I see you have a new 'free' macro on your site- Sketchfile- thanks for making it available to SW users. My question is about the nominated update to extend to surfaces -will you be be making that 'free' also rather than continue your maths addin - which apparently no one buys-? I could probably make use of this capability sometimes but I would feel slightly opportunist in picking up something by default you have spent time developing. That probably sounds a little odd to say but I wouldn't want you to miss out on some return for your efforts, human nature being what it is donations may be scarce......
"neil" a écrit dans le message de news:GOLKb.4146$ snipped-for-privacy@news.xtra.co.nz...
I made it by request on this group, see the "Curve Through Free Points Enhancement" thread. It is brand new, I will advertise a bit more in the next days.
Right. It will even be better, allowing "self intersecting surfaces" (in fact it will split the surface in surfaces that do not intersect)
Kind of you. The "sometimes" is the problem. Nobody would purchase a program to use it "sometimes". I was thinking about a "pay per use" approach that would charge users 1$-5$ each time they use an add-in but:
1) users would have to pre-pay
2) companies don't like to pay directly by credit card, without the usual offer-order-delivery-invoice papers
3) licensing system would be web-based, and pretty hard to make it safe and reliable
So I prefer that you pay what you want when you want, if you can. It's just simpler.
Donations are as scarce as sales, but they require no effort in licensing, protection, update management, support... Let me tell you one thing I learned in 4 years : rogramming SW add-ins is definitely no business. The more I spend time on such things, the more I understand why it takes years to SW corp to implement "enhancements" request : ROI < 0. They implement those that competitors offer, and purchase or rewrite add-ins from "partners".
So now I do it for fun besides some contracts. But I feel I won't have fun much longer...
well I appreciate your efforts.I am sure many people do. im kinda sorry things like this are hard to make pay their way. im looking forward to the surfacing tools you mention : ) I will be sure to make you a donation !
I can't say that this surprises me much. There are some nice add-ins around, but as you admit, most are the kind that someone would only use occasionally which minimizes their sales potentials. I wonder if any of the lower echelon SW add-in vendors are generating much cash flow from their programming efforts. Stefan Berlitz comes to mind. His products are great (yes I have purchased them) but I very seriously doubt the the income generated by his product support him.
I am a photographer and use a product called iMatch from Mario Westphal
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IMatch is regarded through the digital photography arena as being the best, most configurable photo file management system out there. Unfortunately Mario has sold something like 1,000 copies of iMatch (at $50 per copy) in the years it's been out and can in no way support himself from it's sales. This is a sideline for Mario. So it's not just the SolidWorks community that suffers from these issues.
Well, you certainly have been a positive contributor to the SolidWorks community and if you drift off, you will be missed. but I can certainly understand the need to make a decent living.
"Chris Dubea" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...
You are right, the fees from the licenses helps with online costs, webspace and there is also some extra money left for a new TFT monitor or even a new computer every year.
BUT I do this completly in my sparetime and almost for fun, to make my living I have a job which occupies another
50 hour a week, fortunately with SolidWorks (I'm CAD admin).
I also maintain the german SolidWorks helppage and moderate the german webforum at
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, and for in about 5 years now there have been 0 (null, zero, nothing) donation in form of money, which would help paying the bills.
So I decided to take a license fee at least for my major tools like PAC4SWX; I think this pays what I have invested (if I don't count my time) and some extra bucks on top, but I wouldn't even been able to live from all generated income from 2 years for more than 6 weeks.
So for me it's okay, as it is a kind of extra money I get for a passion (the programming), but to make a living you have to make projects especially for some customers on a regular base.
All the best to TheTick, hopefully you will get it working.
I did it. SketchFile can now build surfaces from structured points files. Kind of "Surface from XYZ points" function... Did not test much yet... Will improve it as feedback and SAMPLES come in. But since it is a macro, it is Open Source and you can help too, right ?
MathSurf is dead as a product, but became a free macro that combines with SketchFile to generate points files from mathematically defined curves and surfaces. It is pretty basic right now.. Will be improved in the next days. Here again, any feedback / suggestion is welcome.
Sorry to hear your lack of success selling SW add-ins, Philippe. I guess you make a living out of the contract work? Like The Tick, I'm not far from launching my first add-in, so, of course, I'm interested in what you have written. Here in Cambridge, England, I know of some individuals who made quite good livings starting CAD companies, but all of them made their money selling technology to the large CAD vendors, or through consultancy. I guess, writing add-ins is a good way to develop core technology, but ultimately one needs the marketing muscle of a large vendor to extract value from that technology; for example, SolidWorks "partners" selling to SolidWorks. However, having only one potential buyer, SolidWorks, doesn't put one in a strong position to negotiate. So I am thinking one way to go is to develop core technnology that has value outside of SolidWorks and that could, if desired, be integrated into multiple CAD systems.
Is your CADOO framework a success from a business point of view? Do you find that it helps you win consultancy work?
Yes, CADOO is the foundation and masterpiece of all my SolidWorks software
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It's really a "high-level API", anyone doing some serious add-in project should have something like this. I didn't really push it on the market yet, but planned to make it sexier and sell it this year. Interested ? I'd love to go to Cambridge once more...
Hey, I'm a short of cash like you, so I couldn't afford CADOO right now! (After debugging a COM reference counting crash for weeks where the only call stack is a FEEEFEEE from SolidWorks itself, I think I would need source code.) I think your prices are reasonable though, but selling to established companies with cash whose core competence is engineering rather than compsci/maths.
As you say though, if you are serious about add-ins, then you do need a framework. I have developed something a bit like yours for my own use using STL Port, boost, smart pointers etc. Components/frameworks always seem like a good idea from a development point of view, but the ongoing costs of documenting and supporting a substantial API like CADOO seem high to me. It looks like you have gone about it in the right order though, developing applications first, and then refactoring the framework as you go along. At least then you know your abstractions are good for developing at least some applications. I guess if you are selling the framework as part of a package including consultancy, then it starts to make more sense
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