SolidWorks Database Problem

I have never heard of this and it seems a little vague. Is this a legitimate question or a troll?

- Eddy

Hmm, totally guessing but sounds like it could be related to the suppression bug?

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John Eric Volt>

That might make sense. As nasty as the suppression bug is, I've never seen it completely blow up an assy and its parts have you? The idea that SW personnel were ever dispatched seems humorous (and ludicrous) :)

And John, I think your question is legit but sounds maybe like the person relaying the problem to you exaggerated a bit? The description as you delivered it sounds a little like a competing var cautioning you against SW. Pro/E used to make statements like that about SDRC (and the others) back in the mid-late 90's. Good that your cross checking.

Again, I haven't heard of anything *that* drastic but my time in 2004 is limited to testing only. We still use only 2003 for production work, which has it's own set of problems but bursting into flames isn't one of them. I agree with Paul that it sounds related to the known suppression bug.

- Eddy

This is a legitimate question - although I have my doubts regarding the accuracy of the story. If I can get more detail, I will post a more complete explanation.

Hmm. If it was the suppression bug "SolidWorks personnel" should have been able to spot that, even if it was just the VAR (which I suspect). I have never seen or heard of a SW file of any kind becoming corrupted to the degree that seems to have been described to you. That much data loss is usually due to unstable hardware. Perhaps overclocked a bit too much, or a faulty memory module. I can't say that's what it is. That's just what it sounds like. Was the rest of the system stable?

Here's a version of the story as it was told to me. I am still trying to find out when this occurred. I'm guessing its been several years since the $20K price tag seems a bit high, at least today.

I, personally, never got around to learning to drive it. I looked over several shoulders with interest, particularly as the situation deteriorated. I've used AutoCAD for about ten years on a steady basis. I've driven Vellum, Pro/E, MiniCad, and I'm getting better at Rhino. I programmed embedded computers professionally for ten years. I've got a pretty good understanding of what goes on inside a computer, and how most software works.

Our chief designer at the time was real fast. We bought one seat for $20k, and put him to work learning it by using it.

Our environment is atypical. We design and produce exhaust systems for big yachts, mostly full custom, and we quote a turnaround time of ten working days. We send a survey sheet comprising an outline of the customer's engine, and let him fill in the critical dimensions we need, locating stuff like the waterline, the holes where the exhaust leaves the boat, and whatever decks, bulkheads, generators, and structure happen to be in the way. We run centerlines from the turbo outlets to the hull exits, size the pipes, and produce 3D surfaced models of the system from one end to the other in two days or less. From those, we produce fax approval sketches and 2D manufacturing drawings. Then we cut sheet alloy into rectangles and preforms, press elbows, roll our own tubes, and weld all the stuff together real nice, pressure test, polish or powder coat, and add insulation. A typical CAD shop might do ten major 3D designs a year. We do hundreds.

Solidworks _should_ have been a good investment. First, of course, we had to build 3D models of a bunch of our standard parts, then import them into an assembly drawing, then, well, you know how to drive it better than I do.

The designer would go through the agony of building the components and structuring them and fitting them into an assembly model, and then there would be a crash, and all of his work would basically evaporate. The assembly model, the product structure, pretty much everything, would become just a big collection of lines, circles, and arcs. No parametric or relational information survived. He went through this several times before we called for help.

The factory sent in four different teams of experts. The first one was not real helpful, but the next three were progressively better. The last one actually worked for the factory and helped write the software. Each would come in all full of sunshine promises, fully expecting to leave the next day with our problem solved. Every one stayed at least a week, and left disappointed and disillusioned. They tried to build the same assemblies as the designer, and got the same results. Great looking assembly, zoomy interface, cool capabilities, and then one random keystroke caused a crash, and all but a pile of ones and zeroes remained.

