DWGEditor less than perfect...it seems?

Kman,

Worth consideration as compared to Acrap? Don't really know what you mean by that. If you are asking if it could replace Acrap, then it depends on you. I could use DWGEditor instead of the other. I think it does nearly 100% of what I would need to do. It does LISP and VBSript too. I haven't had much trouble with the LISPs not working. The bigeest thing for me is the Aliases (keyboard shortcuts) that are built into DWGEditor. They override any LISPs loaded. So you have delete the offending Alias.

It opens all the old drawings we have, and our current Aversion will not save back to R14, and DWGEditor WILL. As a matter of fact, DWGEditor will save back to 2.8 or some such.

I think if you get past the little interface differences (dialog boxes are laid out differently), the DWGEditor can certainly replace the big boy...

Mr. Pickles

I was interested in knowing if Intellicad was close enough in functionality to use in place of Acad if necessary. You answered this question in your reply. Sounds like the dwg editor will tempt a few more users to move away from AutoCAD for all their 2D needs. The incorporation of the editor does say volumes to the usefulness of 2D and continued support among users. In the automotive industry, Acad is still King at the manufacturing level.

Kman

This wouild be a godsend if it were truly associative and parametric, a curse if it were not.

Personally, I would be about 60 percent more effective in detailing.

Why?

Command line (two hands always beat one - the major reason). True customisation (lisp,PGP,Diesel,menus). Real blocks. Better control over geometry. Strong layering. I love the acad interface.

The SW interface for 2D - an aferthought based on the bad presumption that what works in the modeling interface also works for detailing. It doesn't.

Solidworks is great, and for product design, there is no discussion on its value over the other, but pound for pound, it just can't keep up with acad for detailing. I would not take autocad over solidworks for product design. But for 2D drafting, it smokes Solidworks (at least when I them - I'm proficient at both of them). I can't even make an "inter-view" dimension with Solidworks - stuff like that keeps SW from being great in detailing.

Remembring that acad is was and always will be a 2D drafting package, of course it is good at that. That's it's reason for being (yeah sure, you can monkey around with solids in acad, but why bother, the developers know that it's massivley hindered unparametric stuff - there may be add ons that make it bearable).

I'm also astounded that the folks at adesk have not merged the parametrics of inventor with the autocad 2d interface, making them truly parametric and associative. If they made this move, I would likely be an ex-solidworks user immediately.

Fortunately, most cad developes are not interesed in making their products good for both 2D detailing & 3D modling all in the same program, so no change seems eminent (and yes I am practicing sarcasm).

Later,

SMA

Would I have enough money left over to buy some asbestos underwear?

Dale,

It just depends on who you hang with. I don't really know ACAD and only know what I do know out of painful necessity. But I have been around enough ACAD old timers to know that they can run circles around me on detailing tasks in ACAD. For that group and not the enlightened group here doing what I suggest would actually allow these "old timers" to be productive and would cut down a lot on the grousing I hear.

The other thing is that in ACAD you pretty much have full control of everything and not what somebody in Jam Land* wants you to control. A lot of companies detail to their own standards. If you go to far astray from ANSI, GOST, etc. SW can be a realy bear.

• Jam Land -- The association goes like this: Jam - Grape Jam - Concord Grape Jam - You know who. :)

I fully agree with that.

I believe SW is simpler to master and allows me to do most of the tasks needed for detailing. Anyone remember AutoCAD views not aligned or incomplete, starting with someone else's assembly drawing, make a few localized design changes, assign a new part number and release to manufacturing (oops). Only to later discover after the fact the other designer forgot/neglected (didn't give a shit) to match all the geometry between views. Now starts the time consuming process of back tracking to painstakingly identify the errors while manufacturing, sales, your boss are having mini heart attacks in front of the coffee machine. It is a slow painstaking process to project all the geometry in all views and worse, update views after the design by committee managers decide a few changes are in order ("shouldn't take that long to make a few small design changes" and anyways you are on salary so it won't negatively impact the company profit margins, ha ha). Or one of my favorites, making an assembly detail from scratch instead of copy and pasting from the assembly to minimize geometry errors. Now the details don't match the assembly geometry that is incorrect to start with. Oh, did I mention the detailer typed in their own numbers (expressing their true inner self) that don't match the already useless geometry in the assembly and details. Their are so many AutoCAD variables and different ways of doing the wrong thing (i.e. control) it makes your head spin. How can that be more productive?

If someone is running circles around you in AutoCAD then maybe there is another reason.

Kman

"P" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

news:...

Hi KMan -

You obviously have a strong grounding in reality. Good post. Most of the crap you mention happens to us all and it is the bad baggage part of the 2D process. This, as you said, does get exponentially worse as people begin to hack and get lazy, or are simply unskilled.

