Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Pro/E popularity and competitiveness

2ms1

New member
Hi, I'm just wrapping up my Master's here and looking at what kind of jobs are out there. It'll be my first engineering job. I've never used any CAD other than Pro/E. I have a couple questions.


(a) How popular is Pro/E out there in the real world -- am I going to be an oddball for only having Pro/E experience and would it have been more desireable to have used/learned a different CAD software while doing my thesis (basically my entire experience with CAD) as far as being equipped for getting best possible job?


(b) How different are other CAD softwares (AutoCAD in particular)? I feel like the bulk of my time in learning Pro/E has been in learning its interface andskills that won't necessarily transfer well.


(c) How do people generally feel that Pro/E stacks up against other popular CAD softwares?
 
Have you noticed that the number of posts for PRO-E help far outnumber the total posts of Catia, Solildworks & Unigraphics on a daily basis. This can only mean one thing that there are far more people using PRO-E than the other software packages. More people using a software means more companies using that software package.
 
You feel that Pro/E is definitely the most widely used CAD app? My impression was thatAutoCAD is.
Edited by: 2ms1
 
AutoCad probably have most seats sold but they are huge in architecture and construction. Not that big in mechanical industry.


Here, most job ad'slooks for people with SW, Catia or Pro/E experience.
 
I am talking mechanical engineering. I guess it's bad luck
that my two favorite companies in the world use AutoCAD then. I'm
very pleased to here that Pro/E is the modern standard in ME
though. Am I getting that correctly? It would be great if I
could be confident that Pro/E will only become more and more popular
with mechnical engineering firms to the point where the vast majority
of work was done with it.

Edited by: 2ms1
 
Autocad has a huge customer base in 2D, the area where most companies started CAD. They managed to get some customers over to Mechanical Desktop (their first mechanical branch) or Inventor (their second try). Autocad 3D doesn't really fit engineering needs. Other companies chose higher end CAD to start with but this world has known big changes. Who remembers Computervision,CADAM ... ? Today they are CATIA, NX, IDEAS, ProE, CADDS. When PC's started to get more power we saw midrange systems come up such as Solidworks, Solid Edge, Inventor, Microstation, Solid Designer ... But as the world doesn't stand still the difference between high- and midrange is becoming more and more vague.


Success of a program is not measured by its performance but unfortunately more by its marketing. So to me neither Windows nor ProE are as good as their presence in the market would indicate. But in real life, and for real jobs, you have to live with what is present.


You are not bad off knowing ProE, but I smiled as I read "I feel like the bulk of my time in learning Pro/E has been in learning its interface", skills that not necessarily translate in good 3D-modelling. The advantage is that when you learn modeling in a system that is very choosy on how its handled, you won't be helpless in systems that are more "helpfull and understanding". Adapting in the other direction is harder. The disadvantage of doing things the ProE-way is that you won't be up to speed in other systems.
 
If you know Pro-E, you can learn any other 3D package quickly. don't put too much weight in that.


I used Cadkey for 10 years, then picked up Solidworks at my new job. Used it for a year, then switched jobs andlearned Pro-E. Now I've been using it for over a year.


I'd concentrate on emphasising other aspects of your education and skills. CAD can always be picked up on the job, or after hours.


DEFINATELY DO NOT base your job search on the CAD package. HUGE mistake, and you could miss out on a great oppertunity.
Edited by: davidinindy
 
2ms1


Very good advice from davidinindy above. Engineering is not a CAD package, it is a skillset. Good engineers solve problems, design innovative solutions, modify/improve existing designs (the list is endless) BUT they are not CAD monkeys. ProE is a tool (an end to a means, to quote Mr. Machiavelli), it is there to help you achieve a project goal.


Become a good/brilliant engineer, not a mouse shuffler.


Kev


PS AutoCAD is the most used system in the world, but not at all difficult to learn. It requires the user to be able to visualise a structure in 3D and translate that vision to a 2D orthogonal drawing....a skill thatyou should hopefully have enhanced (not deliberately) by using ProE.


PPS I started in AutoCAD, trained in ProE (which as AHA-D says is slightly cumbersome to learn) but have never had a problem whenever I have used other 3D packages (Inventor, Solidworks, UGS). I have, however, seen many people who have learned on other packages have problems (resistance) when changing to ProE.
 
Let us know which CAD program is helpful & understanding won't you? I could use a break now & then.
 