Yes, John, the price tag is high. So high that I question whether it was ever SolidWorks that was being used. As far as I understand the price tag has always remained below $5K. If you were including the cost of a workstation that might be possible, but only for a really SUPER workstation. Even though costs have come down on almost all hardware you would have still had a difficult time spending that much four or five years ago UNLESS these people bought a super high end graphics card and paid $5000 or more for it, plus the biggest and priciest monitor on the market with the fasted computer available with the maximum amount of RAM it could support. Somewhere along the line the story really doesn't seem to hold together. See if you can come up with some more accurate facts by talking to some of those who were working in the company in question back then.

Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton Charlotte, NC

John,

It honestly does not sound like a full story to me, sumthangs miss'n? It's an interesting story though. I'm sure a few of us have had corrupt SW files. I've had about 10 corrupt SW files over the years but I've never had a corrupt assembly? I'm sure it is possible but I've never seen or heard of this happening?

The $20K figure does not wash or make sense for SW.

I do not see what would be so complicated about making a exhaust assembly? I doubt this but, I can imagine if a custom interface was formed,.. maybe it's the way the driving parameters, equations or sketch layouts were organized in the assembly and... they somehow set off the corruption? So, for some reason or because of the data complexity and to save time, even though they had 3 sets of people looking at this problem, the original layout was maintained and not questioned or changed? It probably should have been totally reorganized or rewritten?

It's not clear but I'd have to ask, if this corruption was on other systems and releases or sp's? Was it the same "one" button or sequence which caused the corruption? As someone said, it does sound like it could be original hardware which is corrupting the data?

BTW, you mention centerlines (analytical, lines and arcs?) and surface files? I can only imagine that the routing of the pipes and the diameters may overlap eachother, surfaces will not allow this, solids will and that could be a issue?

hmm..

John Eric Volt>

I concur with the others. I've been with SW since around 97 and I've been involved with many different solid modelers directly responsible for buying, building and using numerous high-end workstations, sans unix. The only way I can imagine SW getting close to 20k is if there was an unknown incredible system involved or more likely a custom api solution written on top of SW. Back then with a state of the art Accel graphics card, etc... you'd be hard pressed to get anywhere close to 10G for hardware, more like 5-7k for a pretty bad-ass system. And you'd never go above 6-7k for SW even with all the options and training. That means it was either a custom solution on top of SW or it just wasn't SW.

Either way, if the purpose of your question is to catch up and/or find out if SW is a capable modeler... then yes, I've never lost an Assy down to primitives. It's just not how SW works. I've seen the kind of behavior you describe in other systems but not SW. The closest scenario in SW to the one you're describing would be trying to open an assy that was created in some other pkg like Pro/E or Rhino or 3DStudio (the latter two not being solids packages) in which the result is sometimes nothing more than a pile of lines, arcs, primitives, etc. But SW had very little to do with that as it results from failed translations.

SW has it's problems but to the best of my knowledge, nothing like what you're relaying. I have to wonder along with the others if it was something more like a cross-over system, like mechanical desktop, which was more deeply rooted in wireframe geometry and born from a 2d system (flame suit on).

- Eddy

deteriorated.

I should state that I'm definitely not trying to say SolidWorks is a bad program. I use it everyday with only minimal problems. Having used a variety of other CAD tools, I have encountered catastrophic failure type problems with other software. SolidWorks has never done that to me.

That being said, I was curious about the origins of this story that came to me via reliable sources. I was hoping someone could either explain what might have happened or suggest a CAD tool other than SolidWorks as the culprit.

Based upon everything I've read and my own experiences, this is probably not a topic with any particular relevance to SolidWorks today. Maybe this story dates back to the infancy of SolidWorks. Maybe it has nothing to do with SolidWorks. I will probably never know.

Thanks to everyone for your input and refraining from attacking this potentially pointless topic.

Go back to your "reliable sources" and try to find out what actually happened. Personally I think you'll find that you can never get back to the person that actually drove the CAD system. It will always be "a friend of a friend". The story has all the earmarks of an urban myth.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems

For the record, my "reliable source" was me speaking directly to someone who observed this first hand. I have since learned that these events apparently took place within the past year and the $20K price tag was for multiple seats. Something is still suspicious about the story, but I'm not likely to get any further clarification as to what took place.