Was messing around with 2006 and accidentally saved and converted a bunch of production files with no backups. Now I'm forced into using it for production stuff. As I work on things and save them, it's like having a virus on your computer, because I end up saving more 2005 files and converting them. It just keeps going on and on!
Just hope I can squeak by until 2006 is released. How much longer do you think we going to have to wait?
Seems like every year they come with a new version, I make the same mistake. I'm bumming dude!
I couldn't pick up this one on Google so I'm replying to you Mark.
This guy got into quicksand and quickly did all the wrong things.
No backups???? Talk about living dangerously.
Converted files and disregarded the checkbox that allows a backup to be made automatically.
Didn't read any of the many warnings in the software and on the news group.
Didn't understand that PreRelease means pre-release. Fortunately SW rarely if ever makes PreRelease files incompatible with the released versions. It is however more likely with a PreRelease that some file corruption might occur.
Keeps going even after he knows he's screwed. This is the quicksand panic trap. As soon as he noticed what he was doing he should have stopped in his tracks, backed up everything and made a list of what was converted and what wasn't. Assemblies are pretty easy to recreate and parts can be washed through parasolid/feature works/autodimension treatments to get back what he had with relatively little effort.
Betcha a box of donuts this guy still hasn't backed up anything. If he has a Palm Pilot or Office, why not set an appointment that goes off next year around this time telling himself not to do it?
If you think I'm being too harsh I'll be a little harsh on myself and wonder why I keep supporting software that can not interoperate with itself and has spent more in development on reading other vendor's files (Pro/E) than it's own. Aside from the backup comments this guy shouldn't be in this pickle in the first place.
I went to the 2006 launch yesterday and had to laugh at SW's AutoCAD plugin that allows AutoCAD users to open older versions of DWG files. They were bragging about how the plugin was giving Autodesk a headache and money loss - how long before someone clever writes us a backward-open plugin for SW????? Hopefully it will give SW a loss of sales too....
SW does not disclose their file format other than it is structured storage.
SW files seem to be object oriented as opposed to ACAD files which seem to be geometry oriented. So what is saved in a SW file is based on the current structure of SW objects. It is like a house of cards. How many times has a little file corruption made a SW file totally unusable. In ACAD you can take away one part and still have most of the rest.
SW files contain a lot of "junk" that ACAD files don't have. Display lists, versions of the solid bodies, etc. How these all interact is not clear.
Th> I went to the 2006 launch yesterday and had to laugh at SW's AutoCAD plugin
I think to a degree, the file changes in different versions of SW is very intentional. My reason for believing this is how they can change file types among pre-releases. It would seem that you wouldn't want to do this as your working the bugs out, but yet they do. I bet it's something they do during the compile process. I think it's partly a security reason with the pre-releases so they can't be used with the production software.
I think they have more control over this situation than they want us to believe.
They change things because they really aren't changing geometry, but data structures.
Consider this mind experiment.
Model four cubes by creating the first cube and then starting a sketch on two faces of that cube that have a common edge, convert the faces and extrude then pick one of the faces of the two new cubes that also have that edge in common and repeat to get four cubes melded into one.
Model four cubes by sketching a square, bisecting two edges that share a common vertex with normal so that you have four square areas. Using shared sketches extrude four cubes by picking squares in a clockwise rotation and letting them merge.
Do the same as in 2, but pick squares that are diagonal first and then pick the others.
Do the same as in 2, but with merge unchecked and combine bodies when done.
Each of these gets to the same result and to some extent are ambiguous in how the final geometry is put together. Now consider how you will represent this in a file especially if you extend your thinking to the case where it is SW that picks the order the cubes are created. There is going to be a lot more in the file than just the geometry.
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