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Dassault and Autodesk Wish You a Happy Cryptolocker New Year

Posted on January 2, 2014 | 4 comments

One of my premises in regards to the cloud and companies that force you to go there with your IP as a method of conducting your business is that the black hat guys fight with the white hat guys and none can get rid of the other. And at any given time one is victorious over the other and YOU the user are left to absorb the consequences. So as many in the CAD and CAM world are shoved knowingly or unknowingly towards the Dassault and Autodesk hoped for forced subscription nirvana of cloud only CAD and CAM software it is worth considering the last few months. And of course with the upcoming 2014 SolidWorks End of Life Convention it is timely to remind both Dassault and their users about the folly of what Bernard Charles proposes with this online “Experience” paradigm. This wonderful thing that will enable secure data storage and unlimited compute power over your crippled ISP throughput and all the other lies they propound. Put Autodesk in there too but SW has the next big deal convention coming up and they have been at it the longest although without any real commercial grade success to speak of. Bet that makes the EOL SW subs happy to see their money spent that way considering the scarcity of announced new product features for 2014.

So lately we see that customer data loss from Adobe tops 2,900,000 and Target tops 40,000,000 and you can bet this was from “secure” situations. And now welcome the latest and greatest proof of concept of the insanity of Cloud for CAD and CAM, Cryptolocker.

How would you like to log in to your network only to find that every connected device with storage had been encrypted. You have 72 hours to pay up or lose it all. I like especially comments and instructions from Carbonite, a company that extolls the headache free and totally reliable cloud backup method for all your files. Oh, and they say you can access your files from ANYWHERE and work so free and effortlessly not shackled by the limitations of offline hardware and the onerous burden of being responsible for yourself. Sound familiar all you Autodesk and SolidWorks/Dassault users? Go here and read this.

Comment
byu/bluesoul from discussion
insysadmin

Which says in part,
“I work for Carbonite on the operations team, and I can confirm this for most cases – I will also offer these two pieces of advice:
1) If you are affected by the virus, you should disable or uninstall Carbonite as soon as possible. If you stop backing up the files, it’s more likely that Carbonite will not have overwritten a “last known good” backup set. There is a high risk of some recent data loss (you’re effectively going back in time, so if we have no record of the file existing at a previous time, you won’t get it back) with this method, but it’s far, far better than losing all of your files.
2) When you call customer support, which you should do as soon as possible, specifically mention that you are infected with cryptolocker. It was mentioned in the post above, but I just wanted to put emphasis on it because it’ll get you through the queue faster.
Edit: also, just to state the obvious, make doubly sure the infection is off your machine before you call support, please.”

I really like that last part. Please don’t expose us to your infected machine because we don’t want bigger problems than we already have on our safe and secure servers. And we don’t want to have your problems bleeding over into other accounts on our network because we are not sure we can stop it. The delicious irony of secure online backups being a vector of additional infections and theft is sublime is it not?

Information from Dell regarding this. http://www.secureworks.com/cyber-threat-intelligence/threats/cryptolocker-ransomware/

Bleeping computer has a regularly updated post on this with information on what it is and how to hopefully block it. Of course this site http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1p32lx/cryptolocker_recap_a_new_guide_to_the_bleepingest/ccy89d3
has a lot of information but common sense will tell you that once the genie is out of the bottle how do you get it back in? So Microsoft has a solution for this at this time but don’t you know the guys who figured this out are already working on their Cryptolocker patch for your future entertainment.

Time and time again I keep saying that the only secure way to work with data you are supposed to be protecting is keep your stuff off-line. Keep your internal network off-line and allow access only through certain isolated computers and for sure don’t let these BYOD clowns plug their stuff into your network. Sys admins and bean counters, shame on you for concocting this save my company money with BYOD idea. How many access points do you want for all these bad guys to get into your data if you even care?

Another method that will probably save you is regular complete images of your system. But my money is on local regular backups. This is just good policy anyway for so many reasons and I am shocked at how many companies do not have an implemented procedure for this. I am thinking here that two backups separated by two weeks would probably defeat the activation time requirement for Cryptolocker and do it on a regular basis. In addition I save all my CADCAM data periodically to flash drives and DVD’s. And of course the Workstation in the shop never goes online.

How many times do you people who get all giggly and excited over the promise of being cutting edge technophile guinea pigs and smart guys saving your company time and money with the cloud have to get the alarms before you think twice? If you give your business to companies that insist you have to put your IP on the cloud to use their products you are nothing more than a Russian Roulette volunteer who is counting on the other guy to take the bullet. I get really aggravated at how much traction these cloud proponents get and then think about the idea that they will not guarantee your security or productivity even though they will guarantee you a bill. It is why I write so much about the cloud because the only fallback method for these cloud guys is to repeat the lies often enough so that people will begin to think it is true. And so my rebuttals continue as do their lies. If they were honest with you their hopes for chattel labor would quickly go away.

