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There was a survey on the Siemens BBS this week inquiring into various aspects of software use and pondering this brought a few comments and thoughts to mind. So some reflections on the status quo and the future.

It is rare to see two things happen in conjunction that could totaly alter the face of CAD as we know it. One has been in my mind the advent of Synchronous Tech with SE and NX. A remarkable way of doing things that appealed to this user the very first time he saw it. Indeed it is the tool of choice for 95%+ of all my geometry creation and I would have it no other way. The implementation here with live rules is the industry best. I think programs like Space Claim for instance may do certain things in Direct Editing better but for all around useability and power nothing else touches SE in mid range cad and NX in high range. So we have the innovative paradigm disruptor in place in ST.

The other is the self imposed destruction of Solid Works by Dassault. I think many of the SW users are ignoring the nature of the tremenously destructive and disruptive things heading their way. I base this on the amount of outcry by users over what is going on. I also see the talk about what happened in SWW 2012 which was basically non-existant. Principle bloggers and commentors had very little to say this year and I think the reasons are two fold. One, there were few new things to talk about and Dassault still does not have much to say about this grand future they haven’t been able to make work yet. Two, the things that they are finding out are very discouraging and so the silence brought on by the betrayal of long time SW users and advocates by Dassault who is throwing their future in the dumpster. The serious denial by many users is soon to be adjusted by reality and it won’t be pretty for those who stick around.

( Preface to the following paragraph added after publishing. It appears with further information that there is a lack of coordination between VAR’s and Siemens and SE so each may have different lists. This in and of itself stymies complete coverage of users for the survey and indicates another rough edge to be fixed. )

SO, we have this little survey of SE users. As of yet it is only on the BBS forum. This brings me to a sore point of topic. Why is Solid Edge/Siemens taking this once in a lifetime opportunity to aquire market share and new partners for integrated products so lacadaisically? I mean it seems that way to me. This survey stuff was talked about a year ago and nothing much has happened. There has been no concerted effort to reach out to EVERY SE user and just find out what our needs and desires are.  Here we sit with the best CAD program but feet mired in clay in every other area. It benefits me and every other SE user if SE grows. It means more work and more clients who use common tools and that has to be beneficial. Look at SW and tell me I am wrong. Furthermore it benefits SE/Siemens in a big way with better cash flow from new customers. This myopia  by SE/Siemens to their own detriment is the most puzzling thing to me and I just don’t understand.

I get it that it is not possible to develop a strategy without planning. I also get the idea that endless debates about what should happen and committees and blah blah blah will kill bright futures as surely as no planning will. Time waits for no one and it won’t wait for SE either if they choose not to capitalize on this current short lived golden egg. So here we go into ST5 and Nashville this June.

Everything here depends on SE and Siemens to take the ball and run with it. They have the capital and the users lists. THEY HAVE to be the ones who provide plentiful publicity to promote both the product and the convention in June. I don’t know where this preppy name of “University” came from but they had better start getting in gear to get users there. The ground work to create user excitement is not done with a last minute barrage but is done by sustained efforts to create and keep user interest. AND to create interest in potential customers. At this time as far as I can tell there is no single person with ability who has been assigned the postition, one I have just created by the way, of user community and publicity liason.  It requires an individual I think has been at some point in time an actual user in his daytime job and UNDERSTANDS the important things we have to deal with from useability to integration. This has not happened and we see a disjointed kind of academic non user oriented and haphazard communication with poorly directed publicity as a result.

From where I sit here is an example. We have this car building thing that SE is promoting. That is all well and good but kind of remote to CAD users who are allready doing this for a living. SE’s biggest single potential for new customers is SW. They are allready cad users and don’t need a free or whatever seat of SE. What they need is concrete examples like the one from Billy Oliver of Helena Labs. He switched from SW to SE and he was part of a half hour video explaning WHY the move benefited them and HOW it benefited them. Yeah, something a real SW user faced with the trash Dassault is getting ready to dish out needs to see and I bet you he does not give a flip about that car stuff. He has problems on his day job that need fixed. He is your single largest group of new clients if you care to go harvest them. Real case studies as to why it will benefit you day by day is a lot more compelling to users than some basically irrelevant car thing. The car thing is good for the academic outreach, reality is good when you want customers from your competitor. They are TWO seperate efforts and should be handled that way.

This survey has yet to do more than scratch the surface. They are omiting questions on there that could address very important things. No let me rephrase that. Some critically important things. For instance on a scale of 1 to 10 how important would integrated CAM be to you? Remember guys that the whole reason for the existance of SE is to create something to be, drum roll here please, something to be MANUFACTURED. Very little has been done here to even find out how important this is to existing customers although this last survey finally did ask what you were using for CAM. This manufacturing disconnect has been a puzzle to me for some time. Listen, the job is only partly done when the cad design is finished and now begins the actual manufacturing which by the way involves a lot more time and money than design did.