The number of posts to THIS forum for help is NOT any indication of the number of users of a particular CAD package. This site was founded as ProECentral and then expanded to include the other packages. UGS has had in internal BBS for answering questions from users since about the time PTC released version 1!


Maybe asking for help in this forum is an indication of the complexity of the software and the lack of understandable help/training files for the software?


The hardest part of any CAD package is the user interface. If you understand 3D conceptual designs, then you should be able to use any solid modeling package.
 
looslib said:
If you understand 3D conceptual designs, then you should be able to use any solid modeling package.


I guess we really want to know is, does the 3D concept understand us??
Edited by: mgnt8
 
GOFORAWILDRIDE
Member
1_star_rating.gif



Joined: 20 September 2005
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7




Posted: 17 February 2007 at 1:11pm | IP Logged




Have you noticed that the number of posts for PRO-E help far outnumber the total posts of Catia, Solildworks & Unigraphics on a daily basis. This can only mean one thing that there are far more people using PRO-E than the other software packages. More people using a software means more companies using that software package.


This post is "wild". Do we not have our eyes open. this statement could of course be true, but then again maybe the number of posts indicates a problem rather than something good.


pro/e and solidworks are, essentially, neck and neck in terms of seats. they are the biggest. don't be blind, get the facts. pro/e is good but needs to get a lot better fast if they don't want to fall behind.
 
According to PTC's latest financial statements they are back on track with the greatest growth rate in the industry.
 
Same with Autodesk, only they seem to be doing it with their core CAD products & notPLM. Somebody(not me)recently said that the reason the big dogs are targeting small to medium PLM customers is because there's little future growth in the enterprise business.
 
Working with diesel engines and customers of the oil field industry, AutoCAD is HUGE with these guy's. Even though we are driven with pro-e, we have to do many conversions to AutoCAD for majority of our customers. So I would have to agree that AutoCAD has HUGE customer base and isn't going anywhere. They are making strides, but can not yet compete with pro on the mechanical side.
 
i think many of the weathered engineers have already explained the point.

cad is only a tool for an engineer. let me explain it in a student way

I am (or was) a student of mechanical engineering and i had to use catia, solidworks and autocad. the first program that i've ever learned was autocad but 2d drawing doesn't have strong bounds to 3d cads in case of modeling techniques.
2 years later, i joined a certificate program of the local Pro-E distributor, and learned basic modeling techniques, then improved myself further on the oncoming months. still a long way to go
on the final year of b.s., all instructors asked for use of a different program for reports and projects. that's why i had to learn catia and solidworks.( you already know that you can't simply ask an instructor to learn proe, just as you can't ask a company to shift to proe)

now this is my advice: if you have to learn a different package, it win't be a problem. just spend 2 weeks for a new GUI, and you'll accomplish any task that you have already been familliar to. all you gotta learn is new names for existing techniques(e.g. pocket stands for extruded cuts in proe, yeah 2 buttons for one button of proe) but simply don't expect user frendliness of proe from neither sw nor catia.

finally, if you want to improve yourself, just learn different techniques instead of new software.
 
Trancepose,


I don't agree with you on the GUI as being the difference between different CAD. There's more to it than that. Like for ProE you have to learn and understand that (among other things) :


Models, once opened, live forever in memory. Opening a different one with the same name just recalls the first one. And as another consequence you can build a perfect assembly that will fail the next day because you were using a memory part that ProE can't find anymore.


ProE needs 0 degrees of freedom - not more, not less - and generates "ghost" parameters for constraints that are not explicitly set. These constraints can "bite back" when you want to reuse a feature.


Lots of features in ProE depend on datums thatshould bedefined as variable, forcing you to think ahead of what you will want to do with the feature you're constructing.


Drawings, models and assemblies are closely tied together but when you start to rename you can find yourself in a situation where it is hard to avoid redoing some of your previous work.


...


So there's more adapting necessary than merely getting to know the translation of commands. It took me 3 months to get familiar with ProE philosophy and I was very gratefull that the guy sitting in front of me knew all I had to know to get along.


Alex
Edited by: AHA-D
 
GOFORAWILDRIDE,


I'm sorry but the number of post for pro/e is not a function of the popularity, but a function of the number of problems. It's more complicated than it should be. SORRY, IN ADVANCE.
Edited by: jelston
 

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top