerg]

I think I echo the sentiment of this thread. I have been with PTC prior to their procurement of Pro/E. At that time I was getting indoctrinated to their MECHANICA FEA software. When they integrated the CAD package Pro/E with their FEA package MECHANICA I thought that was GREAT. It actually was & I think the product did improve even through the WILDFIRE generations. I still have WILDFIRE 4.0 on my machine & have a CREO disk to install the new software, but yet to do so.

Some if not most of this is MARKETING. Some of us DINOSAURS wish they would simply keep the original name, but that is WISHFUL thinking. I have yet to check out the CREO package, but maybe I will have further comments in the future on this.

KEEP in mind that software is always being revised even faster than a college chemistry textbook which rarely has additonal fundamental contributions. I do think the company should grandfather longtime users on support.

[TomD.inPDX]

I did learn one reason it seems so hard to get PTC to listen to our issues. It is in fact not a listening issue, it is a way-of-working issue that concerns me greatly.

In a recent customer service case, I submitted a video of an obvious bug. I am completely incensed with the back and forth between my taking the time to write a concise and complete case only to be ignored and called anyway to reproduce what the tech should be able to reproduce easily on their computer. Most of my cases have gone like this and so I finally asked why this is so damn hard to get information to the developers.

The reply was quite enlightening. Even though the tech had my video, watched it, reproduced the problem, they felt the need to contact me and make sure they had read the case correctly and also insisted on a remote connection to see my issue. I asked why they simply don't forward the video with the RSP and get the programmers to fix the problem. Logical, right?

The tech told me that they, as customer support, must write up everything including -exactly- how to reproduce the problem and a full description of the problem. The programmers are on UNIX machines and they simply cannot accept any multimedia data in their RSPs. What the...?

Myopia comes to mind here. A tale told over and over again so by the time it gets to the programmer, it is probably a completely different tale. It is my experience on several occasions that this is exactly what happens.

I can see how most people just simply give up on trying to improve the product. There are so many little dumb things in the Creo release, from context to inaccurate prompts to completely useless help that this product really has no hope of getting improved. I know on my end, I have lost days trying to resolve simply issues or having blatant bugs simply ignored due to the seemingly "small" impact. I don't ever see this product reaching a "mature" or even a "refined" state.

This is a very sad state of affairs. I'm actually looking forward to retirement so I don't have to deal with this any longer. In all this time, there really is no "great" CAD package. Probably the closest I've come to date is, surprisingly, Unigraphics NX. Those guys are a lot more on top of their releases than anyone else I've worked with to date.

[rohit_rajan]

Sir,

you are the top most participant here....please continue with that.

I have been on Pro|Engineer only for the last 6 years..and have always been impressed by there capabalities. i learned with Pro|Engineer Wildfire 2.0. Have worked for some time on Pro|E 2001...for me the best of the lot.

I don't remember when was the last time i saw soo many bugs in the software. May be b'coz of the reduce cycle time of taking out a new version plus a complete change in the user interface has resulted in that. I hope this changes with Creo Parametric 3.0.

Yes they should listen the customers..alienating them would be a big mistake....

[Anonymous]

Like I said NX5 is just light years ahead of Creo.

You yourself admit to loads of bugs!

I can use the package well enough and am not crying. I am one of those that highlighted the bug of excel 2010 spreadsheet not working on the full spreadsheet size.

I went into an NX5 confrence meeting expecting it to be not very good and no where near Creo, but the oposite is the case. Creo has so many basic dissapointing shortcomings over NX5. I suggest you take this critisim on board and produce a truely competetive package that does not rely on topology modelling!

I want to see in sheet metalwork a tool for splitting models without it crashing the whole model, NX5 does this really well.

I hope you guys are fixing the DXF output bug that makes ARCS into many lines for me so we can get on with our sheet metal production. The NX5 works with our supplers metasoft perfectly while yours does not.

Get on with it please, you have the 2 samples one from Creo and one from NX5.

[BrianMartin]

I have to disagree about NX...

At the risk of getting in trouble... do the letters "POS" mean anything to you?

[TomD.inPDX]

Yep, I know the shortcoming of the complete product offering. I've used it for nearly the decade I was gone from PTC. Overall, I was happier with the fit-n-finish of NX. Now you throw in Teamcenter, and you're right, POS comes to mind. I also never, in the whole 10 years, had to deal with surfaces, family tables, or anything beyond basic CAD capability. We were filtered from support and were always trained in the upgrades. But the product didn't crash and file corruption was a rare instance. Detailing too was very freeing compared to Pro/E. It was almost like someone took the handcuff off.

In many ways, it is not even a fair comparison. The NX package is quite expensive. I think you can fully load up Creo with extension modules to come up with the same pricepoint for the initial price and maintenance.

Having never used Windchill... no comment in relation to Teamcenter. I've watched $millions get sunk into Teamcenter.

[BenLoosli]

$millions can be spent on Windchill, too.

Any PLM package of that complexity requires training and customization.

I used UGII/NX from 1987 to 2004 and the again in 2009/2010. I have used it from version 3 to V18 asnd then NX1, NX2 and NX4.I have used Pro/E since 2000i and am currently on WF4 with our next upgradr to Creo2. I have been a Windchill admin at 3 companies since 2004, currently doing an upgrade from WC9 to WC10.

To the person that said NX5 was better than Creo, you should upgrade to NX8.5 and then compare again.

PTC has lost their way many years ago when the stock market burst and the price of their stock shares fell from 80 to 1.25! PTC today makes more money off of maintenance than they do from sales to new customers. Yourmaintenace bill keeps going up because they need to have an income stream.

[Patriot_1776]

....plus the TONS of money they make on training, since they change the F$&*^$g interface every year........

I want the software and the company we bad back on 2000i2.

[Kenny-B]

Yep. THIS exactly.

ProE used to be solid...as granite. They seem to do anything and everything except upgrade the falling downs they do have.

I have been using ProE since R17. I work for a very large company (PTC's prime targets) and am considered a point of reference for many that have questions.

I was a ProPDM administrator for same large company and watched as they tried to talk us into PdmLINK (Leap Frogging Intralink). I watched as they (PTC) had 4 experts on-site for 9 months...only to find out after that time that PdmLINK wasn't capable of handling the size of models we create....they were still suggesting we learn to deal with not being able to pull down our Top Level assemblies and go with PdmLINK....we ended up going to Intralink and are still there......

They don't really ever update anything in new releases. They just change the GUI and move things around. They can then re-sell existing technology with minimal effort.

In regards to listening and understanding, they have software developers creating Mechanical (Primarily) software without any knowledge of practical mechanical world. I remember when they introduced the Hole Wizzard (Typo on purpose) and none of the threaded callouts were actual Fine or Course threads. We had to go back and edit every single thread....I also think it's interesting that Sketcher still opens up in perspective of designing battleships.... I rarely ever design anything bigger than about 12"...yet, my initial sketched features ALWAYS come in measured closer to miles than inches.....

[Patriot_1776]

"P.O.S."? Particularly Obstinate Software?

[HamsterNL]

John Loveday wrote:

Have been a user of Pro-E (now CREO, for some unknown reason) since release 2001 and although, initially the program had new developments with subsequent releases, the later versions are a joke!

The reason PTC choose for the name CREO is quite understandable...

Just check this website: http://creo.amnh.org/

[BenLoosli]

That link has been mentioned ever since PTC announced CREO in 2008.

[HamsterNL]

Yeah, but some jokes never get old

[Patriot_1776]

Bwahahaha!