The major advantage that I like about Solidworks is that the foundation of any drawing is a model, which means that there are no geometry errors. This too is occasionally what I hate about it. What I mean is that often in the 2D realm, I would make a section view and include only the 7 elements that were needed to "tell the story". When I do a solidworks section view, I do not have this type of ability (without lots of work), so while the fidelity is a million times higher, my "story" sometimes gets lost in all of the fidelity.

(apples vs oranges I know)

SolidWorks lacks many of the traditional detailing capabilites of acad, or are underpowered, and by that I mean dimensioning/dim/text style control (take for example the dimscale variable - no equiv in SW), general text and block handling, direct geometry control, window/crossing selection, layering (with recallable states), the ability to copy geometry with impunity (bad if hacked, but good if not) for layouts, ability to change the detailers perspective to the drawing (ie set ucs then use PLAN to change your viewpoint), revclouds, blocks with real attributes, linetype by layer/block option, view-to-view dimensions,__insert your favorite____.

For 2D detailing, autocad still offers many capabilities not found in SW, but that's the extent of it. The bad baggage of the 2D process makes it unfavorable for most types of work (but not all - it's still good and yes even better at times). Given perfect geometry and no future changes, I personally would take autocad detailing and interface over SW any day. What stops me from doing it that way is lack of parametrics, so SW wins in the end, but not always.

Nice Post.

Later,

SMA

I didn't say these "Old Timers" who ran circles around me got it right most of the time. That is another story. The predominant culture in this geographic area frequently measures productivity in drawings completed per hour, not correct drawings completed per hour. grin.

Hasn't anybody spoken to you about meeting schedules? another big cynical grin.

I'm terribly confused. I worked with ACAD up through Release 14. That totaled about 6-7 years of experience in ACAD. I am now working with SW and have been consistently for about 3 years. I don't miss one single thing about ACAD. I can create a detail far better than I ever could with SW b/c it only takes seconds to add several views in place of hours. Also the fact of companies not following standards causing difficulty??? Hello!!! A cad package had the common sense to integrate all the major standards right into the software and limit the users to that. Ever try to implement standards with the only limitations being trusting your users? Unless you're an amazing individual you'll never get every single person to follow unless they're totally limited by the software. If you're company hasn't caught up with the times and conformed to a standard it's time to step up to the plate and accept some change!

Well, some companies have their own standard (ex: Caterpillar, last I saw). Many other things are not covered by standards, the SW seems to assume. For example, not everyone has a unique number for every part. SW seems to assume that everyone does.

I'm agreeing with the idea that Acad allows much finer control of the annotaion geometry (in most cases) for those situations where a national standard or common practice does not pertain. In my experience so far, using SW and the detailing workarounds is still much faster, efficient, and accurate than any 2D package. But there is room for improvement, as usual.

P,

Your post brought out old emotions and flashbacks from my own AutoCAD days. I still use AutoCAD for process layouts and such but prefer the benefits gained from detailing in SW. There is always room for improvement and SW has made progress over the years. There are some good aspects of AutoCAD detailing that SW should belly up to the bar and incorporate them for their own.

The only types of companies I'm familiar with that value quantity of drawings over quality would be job shops or more politically correct and current "engineering firms" and their associates. I am not minimizing the importance of getting work done.

A company I worked for did some research and came up with an interesting ratio between engineering to manufacturing non-value added tasks. The manufacturing department wasted 10 hours for each hour of engineering error. In reality engineering errors surely affect every department and budget in the company. And ultimately those precious Gantt charts project managers so proudly display.

Schedules, yea I've heard about em (grin)

Kman

Guys,

Could I get a Histogram . . .

Ouch! I started my life in a stamping & tooling job shop - there was "zero tolerance" for anything that was not "quality". You learned fast not to make ANY mistakes and when you did, man look out, because someone was crawling up your __YouFillItIn__ in a flash. You also learned to own up to your own crappy work instantly and admit when you had made a mistake. You then tried to improve and generally did. Those who did not did not prosper (i.e. You could easily become a professional parts deburrer if you were not diligent about developing yourself).

You comment about a 1:10 error maginfication of design errors is quite real, especailly once something has been "committed to metal". I got really good at thanking anyone who found an error on a design before they cut metal. I got very very good at saying "Thanks - you saved my ass again": generally people were more willing to help and occasionally I was able to return the favor.

Designing anything correctly is hard, building and making it work it is even harder.

Regards,

SMA

Ooops, got carried away again. My apologizes Might not get a histogram, would you settle for a Pareto chart? Send me an email and I can put you in touch with the Quality Manager that did the research if you are serious.

Kman

Agreed. Inventor comes free with regular Acad, Acad Mechanical (which is much faster, more efficient, more accurate than reg. Acad.) and Mech. Desktop. Comparing the DWG Editor to Acad is like comparing a fake diamond to a real one.

Don't get me wrong, I still like SW, especially the newly released