A SolidWorks Performance Story.

Have you looked at VX ?

If not, why not ?

jon

If people hate it so much (solidworks), take it away from them and give them a drafting table and a pencil. I bet there'll be a lot of whinning to get it (solidworks) back :-) My point is that although it's not perfect (nothing is) It's certainly better than the old way.

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

Ken,

Yes we did. We also looked at some of the higher priced packages briefly but decided to stick with something in the lower price range. Solidworks sales team put on a really good show. We provided them with sample parts and had them come back with a partial mock up of a die. It really blew us away. They touched briefly on the 2D and how our production would increase and so forth. I even contacted some references that did die design with the software that loved it. They were smaller shops with less complex parts all done native in SolidWorks. We also looked at add-in products such as FormatWorks to clean up our imported data. We definitely went through our due diligence on these products. I also want to set the story straight that my post is merely an editorial on my experience with the software. I will readily admit that i love modeling in SolidWorks. Its easy to use and has many great features. The thing that it lacks however is performance and slow performance adds up at the end of the job.

ken wrote:

demos. We

problems:

extremely

better.

salesperson

problems

sections

doesn't

package.

My uncle worked for GM and used UG and in a Vehicle assembly which I would say approaches 10,000 parts he was complaining about how slow it was and that every day when he opened it that he had to suppress everything that he didn't want to get down to the area he was working in. Anyway I say that to say the grass is always greener I would imagine @ 30,000 for an extremely run down seat of UG and 1,000 - 3,000 for 1 to 2 day classes on each area of the software and I am talking small areas. When you are done come back and let us know how horrible SW is. My colleague came from a PRO-E background and he said that he practically made their tech support cry they hated to talk to him. This isn't to say SW is perfect it has it's strengths and weaknesses but for the price range it is a powerful tool. Besides that I don't know of a CAD comunity that has so much pull in the direction of the software, I don't feel like I have a say in what happens to MS or Adesk products. You work as an engineer. With unlimited time and money you can accomplish just about anything. Well unfortunately there is a limit on both, for both you, me, everyone here and at Dassault. You spend your resources on things that affect the biggest part of your user base. I know there are many people that use Large assemblies and we get into the low thousands, but you have to make some trade offs when you get further up there into large assemblies. You simply can't use some of the features of the software that are resource intensive as Matt mentioned. If you own a Chevy Cavalier and try to race it at 125mph and complain that the speedometer says 125 on it but the piece of s#!t doens't handle very well at

125 better buy the Corvette and quit your griping.

Corey

wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

So you are, in effect, saying; "Try Pro/E and quit your griping" (in this case the Corvette and the Cavalier, your analogy not mine, cost the same) vs. gripe, hope someone pays attention, etc.? Assuming the complaint is valid, my assumptions re relative large assy performance are valid (I'm not); I guess that's a valid enough recommendation. 8~)

Any former Pro-E users want to comment on Assembly Performance comparison. I was going more toward UG with the comparison though. Anyway I just hate it when people say that such a usefull tool is complete crap because they want to throw the max number of parts it can handle at it and expect it to run like a champ. Most anything when used at it's top end will not perform well software machinery whatever.

I guess I wish the criticism was more constructive then just all out "SW SUCKS" because that just isn't true.

Corey

Hold on buddy. I never said we are throwing the maximum number of parts at it and "expect it to run like a champ". We're making assemblies up to 6000 parts, well under SWX claimed threshold. However at this level it's a complete and utterly useless program.

SWX has well scripted and rehearsed sales demos that mislead their customer base. This isn't anything new from them or anyone else. However to respond to your Cavalier analogy and Matt's assertion that if you get taken by a salesman you're a fool (btw this is quite rich coming from a current/past SWX reseller) consider how you'd feel if you order a car that is supposed to perform like a vette but upon taking delivery you find it's more like the Cavalier? Then to be told all the time that it's your fault, you're not driving that Cavalier to it's potential. "Sir, I know plenty of our customers are running their Cavaliers in F1." That's about a fair comparison to SWX position and it's laughable.

SWX lies to potential new customers, PERIOD. Sure it can be argued that you need to do more research blah blah blah when buying software but at the end of the day you need to choose a product and a lot of that decision is going to be based on the sales demos.

