SolidEdge and stability

My apologies in advance to Ken.

Well the Computer Graphics class is back in full swing. The SolidEdge mothership wasn't able to deliver a new student version of their latest product in time for the IT department to make the images for this semester's classes. So we are still on SE14. However, this probably doesn't change what went on or would have gone on this evening.

Twelve newbies in a room are struggling learning the concepts of sketching, constraints and a host of new skills. About a third had numerous problems with crashes and lost a lot of time. Not surprisingly these users were also the ones having the hardest time learning to use SE. And what may have been causing the crashes more than anything else was that they had not learned to paint within the lines the SE sets forth for sketching. Hardware can pretty much be ruled out. All the workstations are identical with identical software installed on them. The only logical conclusion is that their actions confused the GUI and it's timers and intent zones and put it into some kind of ambigous state that caused the software to crash.

Now I'm not digging SE, just making an observation that probably applies to SW just as much. These problems that were occurring, were to me unreproducible but frequent. It is not unlikely that SW also suffers to a certain extent with this type of problem. There seems to be a certain rythm, for lack of a better word, that some users get into that seems to avoid the movements and actions that cause problems. And vice versa, other seem to have a set of actions that seem to precipitate trouble.

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TOP
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So how do like SE cmopared to SW? It was alomost a tossup back we when selected SW in 98. I just didn't like the ribbon concept that much. Too much walk you through the steps which was slower workflow to me once I learned the commands. Maybe it's changed though.

Reply to
Jason

I really shouldn't say much since this is such an old release. But I don't like not being able to go back and change anything in a feature. Once certain decisions have been made you have to delete the feature and follow a different path to get where you want to go. The sketcher sucks for making constructions because it is too smart.

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TOP

What do you mean by the above statement, could you give an example?

Again, could you give an example.

I've had experience with both SW and Solid Edge and have been giving my recommendations to my company. On my Pro's Con's list for each I don't have anything that would fit your descriptions above. Could you elaborate?

Reply to
David Rieschick

Hopefully your company is not going to consider SE14.

Try changing a linear dimension to a doubled dimension where appropriate.

When you model in SE look at the ribbon bar. In certain operations once you go past a step it is forever grayed out.

I really don't want to get into a SE vs SW discussion as this thread is about stability.

Reply to
TOP

SE's current release is 17.

Me neither, as they really go nowhere (although they can be quite entertaining sometimes). I thought maybe you had an example of a SE shortcoming that I hadn't seen. Could be the difference between SE14 and SE17.

Reply to
DLR

- Bad first choices will sometimes have this result, but MOST features can be Edited to modify their entire definition if necess- ary, without deleting. Catch-22: more robust models come with experience.

- If you manage the Intellisketch options, you can control how much 'assistance' the solver offers whilst sketching profiles. This is a matter of personal preference & experience, but it IS very configurable.

As for stability, main causes of crashes/aborts are:

a) Updates (service packs) not installed b) System configuration (RAM, swap-space, hardware config, BIOS settings, conflicts from 'rogue' software) c) Graphics driver, or poor Open-GL support at hardware level d) Housekeeping issues

Agreed, new Users tend to work randomly rather than methodically and hence tend to experience more hangs/crashes etc. All the more reason to get an experienced user to lead the class!

Rick Mason Sydney, Australia.

Reply to
R.H. (Rick) Mason

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