Curious

[DeanLong]

I am wondering how many people are using Creo Direct. It was hyped tons at the launch of Creo but I have not heard anyone actually using it.

Why am I curious you ask? Well, I recently was contacted by a really smooth cold call specialist from SpaceClaim and it peaked my interest. What did I do you ask? I went to Youtube and watched a couple SpaceClaim videos. And what did I learn you ask? I learned that the SpaceClaim development people and the Creo Directdevelopment people operate in parallel universes and copy off each other's paper during tests. They might as well be one in the same. They look almost exactly the same and as far as I could tell.....function exactly the same. Even the "Ball of Destiny" in both look exactly the same.

Does anyoneknow ifCoCreate and SpaceClaim gestated in the same room at some point long ago? I remember when PTC bought CoCreate and thought okay....is that really a strategic purchase with legs or is it just a way to say we do that too?

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[dgschaefer]

My impression is that there are a lot of CoCreate (called Creo Elements/Direct now) users but not a lot of Creo Direct users. They are not the same thing; Creo Direct is not yet mature enough to replace Creo Elements/Direct and Creo Direct proper cannot yet open Creo Elements Direct (CoCreate) files, I believe.

It's really hard to tell since there's not a specific Direct modeling area at PTCUser or at the PTC Community and most people talk about 'Creo', which could mean Parametric, Direct, Elements Direct or Elements Pro.

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[JoshuaHouser]

Hi Dean,

We looked at Creo Direct (2.0), and quickly decided it was not a mature enough product to go into production. Sheetmetal was the biggest problem, but I ran into other just plain silly missing pieces that were show-stoppers.

Incidentally, we did review SpaceClaim and Creo Elements Direct.

Creo Elements Direct is far from Creo Direct. For the life of me, I just couldn't wrap my head around Creo Elements Direct. Not that it's a bad product, it's just a different mode of thinking to make the tool work.

SpaceClaim is similar to Creo Direct. I found it easy to start making parts and assemblies. It is also a full-featured, robust package (unlike Creo Direct 2.0).

Joshua Houser

(have I talked to you about FIRST robotics yet?)

Pelco by Schneider Electric

Methods & Tools Sr. Engineer

[DonSenchuk]

We purchased on license (against my advice) of Creo Direct.

To be honest, I haven't seen anything from Creo Direct that couldn't already be done with our existing licenses of either Creo Engineer I (with Flexible Modeling Extension) or FoundationAdvantage. It allows a different way to create feature, but I'm unconvinced it's a better or faster way to do it.

In Reply to Dean Long:

I am wondering how many people are using Creo Direct. It was hyped tons at the launch of Creo but I have not heard anyone actually using it.

Why am I curious you ask? Well, I recently was contacted by a really smooth cold call specialist from SpaceClaim and it peaked my interest. What did I do you ask? I went to Youtube and watched a couple SpaceClaim videos. And what did I learn you ask? I learned that the SpaceClaim development people and the Creo Directdevelopment people operate in parallel universes and copy off each other's paper during tests. They might as well be one in the same. They look almost exactly the same and as far as I could tell.....function exactly the same. Even the "Ball of Destiny" in both look exactly the same.

Does anyoneknow ifCoCreate and SpaceClaim gestated in the same room at some point long ago? I remember when PTC bought CoCreate and thought okay....is that really a strategic purchase with legs or is it just a way to say we do that too?

[JoshuaHouser]

Creo Direct is more-or-less an independant version of Creo Parametric's Flexible modeling application. The UI is trimmed down to remove features in the model tree and make it more of a direct modelling experience.Models should go between the two products seamlessly.

So, sheetmetal doesn't work in Direct and to make a drawing, you need theCreo Parametric drawing tool.

Joshua Houser

(have I talked to you about FIRST robotics yet?)

Pelco by Schneider Electric

Methods & Tools Sr. Engineer

[Lohbauer]

We did not opt for Creo direct. We did pick up the Flexible model extension, which is a hybrid package that allows you to apply direct modeling to an otherwise parametric model. We are working into our design process as a late-stage modeling alternative when you need to make quick design changes and do not have the time to risk regen failure if the model is fragile. Once done the direct modeling is undone that change is then parametrically remodeled.