We are a manufacturer who needs large assemblies. This is not a secret to our VAR yet they insisited the software is suitable, that's misleading and this entitles the customer to be angry.

I've also never said it's complete crap. If you're making large assemblies it's useless if you're making top hats it's a suitable piece of software.

As for constructive criticism what would you like me to say? Would you like me to submit to SWX a recompiled improved version of SWX? It needs to get faster instead of slower. I've been saying that for years. I've submitted tons of SPRs and spent countless hours dealing with VARs and SWX. I'm done wasting my time trying to help them improve their product and as far as I'm concerned everyone should be sick of being perpetual beta testers for something that never gets fixed.

I understand, Corey, and was just offering a different way of looking at what you said. It would be interesting to see some good comparison statistics; "good" means not the stuff that usually comes to the top from people that once saw someone use it and still think it takes $20k US to get there. (What this industry needs is an open source of info beside the [mostly] foot licking journalism, advertising-posing-as-review kind of trade rags that exist today. Guess there's no money in it.)

OK What is the nature of your 6000 part assembly. Is the tree lit up. Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex castings with fillets, rounds and draft. Do you have the ability of having simplified configs? Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported a transaxle and an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unmanagable, even in small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)? Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW in larger assemblies)? Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins? How much RAM do you have? Is your RAM reliable? (there are a few utilities that will check for you, I think MS either made one or is promoting the use of it I don't know a link off hand) Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt) performance check list? Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it local? I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mode but they are worth a mention. I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you are using it wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or so worth.

I guess if you come in here and asked some of the Gurus in here tips on handling Large Assemblies instead of simply flaming the software because of it's shortcomings.

Corey

But is it better or worse than other tools of the same class (Inventor, SE, UG, Pro/E). A Drafting table isn't exactly an "orange to orange" comparison :)

~What is the nature of your 6000 part assembly?

Typically using subassemlies. Top level might have up to 20 subassemblies and each subassembly has more of the same for as many as

10 or 20 or more levels to the BOM.

~Is the tree lit up.

No

~Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex=AD castings with fillets, rounds and draft.

Mostly plate steel with the occasional high feature parts like a motor etc. Most of the parts do not have an abundance of fillets etc.

-Do you have the ability of having simplified configs?

Yes and they are used sometimes but normally we don't use a simplified config because most of the parts are already simplified. We do use a lot of conifgs though showing alternate positions etc. Switching between configs in a large assy is brutal.

~Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported=AD a transaxle and an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unman=ADagable, even in small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)?

Not ususally, occasionally you get a part from a vendor that's as you described but typically we avoid that. It's only been an issue once that I can recall.

~Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW i=ADn larger

assemblies)?

Rarely and if so only momentarily if required for mating.

~Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins?

No.

~How much RAM do you have?

One Gig.

~Is your RAM reliable?

Seems to be. I crash from time to time but not so much that it's a problem.

~Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt) pe=ADrformance check list?

No.

~Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it =ADlocal?

Off the network. We tested a stand alone box though with no other software and not even connected to the network and load times were almost identical. The assemblies load MUCH slower than the transfer rate on our network.

~I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mo=ADde but they are worth a mention.

Try to use both features as much as possible but unfortunately you're always needing to resolve things anyways to work with them. Large assembly mode is fast until you actually need to work with the assembly. Drawings are slow regardless of what we do.

~I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you =ADare using it wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or =ADso worth.

You're right.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you regularly use large assemblies, that is to say over 3,000 parts? Do you work with multiple sheet drawings of these assemblies showing alternate views, cropped views, sections etc.?

I honestly think that most people who are of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with SWX performance are not using large assemblies. I've modelled complex shapes and castings etc. and find that challenging work but the speed is always fine. A complex part with 200 features performs fine. A complex assembly does not.

I checked one of our larger assemblies and it seems that it is right at 1000 parts. It isn't bad to work with at this level. I do know that Multiple Sheet drawings of castings become a bear to work with. It doesn't really make sence to me though but Fortunately I only have to do multiple sheet drawings on a few castings here and there, and our larger weldments which for some reason seem to handle multiple sheet drawings better. Are you using Draft quality views in your drawings, this is an option that isn't very apparent. It may help speed a bit. Cropped views can also slow things WAY down also, as I understand they have to rebuild 3 times as compared to a standard or detail view. AVOID CROPPED VIEWS AT ALL COSTS.

