Probably the most talked about item in sessions I attended and in private conversations was performance. Noticable for it's absence on the enhancment survey was performance.
There was a presentation on What's new in 2006. Part of the presentation was a performance enhancement. Whether this enhancement which had to do with large assembly drawings will have a real impact remains to be seen. If it is like half the performance enhancements listed in the short history presented prior to the unveiling it will have minimal impact on most of us.
I also attended a session on Large Assembly Performance. The gist of the presentation could be summarized:
- Throw fast hardware at it.
- Don't use part features that slow down SW.
- Use configuration to defeature parts for large assemblies.
I would respond to this:
- I already have a really fast computer. It would cost ,500 to upgrade and then I would get a 2-5% improvement.
- I use the features to get the intent. Anyway, my parts are mostly prismatic and I already use good practice in things like putting fillets at the bottom of the feature tree.
- If I have to start adding two extra configurations for every part configuration I use then I will be using up a lot of time on the front end to save some time on the back end. Anyway we want to render the large assembly for our literature and having blocky looking parts won't be allowed.
And the bottom line is:
Unless they can speed up the process in software from parts to assemblies to drawings by a factor of ten "this dog ain't gonna hunt."