I just bet that Dassault and Autodesk do not store their source code online. Perhaps you ought to be suspicious of these characters that hand you a chilled pitcher of refreshing Kool Aid but somehow don’t want to drink it with you.

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Marketing and Publicity for Siemens PLM Software Fifth Semi-Annual Update

Posted on January 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

One thing leads to another in this bloggers world. I was thinking about my local buddies machine shop example in my recent SW 2014 End of Life Convention post and wondering why the compelling message of SE over SW had never reached his shop or the companies he has to work with. So I decide to look up director of marketing and publicity for Siemens and lo and behold this is the first page that pops up.

Google siemens pr hunt page

I had to laugh as there right in front of me were my last two updates for Siemens publicity. Must be time for another one I thought. An additional thought I had is why why is this needed once again and after five years things still stink although not as badly? Who is responsible today for this continuing saga that has its tentacles choking the life out of the online potential of Siemens PLM and whose philosophy seemingly stretches way back into those bad old UGS days. I clicked on this link and for the first time I find out who I think is responsible for the current state of marketing and PR.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/siriusdecisions/roi_award_winners/prweb10703409.htm

Three names are mentioned there. David Taylor, Chris Kelley and Jeff Nercesian. Judging by the titles they own I am of the opinion that they are responsible for the state of Siemens Marketing and PR art, such as it is and at least as it relates to Solid Edge. Seeing them at the PRWeb site was pretty surprising to me since I have scant regard for the poor way Siemens represents itself on-line. So I decided I would look to see what their competing software companies did on-line and see just how they stacked up. I might be right, I might be wrong about how well they are doing so I went to look so I could have a real world basis for my opinion. What will follow is going to be a bit lengthy but it is required in order to lay the basis for my conclusion. Which is that Siemens has the industries poorest on-line presence. I went to various web sites for their competitors using IE 11 to see what each company did and how they wanted to present themselves to prospective customers with a 24″ monitor size. So let us start.

Dassault begins with their corporate splash page.

Dassault splash screen

A great looking page. (And I really like the special Freudian touch where they show the user whose on-line cloud stuff just blew up heh-heh). Next is the splash screen for SW.

SolidWorks from Dassault splash screen

Pages are either fully populated or mostly so, content is centered and the overall color selections and themes are pleasing. Links are easy to find and use. Surprisingly for all the blah blah about 3DExperience immersive Total Lifestyle the Dassault stuff after a few layers did revert to some basic looking pages. I guess they figure that by then this is OK to do.

Solidworks splash

Even so it is centered and the colors and layouts are pretty decent.

Next up is Autodesk.

Autodesk splash page

Full page with compelling graphics and what is there not to like. Visually impressive and it makes you want to look further. So let’s do just that.

Autodesk Community

Inventor

Clearly someone who cares what you think of them is in charge here. Now what is true here is true for the rest of the examples I am going to use. Dedicated people who know what potential customers see online helps to steer customers towards their products. It shows polished professionalism that connects I believe in the viewers mind as being representative of what he can expect in the software.

Next up is the software we never seem to hear about much, PTC Creo.

PTC splash screen

Not bad at all is it? Lets click a link and look a bit further.

PTC Creo

Pretty ho-hum really but at least someone was professional enough to have it centered and the PTC splash page is compelling enough to drive an interest level to overcome the ho-hum on the second page in.

Next up is Delcam. Every time you go there the main picture changes.

Delcam splash

Pretty cool and it gets a lot better. When you click-through to PowerShape you get this.

Powershape two

Powershape one

The pictures cycle automatically with attractive appearing messages or high quality renderings.

Up next is CAMWorks from Geometric.

Camworks

CAMWorks SE

I like this page too with good color selection, centered graphics and a series of five pictures that cycle through. If you click-through you get this.

Camworks click thru

Even the secondary layers of this website while not loaded up with stuff is still worthwhile and attention-getting.

A stroll to the Vero site yields the following.

Vero 2 (2)

Vero 2 (1)

There are TWELVE cycling pictures on the splash page. The second page in is not so exciting but go three in to get to a specific category and once again you have rotating content. Here is Alphacam for instance. A series of five cycling pictures are here.

Alphacam

What comes up next was the real surprise for me and it was the quality of the websites of three Siemens VAR’s I am familiar with.

