Pro E vs. SolidWorks

[gamauf]

It's funny to me how folks will say SW or Pro|E suck because of this or that and then tell me how the other is clearly superior. Then they go on about how the bad one is loosing customers, etc. No facts or data, however. I can't say if one or the other is gaining or loosing, don't know if there is such a study. I know that PTC claims that Pro|E is not slipping, but actually growing faster than the overall MCAD market (15% vs. 5%, as stated at PTC|User in Tampa).


In my recent experience with SW 2006 (I'm now working with 2007 and appreciate that you can now save a model in insert mode.), I was surprised to find just as many stupid little annoyances as in Pro|E. Like setting a part transparent makes selecting hidden edges real hard. Like the measure tool sometimes deactivating itself after clicking the first reference. Like not being able to dimension to surfaces and edges failing when you redefining a feature. Like not being able to find where a sketch is in the model tree. Like having a hard time distinguishing between mates that constrain that component and mates that constrain something else to that component. Like not knowing where the sketches are in the tree.


If I had been on SW for years I'd dismiss these things as just being the way it is. But Pro|E isn't that way. Of course, Pro|E won't let you move on and fix it later when something fails like SW (which is great).


They're both good tools, I like Pro|E better. To me, SW feels less robust. Can't put my finger on it, it just feels less capable and like I'm getting close to the limits f its capabilities and I'm always working around it's limitations. A good portion of that is probably me trying to do things the Pro|E way, the same is true of SW folks coming to Pro|E - they keep trying to do it the SW way.

The more time I immerse myself in SW, the more warts I find. It was pretty keen when you rely on the demo & some lessons, but it has flaws too.

There's a price too, when you slide the feature set to the top of the menu.

PTC is slow to recognize that some oft-used functions really need to be in the core package, instead of always be a user "roll-your-own."
------------------------
As for user assertions & unfounded death-knells:

Is this "voodoo thinking" on the part of users?

Want it bad enough - use it to cajole the company - and it will happen?
Wishing it hard enough, make up a scenario - makes it so?
Edited by: gamauf

 

[design-engine]

You can save in fail mode Pro/E.... You simply go into insert mode. You have been able to do that since 1992

I hard a quote from the Admin at Mabe in Mexico that made my eyes water:

"I like solidworks, I prefer powerpoint"


Edited by: design-engine

 

[GLEN20]

I'm only responding, because I saw Joel's response. He might not remember me, but I worked at Universal (ACE group). This discussion is all "ralative" to where we end up as engineers (specially in Upstate, NY). Joel and I were affected by layoffs from Universal in 2002. To survive ---- we could be lucky to end up in another PTC house (Raymond, Welch Allen, Carrier.....) but the reality is it could be Solidworks (Rockwell, JH Robotics...) or Inventor so it is relative to what the employer has....... if you have 200 PTC licenses, I don't think you would imeedietly join the band wagon to convert to Solidworks, or Inventor.


I'm sure we'd even use CADAM if we had to for employment

 

[joe.sharp]

I have my own engineering business and we currently use both. We started in 1999 as Pro Only. We started using SW in 2005.As of 01/07 SW gets used on all in-house projects and we started phaseing outthe pro/e clients. SW cost of ownership is hands down lower than Pro. The SW training curve is a straight line, as they advertise, and Pro/E seems to be mount Everest. The SW PDMhas now past Intralink and that crappy PDMLink. I also agree with the statement someone said about SW is improveing at a much faster rate than Pro. Pro E can't get out of there own way due to their corporate culture of arrogance (everyone inPTC is a VP???). PTCcan't hold on to true in-house innovators, theyare leaving the company faster than they come in. Pro E is copying SW. it's easier to copy than to innovate. We project to stop Pro E maintenace in 2010.


...just commit to SW. You will be glad you did.

 

[dgs]

As of 01/07 SW gets used on all in-house projects and we started phaseing outthe pro/e clients.


...just commit to SW. You will be glad you did.

My contact info is in my signature, send those old Pro|E clients my way.

Oh, and I'm glad you committed to SW.

 

[jeff4136]

Why do these discussions always take place in a vacuum, without
any frame of reference to give them the slightest air of legitimacy?
For instance, searching for
"Joe Sharp" engineering soldiworks pro/engineer
returns one hit; a warez site,
"Joe Sharp" engineering
returns a lot of hits for an electrical engineer. Someone doing
electronics packaging would probably do well with Solidworks or,
even, Inventor. Get my drift? There are low to high end CAD and
low to high end CAD requirments. It's just lazy, at best, talk CAD
without the frame of reference.

 

[Schoryan]

ive been using both of these for about 4 yrs each and really to me it's simple.

if your dealing with large, complex assemblies pro-e is the way to go.

if your looking for concept design, basically trying to get things done really quick with an easy to learn system solidworks is the way to go.

if solidworks could handle 100 meg and up assemblies like pro-e then i would never use pro-e again, simply because pro-e is way to cumbersome, its over complicated
of course it may seem that way to me because solidworks makes it so easy with the new version 2008.

so basically it depends what you need it for.