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vs. Pro/E

BigJoe

New member
At the risk of flame-baiting myself I am asking, very seriously, if any
of you have a good comparison matrix of Pro/E and Solidworks
features. My searches don't turn up anything later than
2003. I know that SW has made some good progress since then and I
would like to see something current. If you know if information
regarding PDMWorks vs. Intralink, I would love to see that, too.



Any information you can provide from personal experience would also be appreciated.



The reason I ask is because we are a currently a Pro/E house and we're
looking to set up a PDM system. It's a good time to evaluate the
options before making a purchase.
 
From my limited time using SolidWorks 2005, a few limitations that really stood out.



Pro/E has MANY more options for patterning features and components that SW simply does not possess.



Pro/E's family tables is more powerful and easier to use particularly with BIG tables



Pro/E relations (SW equations ?) are easier to write and understand. Pro/Program makes them more powerful still.



The ECAD interface is included in Pro/E, separate purchase for SW. (the native one included in 2005 is near useless)



Pro/E has interchange assemblies for automatically swapping alternative components.



SW has no equivalent of Feature/Copy/Dependant



Model Tree in Pro/E can show much more information especially when run undocked in your second monitor



Dragging sketcher handles while in 3D can't be done in SW



Pro/E handles BIG assemblies better



Variable pitch springs are a doddle in Pro/E



I never did find out how to show stopped threads in SW without
resorting to a rotational cut which is a darned expensive way to model
them.



Either SW or SolidEdge can't do tolerances that are either both positive or both negative.



As part of a special offer, we were able to purchase Foundation
Advantage plus a seat of Mechanica for about the same price as the
basic Solidworks.





DB





Edited by: Dell_Boy
 
Thanks for the reply Dell_Boy. That's the kind of information I'm looking for.



For those of you that have experience with later versions of SW, how
does Dell_Boy's summary change? I have heard that SW has
addressed their issues with large assemblies in later versions.



What about surfacing? Does SW hold G2 continuity like Pro/E does?
 
I must have been suffering from brain fade last night



The comments actually refer to SW2005 not 2004 and I have edited the post to reflect this





DB



Edited by: Dell_Boy
 
Thanks again Dell_Boy and thank you Israr. Have you guys seen any comparisons in any trade journals or anything lately?



Any thoughts on PDMWorks vs. Intralink?
 
Is there anyone who has a similar comparison matrix of Pro/E and CatiaV5 features?
smiley1.gif

BR
moose
 
Sorry Moose, can't help you with that one. Last time I used CATIA was V2 release 2





DB



Edited by: Dell_Boy
 
Any Solidworks 2006 users care to chime in? I'm in the process of evaluating a change from Pro/E to Solidworks and I'm curious to hear what the Solidworks powerusers have to say.
 
I have not fully started using SW2006 yet, but from what I've seen and in the classes I've taken, 2006 is much better than 2005. Maybe Dell_Boy should take a look at 2006 and do another comparison. From what I've read so far, he maybe correct that SW can't do some of the things Pro/E can do, but it sure is much easier to learn and get a hold of.


SW may not be able to do the things you'd expect from a high end system, so you need to look at what your company does and see if SW can model that for you.


Steve
 
Big Joe-


I'm certainly not a SW 2006 poweruser (yet), but I had about 5 years of ProE before I switched to SW (due to a job change). If you have a choice, I would stick with ProE. SW has amore intuitive interface than ProE which makes it easier to use, but Idon't think the capabilities can compare with proE.


One major item to add to Dell_Boy's list-I have yet to find avariable geometry feature (like varying the compression of a spring). ProE calls it flexible part.SW can vary assemblies as in ProE. If someone has info on this, please post!


Peter
Edited by: SSLaser
 
Thanks for the feedback Steve and Peter. I will definitely take this into consideration when making the decision to switch or not to switch.

Peter, are you using PDMWorks? Did you use Intralink with Pro/E? If so, how do they compare?
 
Hi BigJoe,


We are currently using PDMWorks; but we're giving serious consideration to replacing it. PDMWorks is fine if you just want to loosely track and control something under development. It's easy to use,but it's buggy, so I wouldn't rely on it to control something critical. We've lost datamore than once with it.


If you have multiple users working on the same project, PDMWorks is better than nothing, and it's fairly inexpensive. I've never used Intralink as a ProE user, and my old company had only manual data control (read as nothing!) for ProE data. We lost data much more often!
 
Our company looked at both and decided that SW was "good enough for us". The problem is that the ones who made that decision are not the ones who have to use it.
 
1. Pro/e will cost 4995 , sw will cost 5995


2. Pro/e is powerfulwhile SW is okie (doesnot have option of radial hole very basic thing)


3. Pro/e better choice when looking for integrated mfg


4. Notol analysis in SW


5. huge file size in SW with lots of limitations (edit feature combined with edit sketch, no option for ref selection, helix, flexible comp, skel models...)


One thing not good about Pro/E is "E" is for ego.....
 
good points wdg57 and patelsugan. Thank you for the responses. Lucky for us, I am an MCAD user AND I will be leading the discussions regarding the question to switch.

patelsugan said:
One thing not good about Pro/E is "E" is for ego.....
You're not kidding! From PTC and Pro/E users both. Slap me if you see me getting cocky.

SSLaser, can you give an example or 2 of bugs you have experienced in PDMWorks? Right now we're managing files manually (just as you described) and I am the "Check In" button. So far we haven't lost any data, but it's just a matter of time.
 
Those that say SW is catching up are under the mistaken impression the
Pro/E is standing still. And for the rest who think that it is easier
to pick up; remember that it is very easy to learn the first 7 letters
of the alphabet (3 in the case of SolidEdge)



Dassault Systemes pushes SW to its low-end users and CATIA to its high
end end users. As long as it has two separate products, SW will NEVER
catch up to Pro/E because it would lose the justification for the
higher sticker price on CATIA. Similar argument for Intergraph with SE
and NX.



Maybe you can get SW to do the things you need it to do for you, maybe you can't. We couldn't.



Be aware that you may not reach the true limits of the software's
capabilities within a relatively short evaluation period however I have
listed some of the things I found out within about two weeks. I am sure
there are lots more.



Also SE 2005 does not handle sections very well. You must have a parent
view to create a section from and I have been told by a graduate
working for us that when you do an assembly cross section, the cross
hatching an ALL the parts is the SAME. In the job I am currently doing
we have lots of lathe turned parts stacked co-axially on shafts. On an
8 sheet drawing we will typically have 6 assembly sections and 20 or
more different part sections and NO parent views because they provided
no addtional information. Our assembly sections can have 50 or more
components on the section plane. Having to manually re-orient and
re-space these would be a big waste of time.



PTC have done many things over the years that annoy the pus out of me
however the software does do the job better than anything else I have
used.





DB
 

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