Corey

Typically using subassemlies. Top level might have up to 20 subassemblies and each subassembly has more of the same for as many as

10 or 20 or more levels to the BOM.

~Is the tree lit up.

No

~Are the parts mostly simple bars or are they alot of complex­ castings with fillets, rounds and draft.

Mostly plate steel with the occasional high feature parts like a motor etc. Most of the parts do not have an abundance of fillets etc.

-Do you have the ability of having simplified configs?

Yes and they are used sometimes but normally we don't use a simplified config because most of the parts are already simplified. We do use a lot of conifgs though showing alternate positions etc. Switching between configs in a large assy is brutal.

~Do you have imported parts with alot of surfaces (I imported­ a transaxle and an engine once and they came in as surfaces and it was unman­agable, even in small assemblies. Imported solids behave alot better)?

Not ususally, occasionally you get a part from a vendor that's as you described but typically we avoid that. It's only been an issue once that I can recall.

~Do you show your Temporary Axis (This dramatically lags SW i­n larger

assemblies)?

Rarely and if so only momentarily if required for mating.

~Do you show your Annotations, Planes, Origins?

No.

~How much RAM do you have?

One Gig.

~Is your RAM reliable?

Seems to be. I crash from time to time but not so much that it's a problem.

~Have you checked into Matt Lombards (I think it was Matt) pe­rformance check list?

No.

~Are you loading your Assemblies off of the Network or is it ­local?

Off the network. We tested a stand alone box though with no other software and not even connected to the network and load times were almost identical. The assemblies load MUCH slower than the transfer rate on our network.

~I think you stated you use lightweight and large assembly mo­de but they are worth a mention.

Try to use both features as much as possible but unfortunately you're always needing to resolve things anyways to work with them. Large assembly mode is fast until you actually need to work with the assembly. Drawings are slow regardless of what we do.

~I am sorry if your VAR has treated you poorly a simple "you ­are using it wrong" ins't support in my opinion, definitely not $1200 or ­so worth.

You're right.

Now let me ask you a question. Do you regularly use large assemblies, that is to say over 3,000 parts? Do you work with multiple sheet drawings of these assemblies showing alternate views, cropped views, sections etc.?

I honestly think that most people who are of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with SWX performance are not using large assemblies. I've modelled complex shapes and castings etc. and find that challenging work but the speed is always fine. A complex part with 200 features performs fine. A complex assembly does not.

Cliff:

We use subassemblies a lot. Everything is broken into subassemblies as much as possible. We don't use any fasteners whatsoever. We don't even call them in our BOM, all we do is let the assembly guys figure out what they need for fasteners based on the holes.

Corey:

I know the cropped views kill things, I try to avoid it but do need them about half the time. When you get smaller subs on a large scale drawing it's often the only way to show location, orientation etc.

Draft quality does help and we use it in larger drawings, at least when we remember. Seems you need to turn it off a lot to print and if it doesn't get turned back on that doesn't help.

Devlin

Cliff:

We use subassemblies a lot. Everything is broken into subassemblies as much as possible. We don't use any fasteners whatsoever. We don't even call them in our BOM, all we do is let the assembly guys figure out what they need for fasteners based on the holes.

Corey:

I know the cropped views kill things, I try to avoid it but do need them about half the time. When you get smaller subs on a large scale drawing it's often the only way to show location, orientation etc.

Draft quality does help and we use it in larger drawings, at least when we remember. Seems you need to turn it off a lot to print and if it doesn't get turned back on that doesn't help.

Devlin

I assume circular detail views wouldn't be adequate? They are alot less resource intensive.

For a detail view we do use the circular details. Cropping comes in when you want to bump up the scale of a drawing to see sub components. For example if we have a few parts that are to be indicated on a vehicle you may show a view of the vehicle, set a scale that is appropriate and then crop it because the ends are hanging off the sheet.

How about broken views? We use those too. Maybe for a piping run that's long you'd break it. This doesn't seem to slow things down though but it does have it's own problems with center lines and other things.