Swoosh Technologies has a splash page that has cycling pictures and messages. While it is full-page left to right it is a partial page top to bottom. The Siemens clone color scheme could use a makeover but I really like content that changes while you watch. It is of the three VAR’s the closest to Siemens web page quality.

Swoosh two

Swoosh one

What follows when you click-through is kind of drab by comparison but even then content is centered and changes as you watch to some degree catching your attention.

Ally PLM is next. The main splash page is fully populated with something and as a bonus you have a series of five pictures that cycle automatically.

Ally PLM splash Camworks

Ally splash again

When you click-through to the SE page for instance while there are no cycling pictures the screen is once again fully populated and the written content is not just a rehash or CTRL-C CTRL-V of official drab and dreary Siemens stuff. It is content written for Ally and for this page and designed to convey why you should care.

Up next is Saratech. I am going to show two screen captures from their main splash page. They have so much going on in their page that with my slow ISP connection it takes a bit to load but when it does there are things happening everywhere.

Saratech blog like you mean it

Saratech splash with SE creative video

If you click-through to the SE page for example you get alternating messages in a bar that crosses the page that draws your attention to salient features Saratech wants you to consider. They compel you to regard different aspects of the products they want to sell you and give you visual prompts to drive you there.

OK, we are done having fun now and let us venture into the world of the Siemens PR and Marketing departments.

Siemens PLM splash

This is the Siemens PLM main splash page and it incorporates four changing things shoved up into the corner as is true with all the other pages here. Done like someone just wanted to hurry up and finish something they really did not want to be bothered with. Shoved over into the corner and tons of wasted space that could have served some sort of purpose. What you see is what you get and you have to use pull down menus with somewhat unintuitive click-through links to go further. But wait, there’s more!

SE splash from Siemens PLM

So we go to the SE splash page. Shoved up into the corner that evidently is the only layout option available to Siemens.

I try to analyze things as I go through content on-line when I am seeking answers to questions I have. Questions like why is the website quality second-rate for Siemens compared to every other CAD software company I show here and sadly even when compared to two of three Siemens VAR’s. I don’t know what the pecking order is here with these three individuals and I guess it really does not matter. They are all responsible and culpable for the second-rate public face presented to the world of CAD CAM of the companies I reference here and the evidence is irrefutable. This whole regimen of neglect and in my opinion contempt towards potential customers and actual customers goes back a long way. In fact it is what started my presence online almost five years ago prompted by my disgust for Bruce Boes and how publicity was handled back then. I could not fathom how people employed by a company to market that same company would act the way they do. This was true five years ago and it sadly is still true today. Manifesting itself with pages that clearly are there only because someone grudgingly felt they had to do something and they lavished the project they disdained accordingly with attention and care.

In spite of my thoughts that say if these Siemens guys do not care much, have not cared much for years and I can’t make them care and so why should I bother even thinking about it, I do care. I like to think that something I write can influence these individuals or Siemens to reassess what they are doing. And if it does not help create some change for the better at the very least I will have the satisfaction of having three posts describing the mediocre Marketing and PR right there on the first Google search page for the world and these worthies to see and think about. You guys may think you are hot stuff but I think you need to find a job that you actually care about or find a way to care about the one you have now.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2014 to be released

Posted on December 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

OK folks it looks like the customer release of CW4SE 2014 will be on 12-30-13 and customer links should show up for downloads at this time assuming no last second delays.

I don’t know what were the problems behind the scene with lack of publicity and announcements and general progress over the last six months but after some communication from Geometric this week about these topics I do have an update. Assemblies is waiting on an MP update from Solid Edge and then we will be good to go. I expect that the next MP or the one after will be the one. So the last big integration hurdle will be jumped at that time. Multi-Axis milling and mill-turn and wire EDM will be in this release. I have had a chance to play with the EV pre-release version of CW4SE 2014 and they have cleaned up the work flow a bit. Without sitting down and doing a direct click by click comparison the feeling I have is a smoother work flow and it is going in a direction that is more intuitive for how many of us work.