[cdspk]

We looked at Direct when it came out because it was being sold as a concept modeller, until it gets the full range of primitives (currently no blend/loft), includes Style and Freestyle (sub div) then it s not going to fill that niche which is a shame because it shows great promise, anyone heard any content on Direct 3.0?

Spaceclaim seems to be in the same position, until it gets some concept modelling tools (currently no surfacing tools) I think people will still default to a parametric environment - though they have said they will have sub div tools in their November release.

[Greg_McMurray]

All of the founders of Spaceclaim were once at PTC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceClaim

Mike Payne and Danny Dean were co-founders of PTC.

Payne also helped start Solidworks.

Dean coded the first version of Pro/E.

David Taylor wrote Pro/Desktop

[DeanLong]

I knew it! 🐵

[DamianCastillo]

Here again is the confusion of PTC product branding.

We have Creo/Elements Direct which is the full blow "CoCreate" product.

We have Creo Direct, which does not have the full functionality of Creo/Elments Direct but the goal is that Creo Direct will replace Creo/Elments Direct as soon as the full feature set it coded into it.

We have Flexible Modeling which uses some of the direct modeling code in Creo Direct but it's further limited and focused on late state changes to get you out of a jam.

Freestyle is a completly different products than that of direct modeling. Freestyle is Polygon and Sub-divisional modeling which is not the same as Direct modeling.

So what uses does Direct Modeling have?

This allows the changes to reach the Engineer and they can be made permanent at that time.

[ikamster]

I have just recently moved from Wildfire 5.0 (Creo Elements/Pro 5.0) to Creo (Parametric?) 2.0.

[dgschaefer]

Yep, the naming thing is a real hot mess. I agree with you in principal on the 'Creo Parametric' thing, but in practice I'd bet most users only use one app. We have only Creo Parametric here, so we simply say 'Creo'. I get the difference and I try to be more specific outside the office, but I'd bet most users only know one app and think of it simply as 'Creo'.

It's similar, structurally, to MS Office, but in practice most Office users use several of the programs whereas most Creo users only use one.

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[JonathanHodgson]

"It's similar, structurally, to MS Office"

Yes, except if the Office apps were called 'MS Office Continuous', 'MS Office Tabulated' and 'MS Office Visual'.

Just saying "I use Parametric" is rather unhelpful without further clarification ("parametric what?"), and 'Creo Parametric Two Point Oh' is a bit of a mouthful (as was 'Creo Elements Slash Pro'!). 😉

Jonathan

[BenLoosli]

The same logic holds for Windchill.

Windchill is only the generic toolkit that the apps, PDMLink, ProjectLink, MPMlink, etc, are built on. Saying you use Windchill is like saying you use Creo. You need to differentiate which app in the Creo/Windchill suite you actually use.

Office is the suite, Word, Excel, Project, Powerpoint, Access, et all are the apps.

[DamianCastillo]

Did not mean to derail this into a discussion about the bad branding, but it seems others understand the frustration here at times.

I agree that if you only use one of the apps, it's easier to default to the generic platform name. (Creo or Windchill). If you use multiple apps in either platform, it would make more sense to be more specific.

We use several Creo apps but only one Windchill app. So we say Creo Parametric, Creo Simulate, Creo Manufacturing, etc. As for Windchill PDMLink, we do say just Windchill because we don't have any other apps at the moment. It would probably be just as easy to get everyone to say PDMLink, but it sounds a little wierd to say just Parametric.

So yes. It's a mess, but we usually deal with it and move on. This is something large companies need to think about before announcing new products. The latest example of this is Microsoft. They were so focused on how great their new brand was, that they did not think through the abbreviations that would tarnish their brand in the proces.

XBOX One is commonly called Xbone. It was such a negative name that Microsoft actually purchased the domain Xbone.com once they realized how terrible their brand name could sound when abbreviated. Now they have to live with it and accept Xbone.

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