Brian,

I love the fireworks that this post has generated. I totally agree with you on this point. The SW 2d is quite anemic. Solidworks should be happy that nobody at adesk is market savvy enough to integrate IV with the Acad drafting environment. In any case, I too was a tool-designer (progressive, form, compound, and I even once did a brake tool - LOL!).

We did exculsively do our tools in acad because simply put, there was no reason not to. Solidworks was too slow, too cumbersome and frankly too parametric to be useful for many of the simple tasks that we needed to do. The economy of 2D drafting still exists - time is still as valuable as it has ever been.

Usually when one suggests that Acad is better at some tasks than solidworks, one gets accused of not knowing alot about the software, being a noob and so on. This makes me laugh. Usually it comes from the havn't-been-there-havn't-done-it sement (I mean tool design: how many who responded negatively have actually designed _any_ progressive die, start to finish? few I bet). The 2d drafting still offers the best economy for many things, especially stamping tools.

Take a simple stick punch layout - pretty east to manually manipulate all your stick punches into a coherent wire edm layout with acad. Try that with solidworks and you need an assembly, a bunch of mates, a lot of needless tweaking all so you can import it via DXF out to a wire programming software (HEHEHE). Strip layout is another area where acad excels - need a scallop cut, make one need to add material to make a 45 degree cut-by make it for that station only.

But I must confess that solidworks was an absolute necessity for part flat development (probably not as simple for you circumstances where trial & error is the most likely method anyone will eventually use), skeletal strip development, and parametric "always the same" features (i have a thing that draws you a sweet side view with timing, perf & pilot size & advance and so on). Solidworks saved 4-8 hours a tool simply because we could generate these things in an hour or so using SW.

The moral of the story was that we, like you, found fully 3d modeled tools simply impractical. We cranked out prog dies in 20-160 hours based on the complexity and we would have incresed our times by %30 easily using "pure" 3d modeling. The trick was using the right tool at the right time. Solidworks is HORRIBLE at doing line-art - I much prefer corel draw. Autocad STINKS at part development, I perfer SolidWorks. 2D is absolutely the least developed element of solidworks, sometimes I prefer autocad.

I have been a product designer & a tool designer. Strangely, as a tool designer, I still prefer autocad. Why? I can cover the most ground quickly, accurately and complete a tool with clean detailing and no fussing. Tool designs do get HUGE sometimes, even in acad - i have had a few with 10,000+ lines. But when doing products (and fixtures), I prefer SolidWorks and would use nothing else.

To a man with a Hammer, every problem is a Nail. Luckily, you (and I) also have a nice crescent wrench in our toolbox when the hammer will not do the best job - I suspect that many of us are in this position. Anyone who thinks that anhy of the stuff is prefect for everything is likely deluding themselves. I must say that since I stopped doing tool design full time, my hands don't tingle anymore (less autocad).

In any case, you are not alone, but don't throw in the towel yet.

Later,

SMA

Sean-Michael Adams:

Thanks for the support! You are on the same wave length as most of us working in the real world trying to meet customer demands at the same time trying to intergrate a new design process. I would also like to mention that I'm not totally biased towards any CAD package at all. I just need one that works all the time, wether that meens using SolidWorks for 3D and Autocad for 2D or whatever. Solidworks as a total solution for our industry has not proven itself with us, and you're right Sean, I'll spend 15 minutes waiting for SolidWorks to rebuild my

2D sheets because I lengthened a parallel when I could have stretched it in Autocad in 2 Sec. The flip side with our old process; to give some credit back to SolidWorks; is that we have a horrible time surfacing in Autocad for our CNC'd form blocks. We use PowerShape for our surfacing package. So maybe there isn't one surefire package that can marry both 2D speed with 3D functionality. Those claims are definitely made by SolidWorks Reps however.

Sean-Michael Adams wrote:

should

frankly

progressive

Forgive me, since of course I don't know the exact nature of your job and the cropped views but would it be a possibility to make a view on the sheet you are speaking of of the whole assembly and then using a detail view just move the parent view off of the sheet and scale the detail view to suit the sheet, and remove the detail view label. This should be conciderably faster than Cropped views.

Corey