Tech Data Base is still this convoluted monster that you will have to spend some time at learning before you can even begin to have a hope of making the program work well for Automatic feature Recognition. I have started to try this out and while I can see the power getting there to fully use it is complex. I have yet to find really good training resource for this and if anyone knows where to go please share it here. There are a LOT of parameters and pages and stuff to fill out. As it is out of the box it does things arbitrarily that most of us won’t like and without many common use tools in the base library you end up spending more time fixing things than if you just started from scratch by picking features and assigning tools to a blank tool crib. However, I believe that Geometric is after all these years going to be updating this and the tool library beginning with turning tools. I wish it was milling since the majority of the work out there is milling but I am pleased that they are getting ready to change some of these old legacy parts of the program into something more useful in the somewhat near future. I know, it might be a somewhat long wait but at least it is progress and they are acknowledging it is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is important more than they know I believe because when people get a thirty-day trial they are not going to have time to fool around with the byzantine TDB and their impressions on CAMWorks will not be as favorable as it should be. The tool paths are great and nothing touches Volumill but this stuff in between start here and posting code is to complex in the TDB and it will turn off many potential buyers.

Now all this having been said I can today see that this TDB will be worthwhile to set up for at least some of my parts families and when done so, if it works like the claims state, this will be a real-time saver in these instances. I really regard this as a production manufacturing tool where there are dedicated individuals who will have the time to really learn and set up the TDB and make in essence an operational work flow happen. For a lot of small shops this will probably never be implemented and they will I think opt for doing it as close to the way they are used to doing things as they can. The TDB and it’s complexity is not something with my ignorance of how to use it and set it up I can judge as to whether it is unnecessarily complex or all the bits and pieces need to be there to work right. My opinion may change here as I get some actual time with CW4SE under my belt. Some of the language used here though to describe features is so weirdly convoluted as to logic that it is best for you to print off a list of what they call various feature types and keep it at hand until you memorize it.

There is a method to do a pretty good work around if you are not interested in all that TDB stuff and I will have a post soon on this.

Insofar as where you go for good material on CW I would have to say that looking for good CAMWorks for Solid Works is the best answer at this time because there is hardly anything for CW4SE. The two programs are the same except for the CAD side and the basic tip I found to allow me to do the TDB workaround was found under SW tips and tricks and it works just fine for SE.

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Dassault’s SolidWorks End of Life 2014 Cloud Poster Boy

Posted on December 19, 2013 | 4 comments

Sometimes you see something that is just so Freudian that you bust out laughing and asking yourself what could they have been thinking? And then you reflect upon the truth behind the phrase “Freudian Moment” I have long been an opponent of cloud based software for the sake of users and useability. Technically it is an impossibility for probably 99% plus of all CADCAM users for instance to achieve anything even remotely close to the power and speed that resides on their own desktop. Still the propaganda machines from Dassault and Autodesk churn on in their efforts to fool C-Suite execs into believing this junk. Personally speaking I don’t know a single user who wants to go to the cloud for this.

And security, can we talk about security for just a second here? Really it is all it will take and it is why Autodesk and Dassault will not indemnify you for anything online. It is why 40,000,000 Target users have had their “secure” online data hacked as the news reveals this week. Oh, and NSA and honest politicians and bureaucrats that would NEVER use your confidential information against you or sell it to your competitors, right? You know of other stories to. IP is different though and just how will you get reimbursed from Dassault or Autodesk when they trash your stuff? How do you even find out your data was stolen until it shows up in products from China? Considering that the first person to file a patent wins can you perhaps see the potential for NSA to become a clearing house for IP transfer to crony capitalist’s? The single common allowing mechanism for this to be possible is if you buy into these cloud only schemes. Follow the money I have been told and as far as I am concerned this is all about putting users into forced chattel situations where they end up spending more money with Dassault or Autodesk, not to mention other uncontrollable costs from data caps at ISP’s, and an effort to end piracy by in part punishing honest users to solve the theft problem. And it reveals the contempt these people have for you and your company that they would force this and then not indemnify you.

So, let us venture forth into Dassault’s priceless Freudian Moment and regard the future face of data loss as this poor guy’s internet stuff blows up in his face. This is from the current Dassault splash page.

Dassault splash screen

Is this not priceless 😉

UPDATE Today this at SW forums forwarded to me. https://forum.solidworks.com/message/399992 Mark Biasotti, Senior Product Manager for SolidWorks has left the corporation and he joins a long list of those who made SW great in departing the Paris Feifdom.

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CAMWorks 4 SE a Real Update

Posted on December 19, 2013 | 3 comments

Courtesy of Ally PLM I have some news.

Thanks for your call today.
Here is the schedule as I know it.
Release from Geometric comes in 2 steps – separated by about a week. The first is called Early Release which is followed by the official release a week later.
The Early Release is usually only provided to VARS, but can be provided to customers in specific situations. The main release follows this by about a week.

Early Release for 5 Axis, Mill-Turn and Wire is this week – either today or tomorrow. The official release where customers have general access for download should be there by the end of next week – December 26th.

