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aaarrrrggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Jimshaw,


I work for a large organisation with a lot of licenses of ProE throughout the group and PTCs service has been appalling. To submit a telephone enquiry and then for it to take a week to be answered, negatively at that, is not good. And that was not a one off occurrence. To add to that, the negative answer that I was eventually given on one occasion was in fact totally inaccurate.I managed to get an answer from someone on this forum.


PTCs maintenance is a total waste of money from personal experience. I have sent screen shots, models, etc. Nothing appears to help!!


This is a subject that gets me hot under the collar as I'm sure it does a lot of other people using this forum.


Michael
 
Meant to do an angry face but was getting quite annoyed and forgot so....
smiley7.gif



Michael
smiley9.gif
 
I fix proe problems like I work on cars. Make deductions.... work arounds.... If I have a feature that constantly fails or does not work in a consistent way for a reason or another I can usually work around the issue one way or another. I do this because the core tool called Pro/ENGINEER is consistent unlike my girlfriend. And I guess my problems are more related to surfacing, and not so much new tools or database entry issues like intralink or windchill. and I often get my problems solved thru tech boards like this one.

Not much for me at tech support really and I will try to elaborate. In the 20 times I have used tech support since 1992... I get a number and a call back from a nice sounding Bostonian or India accent and "we have logged your issue ..." I usually fixed or got my workaround by the time I get that call back. Basically I am king of the work around... And we all know before someone (at tech support) can help you they have to duplicate the problem. Thats hard to do... or even explain sometimes.

...Which is why I am so good and often impress the piers who are Solidworks dorks. I have structured work around solutions and established techniques for problem solving to 'get her done'. God knows you need it using the mid range tools... by working with Pro/E for so many years and watching it mature to the killer tool it is today... you need 'work around' games. Engineers figure sh*t out and make it work even in software seemingly software limitations.

... ponder the common surfacing scenario: "if all goes well I can have that done in 20 hrs" Most 10 thousand hour users with out surfacing experience might not be able to exclaim with authority how long its going to take to tackle a specific modeling challenge because they don't know what problems they will face or how long it may take to make a work around until they solve the problem.

But like you said there is a priority rank with tech support (all the more reason not to bother) .... and although I worked at companies like Polaris, Case, Cat.... many of the challenges have come from working at smaller under 100 employees and 25 seats of Pro/E with a lesser priority.

.... And even at the large manufactures I solved the problem OR WORKED AROUND IT before they get back to me. And about renueing each year? You have to do that to get the updates and that lease is worth it by itself.


Edited by: design-engine
 
??? such hositility... You need a hug. I guess i am one of those "Solidworks dorks", though and in Solidworks, I didn't need a work around.
 
humm? I guess I should have left my SW workaround analogy out my long winded example but I thought it relevant in my recent experience. When I learn a new tool like Alias Rhino Maya or even solidworks I push the tool to model the exact form using the the same techniques in each software tool. This process for learning requires me to push the specific tools then reach for workarounds to continue with the same technique often I reach for a workaround. Apples to apples if you can.

take this shape for example where this clay example is modeled
the same form ... the same technique... the same shape... the same
light reflections.... same weight of heated clay before and after
baking so designers can calculate shape before and after fire in kiln.


y_10.jpg

this one modeled in Pro/E

ABBREVIATED BENCHMARK COMPLAINTS

Pro/E: users utilize the add on package ISDX to use COS to trip back the melted glass. 2 uses parametric combined with free form curves to parametrically control (not calculate) the bake and melt sag. parent child relations aid engineers calculate the bake process parametrically. WF 4.0 allows user to tug and pull on internal CV's of the surface yet while maintaining parent child relations to the original curves. COS can be accomplished with the Curve thru Points tool in stock Pro/E however upon redefine of the curve thru points on surface requires loosing the tweak mods before redefining. No Isoparm display on the surface. Warp tool in Pro/E is hard like the SW flex imput tool to localize.

Alais: - since Curve on Surface cant force tangency on end points experts reach for the common work around alternate technique of using a 3 degree curve not sketched on surface and project as a work around. Alias experts like to tug and pull on the internal control verticies of the surface to obtain the weighted hot glass look instead of managing thru curves. Hi end users often brake construction history so they get to rebuild the curves and surfaces instead of makeing slight mods to make before and after bake or melting games. When modifying and pulling on internal CV of surface user is forced to brake construction history. Full tangency and ispparm display.

Rhino: user has to constantly rebuild curves and surfaces ... designers are still struggling with the model in our office this week and I have not seen if they can force tangency on COS endpoints. They are mad at my five minute model in Pro/E from start to finish. Rhino parent child is immature and users remodel to obtain the various modes of melted glass. When modifying and pulling on internal CV of surface user is forced to brake construction history. Full tangency and ispparm display.

