CREO - First Impression?

[SW]

Now the wraps have been taken off, what do people think about what PTC have in store for us? The idea of a consistant user interface was a bit of a shocker for me, I prefer being surprised by what interface is going to appear and like having to chase the menu boxes round the screen.

Also, what on earth was going on at the start? I had a small window open and was just waiting for the chaps in orange pyjamas to go back to bed before I started listening and watching properly.

Sam


Edited by: SW

 

[joswalt]

Not impressed at all. I believe PTC has lost their way.
We're running WF3/Windchill. Host of issues with Windchill
and PTC help is no help. How can a company hire people who
don't understand the product?

 

[solidworm]

i read every available resource about creo but i still cant figure out what it really is. how it merges direct and history based modeling? how it's going to solve interoperability problem? how open (open source?) creo is.(PTC:Creo is being designed as a scalable suite of interoperable, open, and easy-to-use product design apps)
Edited by: solidworm

 

[dgs]

The parametric to direct to parametric stuff is impressive. It'll be interesting to see how well it really works. The integration of 2D with 3D is intriguing. I'm not sure I'd use it much, I've gotten pretty adept at using the 3D tools in Pro/E. The rest doesn't really effect me.

 

[davidinindy]

I think PTC needs less marketing people on the payroll and more engineers to fix and improve the existing product.


There are so many issues I've submitted enhancement requests on over the years that haven't found their way into the core product.


Stop marketing and start fixing!


Why would you kill off a brand name that everyone knows and respects? (whether they are a fan of it or not)

 

[dgs]

Have you looked at what it is? It's more than marketing mist, there are some fundamental shifts and enhancements going on.

 

[davidinindy]

Yes... briefly. I have not watched the webcast. Just read the release notes. I'm still not clear on what all they're doing.


My point is that they couldv'e done those things, and made those changes and just called it Wildfire 5.0

 

[dgs]

I suppose, but it's a change to Pro/E, Co Create, Product View and all their other applications. They're moving to a common data model for everything. Creating a new brand for this new, all encompassing thing seems like a reasonable idea.

Watch the video and fast forward to about the 44 minute mark to see the CAD stuff. Runs about 11 minutes. Other demos start around the 30 minute mark and continue on after the CAD stuff.

 

[paulgress]

No, they couldn't call it WF5. How could they charge more money and weed out the existing WF5 licenses. Requiring an update to Creo means maintenance needs to get paid.

 

[dr_gallup]

Money grab. Will it have a consistent interface? Do pigs fly?

 

[moriarty]

Maintenance needs to get paid for any upgrade.

I think the issues they've identified are real - a high
powered CAD system in the design office and everyone else
struggling to interface to it - operator included.

The model doesnt really work for an organisation ...

If seems CREO it more about a toolbox for the
organisation rather than a spanner for the mechanic.

Its going to be interesting to see how they handle the
licensing.

Edited by: moriarty

 

[Mindripper]

What is this CREO thing? It looks like an effort to pull a broader group of entities within a company into the design creation process. The Problem: most people outside of Design Engineering do not wish to be drawn into the actual creation of concept sketches or models. They simply want to contribute ideas and requirements, then leave it to the creative engineers to come up with concepts and models. Managers and Marketing people have no interest in running MCAD tools: they have people for that. Industrial and commercial designers have their own tools, and they aren't going topump moneyinto an expensive MCADsuite just to please a small (and diminishing) share of their customer base.


It seems that PTC is drifting farther and farther off course. But it doesn't worry me: we're still running WF3 and Intra/Link 4.3. It will be at five years before we upgrade past WF5.

 

[Freecat]

What is this CREO thing? It looks like an effort to pull a broader group of entities within a company into the design creation process. The Problem: most people outside of Design Engineering do not wish to be drawn into the actual creation of concept sketches or models. They simply want to contribute ideas and requirements, then leave it to the creative engineers to come up with concepts and models. Managers and Marketing people have no interest in running MCAD tools: they have people for that.

I agree.I see MCADto be a veryspecialized area. The main question I have, will management embrace the idea of trainning all of the people in the different roles of a companyon how to use Creo? And if they do that, will they use it enough to maintain proficiency at it? At my company the Engineers don't do MCAD... They don't really want to know howeither. They feel that MCAD is for someone who is specializes in it. A CAD operator. The Engineers primaryfocus ison concepts, design requirments, function, etc., not on wrestling 3D CAD and creating detail drawings.