As for assembly mode, as I mentioned on the phone, this has been delayed waiting for a change to a Solid Edge API. The current projected delivery of this is February.

With the exception of assembly mode, I believe this completes the suite of solutions that are available in that other CAD product.

As always, if there is anything else we can do to assist, please let me know.

I am thinking of sending some questions directly to both Geometric and post it here and see what we get and if nothing I will post that reply to. If any of you have any questions you want me to ask please submit them and I will pass it on.

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CAMWorks 4 SE, Cart Before Horse or Horse Before Cart?

Posted on December 17, 2013 | 2 comments

I have always been for CAM integrated with whatever CAD package you have as being the optimal work environment. Of course I was excited a year and a half ago to see Camworks at SEU2012 and see the first fruits of what was to come. Now in general what I post on is what interests me that day or currently. What is of interest right now are the questions I have been getting about CW4SE. These are questions from prospective customers who turn to me for answers because quite frankly it seems as though Geometric can’t be bothered to give updates on anything. If a VAR point-blank asks them for information they will give it but in my conversations with VAR’s it is only after the VAR calls up to get an update. There is no effort I am aware of to distribute information on a regular basis.

I have asked before for updates and I would post them and help the information to get out. I have talked to some of the wheels at Geometric where they have asked me to help promote CW4SE and then give me nothing to talk about. Now I don’t know what their ideas were there compared to mine but here is my take on this. Sugar-coating things or not reporting things is good for them perhaps but my first loyalty is to other users. Those individuals who have to put a big chunk of their own time and money into these software products and can ill afford to buy something just because someone want to sell them something. At this time I have quit asking because if the interest at Geometric to promote this product is so small they can’t be bothered to communicate I am not going to either. SO, here is your official update given to me by Geometric.

On ————— we are ——————- and ———————– so then ———————– and finally ———————————————————————————————————————-.

Now what PR genius figures this is a cogent marketing procedure? Who decides to try to sell a new product by slamming the door on update and news? I know for a fact that Geometric is looking for people to do tool libraries, multiaxis posts and work on Glovious among other things. The Indian head hunters are looking so if you are qualified and want to work for Geometric a bit there may well be jobs there at least temporarily. Now I have all kinds of conjecture to write if I wanted to because Geometric does not say squat about things but I am not going to at this time. I will say however that no news is bad news because it starts questions in people’s minds and turns off potential buyers.

So does the Horse of open communications and publicity pull the cart of CAM software for Geometric or does the cart when it is finally full shove the horse down the hill to the wreck at the bottom. I choose this analogy deliberately because how can anyone expect to sell a lot of something they never talk about and barely promote. And then when they don’t sell and they look at the money and time to get that far and I bet they will start wringing their hands over poor me at the bottom of the hill with the cart piled on top of them.

I think CW4SE is good software in general. It is cumbersome to learn with unintuitive work flows and a Tech Data Base that gets in the way as much as helps until you spend a bunch of time to learn and then to configure it.(They should take a long hard look at HSMWorks for easy to learn and good workflow.) Or do as I am going to do which is work around it until I have time to set all the stuff up for the Auto Feature Recognition stuff. Along with the complexity comes power though and I know a big chunk of my irritation with CW4SE is learning some weird no machining experience programmers ways of doing things. Just like the transition from Ordered to Synchronous is. You sit there and mentally torture the idiots that did this to you until you finally cross that Rubicon and it all starts coming together. I will say though that the tools and the work flow ARE vestiges of years gone by and I don’t understand why Geometric refuses to take care of this stuff that IS a real and unneccessary part of CW4SE. Or if they are working on this why they won’t say so.

Which leads me to this. I get asked the same questions again and again and I am going to post these here for Siemens and Geometric to see and let us just find out what the answers are. I can’t answer what they wont talk about and I am not asking again for answers.If they don’t care I don’t care either. I was told in June to expect assemblies in September. Last I hear was they would be in December when the next CW4SE release was supposed to happen. Now I hear it may be January. What a bunch of junk and who knows what is really going on.

Are we going to get all the features that SW users have and if so when?
When will assemblies really actually make it into CW4SE?
What Post Processors are there and do they cost money?
What is the cost? This is so stupid you guys. We all know you have a “retail” list you can post and you have no idea how irritating this is to prospective customers.
When will EDM be done?
What guarantee do we have Autodesk will not buyout Geometric/Camworks?
What guarantee do we have this software will even be there tomorrow?

You know what Geometric, you get what you think is a dumb question like the last one and wonder why. The potential customer asking looks at today’s CAM market turmoil and fears why you have nothing to say. Just how much time does it take to send periodic email updates out?