SW: model technique works similar as Pro/E without the add on expense of ISDX but lack realtime update feedback. SW cant project a 3d curve onto surface so the Alias technique is not possible in SW (2007) but the ISDX technique works fine with the 3d curve on surface tool in sw. Tangency forced on end points for the curve on surface tool works similar to ISDX in Pro/E. lack of intent manager (2007) makes for slightly slower sketcher creations... As user flexes for modifying the weight of the melted glass before it cures the parent child relations often fail for no apparent reason. user can not modify internal CV of surface unless they use the ... I don't have sw installed on any machines... new tool will let user manipulate internal cv but I cant recall what its called.. one sec................... 'Fill surface' tool. No tangency line nor ispparm display causes more complexity when creating cross or internal curves due to not being able to snap directly to the tangency edge. 'Flex imput' tool works here for a work around to managing the weight of the clay mods but the tool is difficult to localize and control the tool (2007)


try this for hostility.... I wish global warming more steam so I can ride my motorcycle year round in Chicago. Thats selfish I guess

SW has come so far in the last years just like Pro/E has come so far.

In all honesty I don't think too many SW users can make the above benchmark off their head. The topic is work arounds not benchmarks but I did make my point very clear.

Now maya has some bad ass tools. Lets compare to that instead!

Edited by: design-engine
 
This looks like it has turned into another SW vs ProE. I use both on a daily basis and love using both so I wont be dragged into that debate again.


I suppose you could have called me a SW dork but I have used ProE for the past 4 years in my main jab and when starting I applied SW and SDRC knowledge to help me learn ProE quickly. I use work-arounds with ProE and SW to get what I want as you have mentioned Design-Engine and I understand why we pay the maintenance fee. Yes, the lease is worth it itself, but to call the help line a help line from my experience is a load of c**p. As a paying customer, I shouldn't have to wait a week for someone to call me back who appears to have less experience than me and not be able communicate properly and in a long winded way tell me that the problem cannot be solved when in fact I spent 2 hours after phoning the helpline and had it sorted by various means (thanks MCAD forum memebers). The fact is we are not just paying for a lease, we are also paying for support and it's s**t!!


Michael
 
Just got this .. It Might apply


New Releases Solve "Exit" Issue in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0
An issue was reported in Maintenance Release M120 with an unexpected exit when retrieving a part containing an inheritance feature with a renamed reference part in a Windchill or Pro/INTRALINK workspace.The exit may also occur if you are renaming the reference part while both parts are in session. To resolve the issue, either update to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 M130 or Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 (available in late January/early February).
 
We all know from my post that I am the dork and I probably know solidworks surfacing in a different way than you so I would elaborate more closely on my example....

Someone once said if you stay quite people will think your smart. The
more you speak the less intelligent they think your are.... I cant
stay quite because my dad learned me to be loud.

to aid for you specific problem... try to go into insert mode inside the fail menu... To re-reference the feature to a sketched geometry that might closely resemble the missing reference.


Or remove other features using Pro/PROGRAM and edit our with the supress command a feature.


Edited by: design-engine
 
michael3130 said:
Jimshaw,


I work for a large organisation with a lot of licenses of ProE throughout the group and PTCs service has been appalling. To submit a telephone enquiry and then for it to take a week to be answered, negatively at that, is not good. And that was not a one off occurrence. To add to that, the negative answer that I was eventually given on one occasion was in fact totally inaccurate.I managed to get an answer from someone on this forum.


PTCs maintenance is a total waste of money from personal experience. I have sent screen shots, models, etc. Nothing appears to help!!


This is a subject that gets me hot under the collar as I'm sure it does a lot of other people using this forum.


Michael
Click to expand...


I respect your opinion nonetheless, but it is obvious that we have had different experiences. It is also my understanding that PTC has a separate internal support structure for aerospace & defense customers. I value knowledge transfer no matter what color it comes in, that is why I am trying to be as active as possible on forums such as these. In the end, we all win.
 
If you are familiarwith Trail files and it was the last feature youwere creating, edit the trail file toremoving that feature,and then run it.
 
Hy All


this is what I was afraid some 2 year ago. But when I get courage and try to resolve failures, I got it. Now some times failures take two days to resolve but I got. Dont be afraid of that failure. Just clip suppress it and save model. then resume features one by one and solve them. I know you will get. If you need my help, just send it to me. But I dont know your intentions, So may I recreate feature by my way.


Solutions for these problems. I have a note book that I keep open while modeling complex parts etc, and note down about how I create some features like complex sketches and their reference. So when it fail to regenarate, that help me how I make a sketch and their ref.
 
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