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Pro Engineer Wildfire 4.0 Opinions

78finn

Member
Our office currently runs Wildfire R2.0 & we are considering moving to R4.0 (skipping Wildfire 3.0). Having only just being released (build M030), I would like to get opinions from people using 4.0 - with emphasis on stability, modelling & assembly Pros and Cons etc.
I work for a multidiscipline Product/Industrial design consultancy
 
We are currently having problems with WF 4.0. It crashes about 4 times a day for each of us right now but we are on build M010. The user interface has been improved a little so there are some benefits. If you have some patience I would reccomend waiting untilPTC has resolved more bugs.
 
No major problems for me so far, but there has been the odd crash here n there !


Some excellent new features in WF4. If you are heavy into Surface Modelling and have the ISDX extension, then you must check out WF4`s new features. Ask Design-Engine to give you a heads-up, he is in love with those new features.


There a few nice additional assembly features too, such as when you activate a part in assembly now the un-activated parts are all transparent...quite nice.


Sketcher has some nice features, especially the close loop icon which removes a lot of the "arrgghh where the F is that broken sketch ".


Check out my recent thread on Pro-e > PDF U3D too. Great feature allowing 3d .pdf file creation.


EDIT : here you go. [url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37 294&PN=1[/url]
Edited by: [-Skint-]
 
We just moved from WF2 to WF4, using build M20 haven't had many problems so far. I agree with Skint, the new sketcher tools are nice. Another new addition to the sketcher is when you put in a centerline on a revolved part all dimensions that are parallel to it come up as diameter dimensions with one click, instead of the old way where you picked a line...picked the center line and then picked the line again.
 
Volunteer said:
We just moved from WF2 to WF4, using build M20 haven't had many problems so far. I agree with Skint, the new sketcher tools are nice. Another new addition to the sketcher is when you put in a centerline on a revolved part all dimensions that are parallel to it come up as diameter dimensions with one click, instead of the old way where you picked a line...picked the center line and then picked the line again.


Hey Volunteer, yeah thats axis dim thingy is great. But...it doesnt seem to be standard on mine..do you know the config pro option ?


I thought it was sketcher_dim_revolve_axis but doesnt seem to wanna play on mine ?
 
One bug I've seen- every now & then I've got a sketch with some dimensions and then I add a constraint andALL the dimensions turn into reference dimensions with no warning. It appears to be random, no particular combination of dimensions and constraints causes it as far as I can tell. I put in a call with PTC and after some back and forth with tech suport & development, they declared it an improvement along the lines of when you over-dimension geometry and one gets turned into areference. Theysuggested I put in an enhancement request for a dialogue box to pop up and say "All your dimensions are now going to turn into reference, do you want to proceed?" (I swear this is true). I told them thatwas crazy, who they hell wantsALL their dimensions turned into reference randomly? They then gave me a call number.
 
Just upgraded to WF4 from WF1. Had to upgrade graphics card due to crash on saves. Checked website for approved cards, selected Quadro FX 1500. Have serious problem with formats not displaying parameters from part. For multiple parameters in a single cell, if you right click, properties and select OK, they are displayed but will not print. For single parameter in cell, double click, accept or change value, parameter displays but disappears after pan or zoom.
smiley19.gif
I created a 3 row single column table with single parameter in each cell using WF4 format b.frm. On a new drawing the first parameter will not display. Drawings created in WF1 opened in WF4 and there are no issues with parameters. Problem only occurs in WF4. Tested in WF3 no problems.
smiley18.gif


???????
 
I think certainNvidia cards have had some issues. I was reading about it on the prouser exploder, specifically the 1700 & 3500. I've got the 1400, works finebut I'm looking to upgrade to speed up rendering. Now I'm not so sure.
 
I have had some issues with it, going from WF3.0 to WF4.0 in a test enviroment. It corrupted my WF3.0 load so I had to unintstall 4.0 and reinstall 3.0, I also had issues with it losing dimensions on drawings created in WF3.0 or older versions.


My preliminary look at the new release is it has a lot of good features, but I need to wait until they fix some bugs before I let my production users near it.


The last release I looked at was M010
Edited by: bcooper
 
If you can wait, I would recommend waiting for WF5. Pre-Production is i November.


There are several more enhancements to some functionality that was been needing improvements for a while. And if you use Sheetmetal as use stated, there are great improvements there.
 
Hi M050 is now out which has fixed alot of bugs you can go on the to ptc website go to pro engineer support and click on the program advisor were you can select what has been fixed between releases i.e. M010 and M050.


Enchancement requests are a good thing as your the user and you would want the software to do x,y,z and if it doesn then you think the software isnt any good, this is why the the enchancement request is in place the get the customers feedback.


There is load of new features coming out in wildfire 5.0 all of which will be usefull.


wildfire 4.0 is safe to use and If you have any problems please contact ptc support and they will help you resolve these Issue as long as your on maintenance!!!


This includes people having problems installing software, loosing dimensions etc etc.


Please have a look at WF5.0 as you will see some bigg enhancement in the drawing side BIG BIG Enhancement.


WF6.0 will be even better still blowing the competition out the water.


Co Create is another product that people will start to here about in regards to explict modeling comred to parameter model or history based modeling as some people know it as.
 
paul_tanner said:
Co Create is another product that people will start to here about in regards to explict modeling comred to parameter model or history based modeling as some people know it as.

Does anyone know what the CoCreate advanced surface capabilities are like? I downloaded the demo but they were all greyed out. Apparently you have to buy the full version to see them.
 
bcooper, I also had some issues installing WF 4 Pre-Prod. Ending up corrupting my flexnet install, so none of my PTC products worked. Uninstalling and re-installing didn't work. After 10 days down and hours with PTC Tech Support, I ended up returning to factory settings, which wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be.


I definitely recommend being on at least build code M040, as there were some bugs in F000 and M010 (like exit countersinks not working). M050 has an SPR listed on the PTC Support Page.
 

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