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SolidWorks World 2014 End of Life Convention Soon

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 17 comments

Well probably not totally but certainly for many an existing user. SW recorded declining income recently and I had an experience that demonstrated why in my shop this week. My nearby machining shop buddy broke part of his Renishaw tool probe and he sent his son over to get my spare part to get him up and running again. While he was here he saw my Faroarm and asked what it was. One thing leads to another and the topic turned to CAD. I mentioned SE and direct editing and how handy it was to design with. Now unprompted Cody mentioned that they used SW, which I knew, and that the list of things for 2014 looked really small.

I have to say that it seems that the SW blogosphere agrees and that the excitement and buzz is just not there this year. Even the paid blog squad stuff is forced to make trivial “new and exciting” things look larger than life just to have topics to discuss. Sicot and Charles both talk up new directions and ways of doing things and it is the cloud and Catia V6 CGM kernal stuff and not how exciting new powerful features and capabilities are being added to SW as it is now known. Go back through the last few months of posts here on SW for links to the words that come out of SW’s fearless leaders mouths and tell me I am wrong. Sure there will be a large body of SW users just like there still is for PTC Creo. And for the same reasons. The pain of leaving is greater than the pain of using software that is falling behind what others are doing. Isn’t that a nice inducement to stay? But many old users will leave and new CAD users will pick what (SE) is more useful to them further eroding the base that could have been SW’s

I wanted to post on the difference between SE and SW in the area of direct editing. When I first embarked upon this I figured there would be a lot of videos on Youtube for SW move face/direct editing I could contrast SE’s version of Synchronous Tech direct editing with. I believe that direct editing done right IS the single most powerful new user productivity tool out there and that SE ST is the best iteration of it. The guy who invented Nurbs, Kevin Versprille seems to agree.

http://ontheedge.dezignstuff.com/dr-ken-versprille-the-father-of-nurbs-on-synchronous-technology-and-the-future-of-cad/1218#more-1218

So with this litmus test in mind and considering all the blather about the pre-eminent capabilities of SW I sally forth to do my comparisons and find just about zip to work with. Go to the official SW site and look up direct editing. SW knows what they offer is a sad vestige of direct editing and they have exactly ONE video on this topic. Go anywhere and look up move face or direct editing for SW and you will be amazed at how little there is. Don’t take my word for this just go and do it.
ScreenHunter_02 Dec. 12 08.16

This is the only Parts entry in the SW demo library. Evidently they don’t think direct editing is a useful tool you need.

ScreenHunter_03 Dec. 12 08.22

This is the tutorial section for parts creation. See all the cool stuff for Direct Editing? Don’t feel bad if you missed it because it is not there. I think the reason is two fold. One, SW has not been able to produce a worthwhile version of Direct Editing so they pretend it is not important. Two, stuff they post is an invitation for comparison to what is inside of SE and they can hardly afford to do this and win THAT competition. Don’t worry though all you faithful SW users. Your loyalty will no doubt be rewarded next year as Mechanical Conceptual launches the Dassault New Way boat. Well maybe launches it but who knows how well it will steer or float as Dassault has a real track record of failed programs, promises and launch dates for any new program for or related to SW. Mechanical Conceptual will be at least four months late and who knows what it will do. I don’t know what direct editing capabilities reside inside of the CGM kernal but since it is where you are all headed you better keep your fingers crossed that CGM has powerful direct editing capabilities.

It is worth noting too the philosophy of honesty that preceeds this SW 2014 EOL convention. You look at responses to questions asked about the future from the top of Dassault down to the bottom and tell me it is a consistent message where all are on one page. It is not. Top dogs tell shareholders and analysts where they are heading and everyone below them does damage control because this is not where the users want to go and the people there where the rubber hits the road are very nervous about the future. In the midst of declining sub income they are doing their best to reassure people who are not stupid that what they are seeing as the future is not so. Look at the long term goals as stated by Dassault. Social mediazation, new word for the day 😉 , the cloud, grocery store shelf layout software, gamification, group think over the internet, and on and on. Where is the emphasis on designing for MCAD or consumer products?

It is contrasted by Siemens NX and SE with cogent plans to expand the set of design tools for MCAD and consumer products and whose decision is based upon improving this as a set of tools for design. Unlike Dassault whose choice is shoving SW into some wonderful 3DExperience corner where it will be a minor part of some grand whole life all encompassing scheme by a French mad man. I follow all this stuff with great interest because it fascinates me how a well done bit of software like SW was that overtook the market is now in the incapable hands of people who are pretty clueless as to what designers want and seem determined to jettison what made SW great.

