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Suitability assessment of Pro-E for aero project

I am currently trying to assess CAD platforms for a large aero project. The requirements are as follows: The CAD package will be required to take high level data (planform shape and profiles) from various optimization codes (CFD) and perform various interpolations and approximations to give a solid body, which will then be integrated with previously designed elements (engines, ducting, undercarriage, etc.). The entire thing will then need to be exported to be used as geometry for more detailed CFD. The high level shapes will be subject to frequent change. The main requirements are therefore user-definable import/export capability, good scriptability and excellent handling of splines.

Pro-E is first on my list to try as we have an academic site licence already. My first impressions are that it is completely unsuitable for all of the above points. I couldn't find any evidence of scripting, I had to enter all my data in by hand and the spline support was particularly weak.

The point of this email is to check that I am not missing something and also to ask whether any of the above points are resolved between the academic and professional editions of the software. Are there any plugins that might help with the above functions?

Also, if Pro-E is unsuitable for these requirements, can anyone suggest a CAD package that would be more suitable?

Reply to
Steve Thomas
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Cool. Interesting subject and I'll be watching for responses.

Big time aero development = Catia / UG / lots of customization done within the company.

Why not Pro/E? Inertia or a real reflection on abilities / possibilities?

I do hope you'll be kind enough to follow up on this with a summary of where your research leads you.

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Reply to
Jeff Howard

I'm going to further demonstrate my ignorance and a tendency toward banquerishness (an inside joke for news group junkies)....

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I *believe* that the gents behind this were formerly affiliated with MD. Could be if you'll contact them they may be willing to give you some useful insight.

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possibilities?

Reply to
Jeff Howard

I guess "big" is relative :) This is big for an academic project (collaboration between several universities). "Big time aero" might be going a little far though. There are certainly leanings towards Catia at the moment, but I'm still gathering a list of requirements from our team.

The latter. The biggest downside is the difficulty I've found is getting the data that we already have into Pro-E. This comes from a very wide range of sources (CFD, engine design tools, various optimizers, etc) and I have so far not really found a way of unifying it as a Pro-E model, except by starting from a blank model and constructing it by hand. This is problematic as the starting data are going to change frequently, so ideally we would script as much of the geometry generation as possible and keep the hand-construction to a minimum.

Inertia actually takes us towards Pro-E. We already have an academic site-licence, so the project gets it for free and there are people in our department with much experience using it, so plenty of support would be available.

If there were some way that we could program Pro-E, it would be far more attractive. Is there an end-user SDK for example? (I couldn't find one referenced anywhere on the PTC website)

Regards, Steve Thomas

Reply to
Steve Thomas

Big time aero development... was actually referring to the big manufacturers. Catia and UG have their roots in aerospace development, were pioneers in 3D CAD. They were adopted by the auto industries, etc. that had the resources and could see an ROI on the tremendous investments required at the time for the software / hardware / development of additional wrapper / ancillary applications.

Inertia... these investments will not be trashed without very good reason. I'm not sure that present circumstances (Pro/E not having been adopted by any of the aforementioned industries in a big way) are an indication of Pro/E's ability or potential for development. Could a start up general aviation manufacturer adopt Pro/E as it's foundation CAD / CAM / PLM / etc. software? I don't know. I'm just a neophyte that finds the subject matter interesting.

Pro/E is programmable (Pro/Program, C, C++ ?). To what extent and at what cost; I don't know. The extent of my knowledge goes as far as reading IBL files, trail files . I'd contact PTC about it. Actually, I'd put together a proposal and submit it to various developers. Might get some support out of some of them. Things like your project make good press copy.

Pro/E does have a substantial presence in the aerospace industry. I know there are individuals that sometimes contribute to this group that have backgrounds in aero, auto, Catia, UG, .... Maybe they'll weigh in eventually. If you haven't done so already, try the groups at ptcuser.org. I've corresponded with individuals there from Raytheon and Williams Int, think I've seen posts from P&W, GE, ... employees. There are probably several other aerospace related users that frequent those groups. They have more traffic than this group in general.

Good luck with it and looking forward to what may come.

Reply to
Jeff Howard

.... btw, is there / will there be a project related web site?

Reply to
Jeff Howard

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