Pro-E vs Solidworks

I switched to Proe from SW some time ago. My biggest problem was speed. I was creating an extensible lines of products, with a lot of versions. I needed to make assembly drawings of each version as consequent sheets within a single drawing document, with all details drawings at the end. Each of the assembly drawings contained few views, sections, details etc, but I can's say that they were complicated. It was OK, when I had, say 10 sheets. But after some projects with over 150 configurations- I had to give up. It took 15 minutes to swith from one sheet to another. It took 30 minutes to save the file. The file size was 700Megs. It took two hours to open it. It crashed even few times a day. Productivity? No productivity at all. That was a waste of electricity.

Konrad

Information for information, Paul: you give a little, we give a little. You've given almost nothing so what are you expecting from us, besides mindreading? And, sadly, we don't do it!

The best place to find out about SolidWorks, to find out about the difficulties, the pluses and minuses of the software is at comp.cad.solidworks. For software that advertises ease of use, intuitiveness, reliability, support and maintenance free operation, this site should be an eye-opener. Just consider, for a moment, how active it is. The first question anyone considering buying SW should be asking is this: will I be one of those guys on usenet begging for help? My answer would be, how much money do you have. Same question I ask anyone ready to buy Pro/e: level of support depends on how much you're willing and able to pay. Problem is, people go to SW expecting to get a bargain Beemer. And, you KNOW, going in, it may be a "bargain", but it won't be a Beemer. Guaranteed! But, if you're getting a Malibu at Beemer prices, you got a right to be mad. That's what checking out the newsgroup will confirm, at least. But, if you can make do with a SW, a big world opens up: how about Inventor? or Alibre? or Think

3? or SolidEdge? Depends on what you need to do! and what tools you need to do it?! Are we supposed to guess? I'm really bad at that. You might do better, just to come out with it instead of making us guess.

David Janes

True to form. PTC shill?

I don't know, Jeff, but when I went for SolidWorks training, they had a barely knowledgeable salesman there to demo the software. I guess I wasn't empty headed enough to think he'd be able to give an objective assessment of his software vs someone's competing software, nor should he have been able to do. So, I didn't bother asking. And by the end of the course, I'd helped him so much with the basics of solid modelling that he was urging me to take over the class for him (to make his move to Orange County easier. Any port!)

We genuinely need a Consumer Reports of solid modelling/design software with some nice feature comparison charts, reviews, ease of use and ease of modification assessments, numbers on length of time to open parts and assemblies and drawings of varying degrees of complexity; a review of memory handling techniques for large assemblies of each under review. And some assessment of applicable fields of use would also be helpful. Short of this, you get anecdotal reports. Not much use, IMO.

David Janes

Hmm,.. what is SolidWorks? Is it a cheap alternative to real design software? Or, is it like, some sort of tool to help disfunctional acad users learn

3D design software? .. 8^0

BTW, one other thing I learned while taking the SW course: a.. Since this is the "easy, intuitive" design software, there are few educational resources for it. SW Corp has saved itself some time, trouble and money by developing and updating none b.. SW Corp accepts NO responsibility for support; this all devolves to resellers, including training. Suffice to say, this makes support and training a crap shoot c.. There aren't even many books on the subject and the one by the Planchards, widely used and highly praised, that this course also used, was the most awful, badly written technical training material I've ever encountered. So, lacking a discerning user base, there's not much hope for it's improvement. d.. Companies who fall for the "easy, intuitive" crap also refuse to support their users by sending them for training; not many companies would try that with Pro/e, although, since WF, that same line may be undermining Pro/e training. However, even that is mollified by the availability of online training like PTC university, CAD Train and Cadquest, training resources that get delivered to the users computer (or in the case of Cadquest, as a series of books, one on each Pro/e module). e.. These conditions make online help much more important Just some stuff to think about, beyond those first couple of tutorials. IOW, make fast friends with usenet if you plan on going to SW. Your VAR may be able to help, but that's a shot in the dark. Don't call SW Corp, they'll just send you back to your VAR; or you could get a book and see if that helps. And, as to online resources, beyond newsgroups? haven't heard of any, but CAD Train was bought out by PTC, maybe Cadquest has expanded into Solidworks training. And some community colleges do offer classes. But what about Alibre, SolidEdge, Think 3? What support for them? Looks like you'd be jumping out of the hatch without the space suit, deepspaced.

