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How to Get the Most out of Surface Modeling in Solidworks

Solidworks surfacing has come a long ways even in the last 6 years even for the midrange modeler. They still can't drive surfaces w/ equations but when that happens users will be able to actually design aircraft. Now it's just model airplanes.
 
same thing happend to Tesla.... the young engineers wanted solidworks.... then after 2 years realized they needed Catia. Tesla made the same mistake as alll the other manufactures. Got themselves into a 2+ cad system. Except everyone else made the mistake 10+ years ago.

They chose a medium knife and needed needed a whole drawer full of knives, swards, power saws, mills and scalpel

If you are instant on purchasing a mid range modeler then maybe sw is the better esp since you can hire from a larger pool of human resources now days. Many people claim to be experts in Solidworks.

mgnt8= The turbines must be in CATIA NX or Creo as well since they are a specific aerodynamic form.
 
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They still can't drive surfaces w/ equations but when that happens users will be able to actually design aircraft. Now it's just model airplanes.

so the 30 companies that design airplanes can't use it but the thousands of companies that design everything else can.
 
Welll sort of. Ill try to explain.

Prior to 2014 release of SW there was no Conic tool in sketcher. This is one of the most essential tools for aircraft design. To develop an inlet for a jet for example (jet engine manufactures in a non mil-spec standard must grantee 100,000 hours before overhaul) the jet engine manufacturer may want a specific conic or RHO (Greek letter P) at one point and to blend out to another value later in the sweep. Currently as I know it only Catia NX and Creo can sweep tools along a trajectory with a graph or equation. specifically to Creo TRAJPAR & GRAPH Features To layout a wing a trajpar type of equation is often necessary however many aircraft designers opt for lofting this type of geometry DXF import to DXF import. With this approach SW is acceptable. To optimize that form arrow space engineers and the Aerodynamics people they work for require driving that geometry w/ a graph or equation. Alternate to that it's really guesses and estimates. That maybe good enough for model airplanes.

Until 2007 SW was really easy to beat up on. I often hear designers and engineers in my Creo classes state "Bart, you don't understand, I have been an expert in Solidworks since 1998" That software was so bad back then and even subsequent years I was not really able to respond to a comment like that and I hear it all the time. I had trouble taking Solidworks seariously previouos to 2007 and 7 years later they finally decided to add the conic tool? WOW.


ie. The first NC programmed boat prop was done w/ Pro/ENGINEER using a trajpar graph in 1992 by a titanium mill house in Washington State.
 
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Welll sort of. Ill try to explain.

you're missing my point. in all the years I've been following this forum, you constantly preach about Pro-E/Wildfire/Creo being the holy grail to solid modeling. how powerful it is and how you can't do things it can do in other CAD packages.

my point is that engineers, and engineering managers should select the tool that does their job the most efficiently and in the most cost effective manner. not every job requires the feature set of Creo. not every job require what Creo can offer. Sure, some do. and sure, those that aren't using Creo may have a harder time developing their product. But Creo just isn't the best job for every company. it just isn't. it's confusing to use. it's, for lack of a better work, quirky. menu picks aren't consistent from feature to feature. things just change from version to version.

my current company uses Creo. one of our major competitors uses SW. both of us are successful. both of us are creating the exact same types of parts for the exact same customer in the exact same market. are we outperforming them because we use Creo? nope. can I do my job and design my products in SW if given the choice? Yep.

Most of the CAD users in the world do 95% of the same stuff. if you don't need that extra 5%, then it doesn't matter. A ford Festiva won't ever win a drag race against a Ferrari, but the both can get me to a grocery store and if I only need to eat and I'm never going to race then the Ferrari may be nice to have but it's overkill and comes with extra overhead.
 
Agreeed. I think we are saying about the same thing. Often the folks making decisions are listing to the wrong folks in the office sometimes. Im going to fly my DJI drone that was probably done in SW ;)
 
The things that keeps me from completely pulling the plug on Creo are VSS trajpar, graphs, splines. Driving spline polygons with equations is about the baddest ass thing I ever learned from these forums.

But after years and years of considering it, I'm getting Solidworks. I've only seen sales demos. Do they have comparable tools to ISDX features like curvature constraints, Surface Connect, Curvature analysis, Reflection analysis, etc?
 
The SW curve on surface tool needs help. I know the problem too. It actually has too much control. If you care I could explain. W/ creo we can purchase any module necessary. W/ SW you get only one.
 
Yes please explain. I used to use curve on surface all the time for the trim back of 3 sided surface, but not so much anymore since they added the 'Trimmed Rectangle' option
 
Greg,

Lets take a typical curve on surface created w/ three dig points. The first middle then third. The spine tool in a sketch works the same way BTW. The Curve on surface tool in SW allows specific on the middle or subsequent internal dig points. By specific what Im referring to exactly is the knot or middle edit point. That point Solidworks offers handles that allow designers to increase or decrease the acceleration of the curve. Great in theory after all who wouldn't want more control.

(I don't have direct relationship other than they read this form and often complain to PTC about my comments)

When I modify the surface that the curve is resting on the curve has a tendency to move around uncomfortably. So my suggestion to SW developers is to possibly offer the ability to turn off that control. That might help the curve from having a mind of his own. I deem that tool currently 'unwieldy' in that modifications are un controlled/ uncomfortable and un-usable.

unwieldy = Design engine speak for an unruly technique or command or function.