 

[zpaolo]

I agree.I see MCADto be a veryspecialized area. The main question I have, will management embrace the idea of trainning all of the people in the different roles of a companyon how to use Creo?

I'll put the point differently: today if the marketing needs a presentation rendering of a product they have three ways: 1) learn how to do it in Wildfire, 2) ask an ENGINEER to do it in Wildfire, 3) grab a software like Shot or Keyshot and learn to do it or, again, ask the engineer to do it. This is far from ideal. I think with CREO the marketing dept could have a license for something like "CREO rendering" which will load the same models as the CAD and allow fast and easy rendering to be done.

My point is that aside from engineers no one wants to use a huge monolithic CAD package, but if you can have a "slice" of that package you could use it and take advantage of the interoperability with the company data. Training people to use CREO will be much better as far as integration is concerned, than training 'em to use Shot or 3Dsmax IMO

Paolo

 

[Freecat]

I think with CREO the marketing dept could have a license for something like "CREO rendering" which will load the same models as the CAD and allow fast and easy rendering to be done.

I'll have to seethat highlevel of "ease of use" to believe it. Myself and others on this forum have been using PTC productsfor a significantlength oftime (myself, since 2000i^2 to be exact). This doesn't make me an experton product development by any means. However, I feel that I havewatched a lot of water go under the product development bridge, and have witnessed the short-comings of ideas such as this.


The concept is wonderful, and soundsspectacular in the context of the next "big" thing in the product development world in front of management. But there are shortcomings. As I see it, MCAD is and will continue to be very specialized.


In my view, the levels of computer skills andaptitudes forlearning softwarecanvary greatly across an enterprise. People in Sales and Marketing more often than not have other initiatives to deal with, and have no desire to spend the time and efforts to learn how to useand wrestle software programs. They instead turn to the CAD guy who uses the program on adaily basis. They want an expertwho can provide them with expert results.


To maketheir anyroleconceptsuccessful, PTC will need to incorporate a lot of automation into themodules tomake the softwarevery intuitive andeasy to use. For instance, Microsoft Office productsare an example of this. If the modules are hard to use, clunky, and inconsistent withthe Windowsoperating system environment (like Pro/E is now, don't evenget me started!),it will be business as usual for PTC and their MCADproducts I'm afraid.

 

[Mindripper]

Inall of the companies I have worked for, both designers and engineers are serious CAD operators: it isn't just the designers who are experienced and capable in this area. Curiously, the engineers often work in a support role to the designers, who lack the knowledgeto analyze the stuff they design. In any case, we work together to get the job done.


Richh touched on the cost of training: also, let us not forget the potential cost of training people to use a product they will rarely (or never) use. MCAD isn't like riding a bicycle: if you don'y use it, you will lose it. If training isn't followed up by regular use of the software, the trainee will take much longer to gain proficiency (or simply never become at all proficient). I have seen this happen at several companies: management thinks it's a great idea for everyone to be trained to use a given software package (esp. managers and supervisors), but due to a variety of reasons many of these trainees never use it regularly (if at all). The non-users have wasted huge sums of the company's money: not just for training (fees and hours lost), but also theunused seats for the software.


I can smell PTC's sales pitch to management (their sales pitches are always addressed to management, not users): "Look at Microsoft Office: you can do mechanical product development just like you have everyone using Microsoft Office". Unfortunately, it's likely that themanagement in some companies will buy into this. I pity the poor souls that suffer this fate.

 

[dgs]

It'll be interesting to see how it gets implemented and how it gets licensed. I have little faith in PTC to pull off 'easy to use', but part of the Creo strategy is to allow 3rd parties to develop specific Creo 'apps'. Not sure who gets to be a 3rd party (would they let Desault or Autodesk create Creo apps?), but this could produce some role specific apps that are a breeze for certain users.

The proof will be in the pudding, as they say, and the pudding isn't supposed to be done for another 9-12 months at least.

 

[SW]

Apparently, Keyshot are in there.

Sam

 

[magnusod]

Here are two other 3rd party Vistagy Fiber composites and Simpoe Plastic injection simulation.
To me it looks like it could have a huge potential. Keyshot was a great choice judging by the amount of users who raved about the software.


Edited by: magnusod

 

[MGortner]

At least google searching will be easier! You can just use
"creo" instead of "proe OR 'proe engineer' OR 'pro-e'" when
looking for solutions to a problem...