Solidworks Chopper

Sure, but it has some serious problems when it comes to larger assemblies. Which is why they still use Pro/E.

Yeah, a GUI is important. VX's sucks IMHO. But the modeling tools are so good, and most importantly, they WORK! Delcam's GUI was far superior IMHO.

Didn't get it. Try re-sending.

Actually you are very right on that aspect. I had an idea once that I was trying to model in Solidworks and immediately got caught-up and frustrated by the limitations imposed by planes and wound up sketching it out on a piece of paper instead. Certainly user ability is important; but given a certain level of proficiency, one should not have to jump through hoops, try to figure ways to fool the CAD system to do what you want to do.

Laz

I'm just a janitor.

jon

I sent you off an email. Let me know if you don't get it.

jon

Yes the bike company- I was, am into cycling, that is how I heard about CNC, CAD and everything else and got into it- I never had the opportunity to do anything for them. Joe Mamma eh ?

Laz

If I did a Solidworks theme bike I would make up to half of it transparent, cut the side of the motor, use armoured glass or whatever, same thing for the transmission....paint sky-blue on the fenders...push-button starter, lights, etc all icons on a toolbar on the handelbar...

Neat, huh ?

Laz (" ideas-man" )

transparent,

I like your SolidWorks assembly concept for a theme bike and I can see the icons being integrated. If done right it sure would be a hell of a lot better than what was shown in the picture as the bike OCC brought to SolidWorks World.

jon

I thought about this more today. We were making parts for their shocks. We had one of their bikes on the shop floor that we could ride. I think the price I heard was like $3,000 dollars. I also seem to remember Cannondale used Pro/E. We rode the bike inside the shop because the area where the shop was located (near Bridgeport, Connecticut ) was really bad.

jon

A lot of work needs to be done in this area. Very little of anything is ever discussed in either newsgroup in this regard. This to me is very sad.

I agree that much of the jump through hoops stuff is unneccesary and IMO it's because SolidWorks tools are often very weak. This is not the case with most of VX's tools.

As Steve Mackay has said, VX's UI sucks. He is right but even thought the UI sucks the tools in VX are so powerful that in many (not all )areas VX can get away with having a UI that is not so hot. Actually, it has kind of grown on me.... not sure why but I think it's because of it's powerful tools making many things easy. However, this is not always the case in VX.

For me, the spline tool in VX is not documented very well and there is no decent tutorial on using it that I have found. Contrast this to the VX tools for lofts and sweeps. They are easy to use and very well thought out and the UI is good enough for me for both of these tools.

jon

Thanx.

It's very easy to criticize and throw stones ( right, Cliff ? ); but I feel that a person who does that is obligated to provide an alternative.

Laz

PTC had a customer profile on thier web site about Cannondale a few years back... They talked about being able to design and Cam a program... make changes, Cam, and post new program in a short time.

On Cannondale's site they have job openings... Design: they ask for Pro/E and SolidWorks exp... Suspension design: Pro/E exp.