The rest of the story about my friend by the way is this. About a year ago I had a job in Richmond VA welding some SS counter tops together. I stopped at Matt Lombards house on the way over there and had a chat with him. He had his stash of SW 2013 Bibles there and I could not resist. I asked him for one for my SW using machinist buddy and told him to autograph it with the words in effect that said “Hi, wellcome to the Bible but SE will rule the world soon and you to will be assimilated”. His son will be over one day next week to have a look at SE. Very soon the only reason they will have SW is because their customers make them have it and it is integrated with HSMWorks which they use. And they have to have the current version not because it is the best choice for their shop but because it is demanded of them. I just love it when you take an SW file and edit it faster than the SW author could. The expressions are always worth the time spent.

Oh, and Matt himself has been assimilated and now works for SE.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge Update

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 2 comments

At this time there are a few things to announce. Apparently the API required for integrating assemblies has taken more work than they thought so the timeframe I was told for this to be done is probably January of next year. There is supposed to be an update that will have multi-axis and EDM later this month. There is now an SE user forum at the Geometric Camworks site so if you are a new CW4SE user go over there and help populate this. In general there are darned few user oriented things like tips and tricks at the Geometric site for users of both SE and SW flavors and the best source for help outside of tutorials still looks to be youtube, things like http://camworksguide.com/ and the Solid Professor stuff. Now let me say that the CAM differences between the SE and SW flavors is pretty small, (except of course we SE users have the killer CAD program;) ) and that what you learn from either side of the aisle where CAM is concerned will help.

I think sales have been pretty slow and I attribute this to the same problem SE has suffered under for some time. It is a puzzle to me why people expect the software to sell itself and not have to put their own money and time into an aggressive marketing campaign. A campaign that only has to talk about what this combination of CW and SE with best in class direct editing can do that makes it better than the rest to sell both SE and CW4SE. But I am not the smart guy PR wonk so I probably just don’t grok the genius behind the concept of no marketing is shrewd and effective marketing.

And last but not least in my world I finally have my seat of CW4SE and I expect to have some posts again soon on this topic.

I welcome anyone from Geometric who wishes to add or clarify anything. I have quit asking to be notified of any updates because these people do not respond until you chase them down. Evidently this gets back to the philosophy of PR management mentioned above.

ScreenHunter_04 Dec. 12 09.42

UPDATE 12-13-13
OK according to Ally PLM my dongle was supposed to be delivered yesterday. Now par for the course Geometric does not communicate. No notification or tracking number so no doubt it is still floating around where ever with whomever. Get a grip guys. When SE or ZW3d send me dongles or even version updates if delivered by DVD I get notification and a tracking number. Had you bothered to TELL me I would have arranged to be here yesterday.I have things to do today to and if I don’t get some idea of when to be here I will probably miss it again because I have to do things away from my shop. Is it so hard to act like a business that desires to keep it’s customers informed??

UPDATE 12-13-13 B
OK, 4:40 and the whole day is gone waiting for this to finally arrive and I had to cancel an appointment with a customer because of this. Now while talking to the UPS driver I see him scan the envelope and hand it to me. “No signature required I ask?” No this was not requested is the reply. “Do you mean to tell me that you would have just left this leaning up against the outside of the door like the other packages are when I am not here?” Yes is the reply. So let me get this right. A dongle that is worth $13,700.00 can be dropped off at my place with no signature and if this thing gets lost I suppose it would be my fault. Does anyone here see anything wrong with this picture?

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ATTENTION, Solid Edge Sheet Metal Developers Please Check In

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 16 comments

Sometimes as you wander through your daily life in the design build world you run across things periodically that irritate the heck out of you. This week all I want to do is design a transition that will go from a 13.875″ wide 16.25″ long ID rectangular base to a 12″ offset round with an overall height of 13″.

Now this is not a problem in SE until you realize that HEY, HOW do I do this and have segmented bends in the corners so I can actually produce this thing in my shop? I did not know any way to do this and in checking with support today they told me it was not an existing capability in SE. ER: 1629173 is the number of interest for you SE users who would like to see this change. Pile on guys, the squeaky wheel is the one oiled and I now have my jelly bean candidate for SEU 2014 roundtables.

In researching how to work around this I came up with two products that appear to fill the bill. Both of these claim to create and unfold various sheet metal fabrications and they can get to be quite complex especially in the “Sheet Lightning” program. They also will allow you to print out using your regular printer and standard size sheets of paper thereby making a template you can actually lay out on your sheet metal as a guide for cutting and bending. A REALLY handy thing for a whole bunch of shops to just get a single item out quickly.