I can create a video but developers have asked me not to make youtube videos of problems directly but to make those suggestions via video directly to the developers. I'm not signed onto a the developer technical committee to solidworks and they have expressed their frustration about design engine directly to PTC haha
 
Thanks Bart, now I remember that conversation. Solidworks allows you to dimension the points and control the tangential slope, whereas Creo uses either or polygon or interpolation points. Like a sugar high, too much of a good thing.

That's kind of bummer. I swear... kids these days.:p

Let me ask you this, does Rhino have parametric equations? I wonder if I can mix and match CAD programs

Do you have links to the articles?

I used to have them all bookmarked then I switched jobs and lost all my links. Just search for Jeff Howard. The one that was really cool was dimensioning a spline in a variable section sweep so it had a constant radius throughout the trajectory. There was a certain equation to control the radius and force in curvature with the neighboring surfaces. The problem is all the uploaded files were lost when the server crashed 5 or 6 years ago. PM me on LinkedIn, and I'll send it to you.
 
Welll sort of. Ill try to explain.

Prior to 2014 release of SW there was no Conic tool in sketcher. This is one of the most essential tools for aircraft design. To develop an inlet for a jet for example (jet engine manufactures in a non mil-spec standard must grantee 100,000 hours before overhaul) the jet engine manufacturer may want a specific conic or RHO (Greek letter P) at one point and to blend out to another value later in the sweep. Currently as I know it only Catia NX and Creo can sweep tools along a trajectory with a graph or equation. specifically to Creo TRAJPAR & GRAPH Features To layout a wing a trajpar type of equation is often necessary however many aircraft designers opt for lofting this type of geometry DXF import to DXF import. With this approach SW is acceptable. To optimize that form arrow space engineers and the Aerodynamics people they work for require driving that geometry w/ a graph or equation. Alternate to that it's really guesses and estimates. That maybe good enough for model airplanes.

Until 2007 SW was really easy to beat up on. I often hear designers and engineers in my Creo classes state "Bart, you don't understand, I have been an expert in Solidworks since 1998" That software was so bad back then and even subsequent years I was not really able to respond to a comment like that and I hear it all the time. I had trouble taking Solidworks seariously previouos to 2007 and 7 years later they finally decided to add the conic tool? WOW.


ie. The first NC programmed boat prop was done w/ Pro/ENGINEER using a trajpar graph in 1992 by a titanium mill house in Washington State.

Come on Bart, get your facts straight!!
See linked article, boat props were being machined on NC machines beginning in the 1970's or 80's.

http://www.sname.org/HigherLogic/Sy...tFileKey=5bfe21c5-7918-413c-a302-1059eb70dbff
 
exactly..
I bet the vast majority of companies could do well with mid range cad system like Inventor and SolidWorks. I've been using Creo for 6 months and could care less about it being a great and powerful mathematical solver, its the worst unintuitive primitive software I've ever used. My employer and myself only cares about one thing. How fast can we get drawing to the shop for fabrication. IF I'm burning time and there is a big productivity drop and its cost money and missing deadlines, no one will care about how powerful any s/w is, if its not working get rid of it..
From the research I've done on Creo, and I live and work in the same state (MA) is they blew it they have 100% market share, but because the s/w is so hard to learn its been dumped. I know zero people or very little companies in the MA area that use Creo..
 
Can Solidworks create high degree curves ? Curves of degree 5 (single segment curves) are necessary to create G2 (curvature) continuity between two curves.
Starting from Creo 2.0, high degree curves are possible in Style feature.
Before Creo 2.0, high degree surfaces (not curves) where possible in Restyle feature if you have the REX license.
 
Can Solidworks create high degree curves ? Curves of degree 5 (single segment curves) are necessary to create G2 (curvature) continuity between two curves.
Starting from Creo 2.0, high degree curves are possible in Style feature.

don't know if SW can or cannot. but I can say that in 15 years of using Pro/E/Wildfire/Creo I haven't need to so it's not a big selling feature for me if I had the choice to use SW over Creo.

this is the problem. all the Creo devotees cite things that Creo does but SW can't handle. that's great. nobody is denying there are differences between the two packages. but if you don't need those advanced features it's not a benefit. I use Creo everyday and I've never used Trapjar, rarely use relations, never needed to create a high degree curve, never used ISDX, never used a torroidal bend. But I design plastic parts all day long. maybe I could have used more advanced techniques from time to time but the point is I can create my parts and assemblies in Creo or SW and not feel like I'm missing anything by choosing either package. all the "benefits" touted that creo has over SW are not really benefits to me or the 25 users of Creo at my company.
 
yes. SW started doing higher order curves ie. y=x^5 at 2014 release.

dross: Im was not referning simply to CNC'ing a prop. I am refering CNC from a database ie was Pro/ENGINEER 1992 LOL
 
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dross: Im was not referning simply to CNC'ing a prop. I am refering CNC from a database ie was Pro/ENGINEER 1992 LOL

You are now simply trying to cover over with BS. You said "The first NC programmed boat prop was done w/ Pro/ENGINEER using a trajpar graph in 1992 by a titanium mill house in Washington State."

The first NC programmed boat prop was NOT done by Pro Engineer, and certainly not in 1992.
 

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