David Janes

Dave, I know that I won't come across as credible because I'm the Product Manager for SolidWorks, but I did have 10 years of experience with ProE CDRS and ISDX especially in advanced modeling.

David Janes wrote: BTW, one other thing I learned while taking the SW course: a.. Since this is the "easy, intuitive" design software, there are few educational resources for it. SW Corp has saved itself some time, trouble and money by developing and updating none

MAB - I'm not sure why you say this - we have extensive courses and training available and we update it yearly in the form of printed manuals and tutorials that are offered by our VAR's. For instance: Essential part modeling and Assemblies, Advance part modeling, Advanced Assemblies, Sheetmetal and Weldments only to name a few and updated yearly.

b.. SW Corp accepts NO responsibility for support; this all devolves to resellers, including training. Suffice to say, this makes support and training a crap shoot

MAB - Again, I don't know how you can say this since we have a QA and Development staff doing this on a daily basis. VAR's are a formal channel for submitting issues and they either resolve the issue themselves or escalate it to us, and yes, they are quite often escalated to us.

c.. There aren't even many books on the subject and the one by the Planchards, widely used and highly praised, that this course also used, was the most awful, badly written technical training material I've ever encountered. So, lacking a discerning user base, there's not much hope for it's improvement.

MAB - On the other hand, there is "SolidWorks for Dummies" the ONLY 3D MCAD dummies book on the market that can be found at your local Barnes and Noble. Also, we have many online tutorials built right into our software which are self-guided and easy to understand on a range of subjects from Assemblies to Master model approach.

d.. Companies who fall for the "easy, intuitive" crap also refuse to support their users by sending them for training; not many companies would try that with Pro/e, although, since WF, that same line may be undermining Pro/e training. However, even that is mollified by the availability of online training like PTC university, CAD Train and Cadquest, training resources that get delivered to the users computer (or in the case of Cadquest, as a series of books, one on each Pro/e module). e.. These conditions make online help much more important Just some stuff to think about, beyond those first couple of tutorials. IOW, make fast friends with usenet if you plan on going to SW. Your VAR may be able to help, but that's a shot in the dark. Don't call SW Corp, they'll just send you back to your VAR; or you could get a book and see if that helps. And, as to online resources, beyond newsgroups? haven't heard of any, but CAD Train was bought out by PTC, maybe Cadquest has expanded into Solidworks training. And some community colleges do offer classes. But what about Alibre, SolidEdge, Think 3? What support for them? Looks like you'd be jumping out of the hatch without the space suit, deepspaced.

MAB - again, many colleges are teaching SolidWorks now, we have extensive courses offered through our VAR's, and if you check job postings on Monster or others sites you will discover that SolidWorks experience is in high demand. Comp.cad.solidworks is a very active (as well as the official SW forum) because the software is very actively used.

Regards

Mark Biasotti SolidWorks

ProE is more complex more powerful hence tuff and longer to learn.

Solidworks less complex less powerful hence easy and less time to learn.

I use them both and know them both very well. If you are doing more then just created a solid model (ie mold, die, toolpath, fea, large assemblies, family of parts) ProE is superior.

Last comments "Engineers, gotta have more then one tool in their tool box. If you only have one tool when management takes that tool away what will you do?"

"Just cause you have Solid Works and you can use it doesn't make you a design engineer!"

I have Pro/E, can use it and I'm just a crackpot. Go figure. ';^)