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How good is Pro E?

hi nkpham

my advise is that you should try and master a 3d cad package whilst you have the time at college. When at work it is difficult sometimes to learn new tricks/functionality because you are usully restricted to the field/products that you work on.

As has been said with proe you can literally design just about anything. I`m sure you could design bridges no probs with some mechanical no how to back up the modelling skills.



I left college 6 yrs ago now and we had proe, 2 of us of the course spent the time to learn proe as we realised that it is good to help get a job. Because of the initial hurdles just about all others on the course (product design) steered away from proe and used 2d cad/rendring to show there ideas. hen it came for looking for jobs i was getting more offers than my college friends.



In my first job i was doing junior work, using proe 7-8hrs a day - within 2 yrs i was running rings round the rest of the users/project engineers. This was back when proe wasnt as widespread as it now is, i dont even think solidworks was around.



I now work in consultancy and have to use a variety of packages both 2d and 3d and have found that the knowledge gained using proe has helped immeasurably. I think it has to be said if you can get your head around proe then you will be able to use any other 3d package pretty quickly.



Yes solidworks is quicker for knocking out work but i have big problems when trying to create industrial design concepts - it just cant hack it whereas proe though sometimes frustrating does the job. Sometimes it just feels like 'cheating' using solidworks.



I have yet to get on wildfire but proe has been getting more user freindly with every release (even if they do move everything around).



Look at the field you want to go into, see what is the industry standard and go for it is what i can suggest. Proe is the standard in a multitude of disciplines so you can move abouut providing you have the mech/design knowledge to back up your cad skills.



For the time being at least I will remain a pro user - it really is a marvelous peice of software. After 6 yrs it still suprises me sometimes at what it can actually do if you persevere.
 
Hi all,

I'm a Pro/User since version 16 and still hanging in there, haven't made the move to Wildfire yet but I'm looking forward to it. I have also had extensive experience with SDRC I-Deas and Unigraphics as well as AutoCAD v11-2000. I am in the process of trying to learn both Rhino 3D & Solidworks 2003 on my own and at this early stage have found both a little difficult to pick up, Rhino more so than SW. I found SW to be fairly easy to learn basic mechanical operations such as those used to create fabricated parts but I am currently employed as a Plastics Design Engineer where I am creating consumer products using plastics (PC/ABS, TPU, ect.) In this area of design we use advanced surfacing techniques extensively and I have found Pro with it's ISDX module to be far superior in regards to complex surfacing. I never really cared all that much for I-Deas, I just picked it up very quickly and a job market was there for it...until Ford & Visteon took a big crap a couple years ago, anyway, you will always find that different people prefer different packages, and each package has it's own strengths and weaknesses. The key is to either learn a package tailored to a specific industry or try to become functional in all of them while really keying in on a couple. Almost any community college offers courses for most major CAD packages, it's worth the investment to become a jack-of-all trades when it comes to CAD packages. With the Design & Engineering job markets the last couple years the more you can do the better your chances of finding work. As a sidenote, I was employed in the automotive industry for a number of years and while it was a great basis to learn the CAD packages working in plastics consumer products is by far the most enjoyable position that I have ever had. It can be challenging at times but that's half the fun! No matter what package(s) you decide upon a good design or manufacturing background will help you more than anything else hands down! Anyway, sorry all about the novel....
 
Hi all,

I'm a Pro/User since version 16 and still hanging in there, haven't made the move to Wildfire yet but I'm looking forward to it. I have also had extensive experience with SDRC I-Deas and Unigraphics as well as AutoCAD v11-2000. I am in the process of trying to learn both Rhino 3D & Solidworks 2003 on my own and at this early stage have found both a little difficult to pick up, Rhino more so than SW. I found SW to be fairly easy to learn basic mechanical operations such as those used to create fabricated parts but I am currently employed as a Plastics Design Engineer where I am creating consumer products using plastics (PC/ABS, TPU, ect.) In this area of design we use advanced surfacing techniques extensively and I have found Pro with it's ISDX module to be far superior in regards to complex surfacing. I never really cared all that much for I-Deas, I just picked it up very quickly and a job market was there for it...until Ford & Visteon took a big crap a couple years ago, anyway, you will always find that different people prefer different packages, and each package has it's own strengths and weaknesses. The key is to either learn a package tailored to a specific industry or try to become functional in all of them while really keying in on a couple. Almost any community college offers courses for most major CAD packages, it's worth the investment to become a jack-of-all trades when it comes to CAD packages. With the Design & Engineering job markets the last couple years the more you can do the better your chances of finding work. As a sidenote, I was employed in the automotive industry for a number of years and while it was a great basis to learn the CAD packages working in plastics consumer products is by far the most enjoyable position that I have ever had. It can be challenging at times but that's half the fun! No matter what package(s) you decide upon a good design or manufacturing background will help you more than anything else hands down! Anyway, sorry all about the novel....
 
The problem with Pro/E is symptomatic of the way business is done in the US. Somehow, in spite of their lack of technical prowess, the marketeers and MBAs get to the top of the heap and steer the ship. Even engineers sometimes are sucked into the marketing vacuum where they promptly lose their judgement, backbones, and skills. How is that these guys can have more control of what the customers get than either the users (engineers) or the developers (engineers)?



It is these guys that stare over the developer's shoulder with schedule in hand (a schedule that the developer inevitably had no input to) and force them to get it out or else their performance appraisal will suffer.



Bottomline: don't release the software until it has been THOROUGLY tested and the developers are happy with it. Then beta test it FOR AT LEAST A YEAR before dumping it onto the market.



Although I believe it's is still the best on the market, I for one have wasted many normally productive engineering hours working around Pro/E problems that shouldn't have been there. The worst part of it is, when you call the Tech Support line to report the problem, the guy on the other end RARELY admits (or even knows!) that the problem is with the software, not the user.



Nuff said!



Tunalover
 
Hi all proe gurus,



i'm using both proe and sw like many of you here. for mcad i use sw. for manufacturing is use proe. why? because sw doesn't have it's own cam package. just my 2c.
 
Let's say another story, SW u can learn in 4 week's to be able to work in good ratio time/money. In Pro/E is take a little bit more ... for handle complex shapes.

SW is middle CAD pack. for that reason they have so many add on's COSMOS, Mastercam, etc.

SW is booming on market because sell to middle or small companys. As far is best middle pakage. But only in his category.
 
I've just had the most frustrating day with SolidWorks.



I had to redimension various feature sketches to get to the scheme defined on drawing to enable me to calculate flamepath variations (our product are explosion proof) due to stackup.



The sketcher made assumptions I didn't want and didn't make the ones I did, I swear it took me 3 hours to get 1 sketch the way I wanted it.



Later on I had the misfortune of having to have to place a counterbore on a curved surface (along a particular direction and not normal to the surface). The ref geometry options in SW are pitiful - plane, axes & csys only the limitations on each of these are severe.



No make-datum either so datum-plane proliferation is horrendous - still can't believe this isn't in Wildfire !!!



Sure sketching is easy if you don't have to adhere to datums and drawing standard.



Sketching shouldn't be easy, this is probably the most intricate, delicate and single most important aspect of solid modeling. It requires the most thought and the best modelers are the ones that no how to Engineer.



Am tired of these snot nosed kids arguing that intent manager is better than the ordinary sketcher. Datums and dimensioning schemes are driven by part fit, form and function, not some piece of software making inappropriate assumptions. I get paid to define this stuff and I don't come cheap..
 
if you all don't mind me asking.... how much do CAD engineers get paid? and how long do you work before you get paid that much? I mite want to get into the field after I graduate, but I don't know how steady of work it is and how stable.
 
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