“Sheet Lightning” http://www.revcad.com/Sheet5/Products/products_0.html of course is one of these. I have an older version (5.2) of this program and it does work. I have used it before and I used it again on this transition. It will allow you to output a DXF file also which you can send out for fabrication to your favorite laser guy. One thing I have never found is how to assign thickness to your metal which is pretty darned critical. I have had a question in for most of today to Revcad but no answer yet so I have no idea if this capability is in the newer versions. It is far more complicated to learn than the next program but it will allow you to do some seriously complicated things that “Plate and Sheet” in my brief examination apparently wont. It is also FAR cheaper at $150.00

“Plate and Sheet Professional” http://www.plate-n-sheet.com.au/ is the other candidate. It is far more expensive at $900+ $ AU and I feel it has design limitations that Sheet Lightning does not BUT it appears to be far more adapted to a production environment. Easier to learn and allows for thickness of material as inside, outside or neutral for the purposes of calculating layouts. At six times the cost it is quite pricy but since the other program does not apparently have thickness as an input it would be worth it in many cases especially if you start getting into heavier sheet metal or plate. In any case I downloaded V4.2 today and here is a video of just how easy this thing is to use.

I am extending an invitation to both companies to comment here to correct any errors or omissions on my part as I am not real conversant with either program. Hopefully they will respond.

UPDATE, this is from Sheet lightning.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for letting us know about this posting. My apologies for not responding sooner, it initially got mistaken for spam.

On the issue of thickness of material in Sheet Lightning we have found the best solution is for the user to use the neutral axis dimensions (inner diameter + 2x (0.5 * thickness)) to define half way through the material as the neutral axis which is perfectly adequate for most cases as most uses are for relatively thin sheet (which we would defines as: diameter > thickness * 40). In some cases where thicker material is used and greater accuracy is wanted we advise the use of a factor to give slight correction (e.g. inner diameter + 2x(f*thickness)) where the factor may typically be 0.4 – 0.5, often typically something like 0.47. This is material and forming process dependent and may be derived empirically so it is difficult to specify for every case but in the absence of empirical data through experiment there is enough advice available out there on that to help the user decide.

We have in the past enabled thickness of material and a factor as parameters that worked internally in this way but found it caused more complications (mainly by cluttering the parameter lists) than were necessary and it was simply better to train users to work this way directly.

I hope this answers your questions. Thanks for the article, it is good to see people like you taking an interest in our product/s. If you need further input please let us know.

Regards
Trevor Maddison
Revcad

5-6-14 here is a response to Dennis from Ryan Gudorf in regards to a Tee. Thanks Ryan.

AsmTee

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OK, You Designed It, How Do You Propose I Make It?

Posted on December 11, 2013 | 5 comments

One of my pet peeves is how the idea of designing things has become the end of the process of manufacturing for so many. I guess if I sat in a cubicle and all I knew was based on classroom training and I had never dipped a toe into a manufacturing facility I could think this way. Or if I was silly enough to think manufacturing began and ended with my scintillating but academic
design genius capabilities as I sat behind my monitor. So then this bit of enlightened design meanders it’s way through the process where hopefully someone with a bit of sense will see it before it gets out to the people who will be asked t0 make it.

Such were the thoughts going through my mind this week as I regarded a part that I had been sent to quote on. Now keep in mind these guys know what I have for equipment and they thought that this was a part suitable for milling.

ScreenHunter_01 Dec. 02 11.51

I am sure that all the plugin connections were dimensionally correct and that sufficient space in the “box” was allowed for components according to precise sizes garnered from somewhere. The problem is however that this designer had absolutely no idea of what is required to allow for milling this kind of part. First off this is impossible to mill unless done as four or five pieces that would be assembled with fasteners or perhaps welding. It could be done with some of those new fancy metal powder deposition laser doo-dads. Except for the problem of how to tap occluded holes in some of the round bosses I think it would be possible there. But then again this would never yield quick or cheap parts for something that was to be mass manufactured. You could afford to make one this way if it was to be used as a pattern for molding. But then you would have to drill and tap those holes on those bosses on every casting and quite frankly I don’t know a way that this would be possible except with a through hole which is not indicated based on the part file. In any case I am not familiar enough with casting to know if this is a feasible design.

What I am going to do is go through this part and show reasons why this cant be milled. It is my hope that perhaps this will get some of you who are not familiar with machining to reconsider how you go about designing. This guy spent his time designing something that cant be machined and at the very least he wasted his time and the time of shops sent RFQ’s.

Join me as we venture into the never never world of inexperience.

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