Allow me to demonstrate this. I am a small business. My cad expenses were around $7,500.00 for SE. My yearly expenses $1,500.00. My new mill I am ordering will be at least $85,000.00. My CAM software will be probably at least $13,000.00 initialy and at least $1,600.00 yearly. My 44″ x 78″ building with my old Haas and lots of other equipment probably has run me well over $200,000.00 since the begining. I just spent $6,250.00 on a digital phase converter for the new mill, as much almost just to get good clean power as I did for SE.  So in my world, which is a pretty common one with CAD users if you think about it, just what is most important Hmmmm? Please get on the ball here, it is important to users and therefore SHOULD be important SE/Siemens

I know all that stuff about big companies and how it takes time for change to happen. I know there are foot draggers who have a vested interest in the way things were for whatever reason who will fight good changes. I know that with limited budgets this economy brings there can be a fear of making wrong choices. I also know however that when a priceless opportunity arises you had better jump on it or forget it. We have gone from Huntsville last year to Nashville this June and instead of building the user community and creating a manufacturing ecosphere and creating excitement with existing and potential customers we have created, well, I don’t know but not enough thats for sure.

My suggestion would be for Management Synchronous Technology. A way of doing things that would cut right through history based management and get right to the creation of success for us all from corporate to user.

Reading a few things today over at the Siemens BBS forums for SE and some thoughts came to mind regarding corporate philosophy of management and percieved shortfalls of Solid Edge by prospective and current users.

It has been interesting to watch over the last three and a half  years how the nature of the complaints by users on the BBS have changed. The primary and most oft repeated complaints were for some time unintended consequences of direct edits and this was a problem. As always with new technology there was both user inexperience in proper workflow and genuine software problems mixed together for a less than satisfactory result in many cases. Two seperate domains of modeling where never the twain shall meet was as big a problem especially as we could see that NX allowed the two to meet and that was what we wanted too.

ST3 arrives and with the joining of direct and traditional plus better implementation of live rules by SE. Seat time by users bringing better understanding of how it all was supposed to work along with the big improvements in SE solved for the most part the old complaints but was leading into new ones.

ST4 was primarily about making the tools of geometry creation more reliable and the workflow to use them easier. After all, did we not buy software to create geometry? This was also the opinion of Siemens and SE management and they determined that geometry creation for MCAD and being the best at it was their goal. This was the driving philosophy behind the features in ST4 and I expect in part for ST5 too.

We arrive today with only one serious objection to the capabilities of SE by users. It is also the one most mentioned by bloggers and users of other CAD programs and utilized by companies afraid of competition. Keep in mind I am not talking about an “ecosphere” of integrated apps like the one SW has done so well over the years. I am talking about SE by itself and the last big objection to it’s capabilities. This is surfacing and the creation of swoopy, curvy and twisty objects like those so often found in molded parts.

I never had these concerns as my parts are pretty straight forward and basically never stray from the world of MCAD where the vast majority of us live. But I watch with interest what others who do this kind of work say as who knows when it may be my turn to have to do this kind of stuff.

Today there was a post talking about modeling and in chimes Dan Staples. Now first off I am going to make a philosophical point here. I have had very poor experiences with companies that are run by CPA MBA types and whose sole qualifications seem to be cost cutting without understanding the ramifications of their actions to the product. The mindset that seems to say please the shareholders and investors first with slick words and new features that don’t mean squat to users but look good to the outside world.  I know Dan and I see his geometry creation passion in his actions and words and here he is once again on his own time commenting on the forums.

Here is a direct quote,

“OK. I don’t technically qualify as a user, but I sometimes spend significant time with the software, to understand where to improve it. I spent quite a few hours on surfacing recently — that leads me to an insight on where you can rock out Synchronous today, even if you are are a dinosaur (Rick’s word, not mine!).
Do all your sketches in Synchronous and all the surfaces in Ordered. This turns out to work wonderfully — you do have to remember to switch to ordered and back. The reason it works wonderfully is the fluidity with which you can switch back and forth between sketches (which are highly interrelated in surfacing workflows) but still benefit from associative recompute.”

Now I don’t know why this was not publically mentioned before except that the mind is a funny thing. How often are we locked into a way of thinking because of how we have had to work for years and don’t experiment? I think this is a case in point. Here are unplanned capabilities and a new way of doing things that simply needed someone to find it. There is significant benefit to users by having the guy in charge of their software be an expert in it who wants improvements because improvements will happen.

Later in this thread is a post by Imre Szucs where he does just such a part. It starts a little slow so stick with it, it is worth it.   http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k8sGXEoJHQ8

I have watched over the last few years how things seem to work with SE. I see Dan show up at Matt Lombard’s blog where a rather lengthy discussion happens on surfacing. I see Dan showing up on the BBS talking about the same stuff. Generally this is an indication of where things are headed and what is being developed even though you won’t get anyone to come right out and say so. I am quite certain surfacing will no longer be a complaint in the near future.

I am also going to take a moment of your time and talk about the direction that SE and the SE Velocity family of software is taking. I look at SW and I am envious of the incredible amount of integrated apps there are for them. This did not happen over night and is the result of many years of effort. I get really impatient with the pace of change at SE in regards to this until I consider the following. Yeah, it’s almost tax time again. Wasn’t it tax time a couple of months ago or so it seems? How often do you find yourself lamenting how fast time can go away?

Karsten Newbury, the guy that is over the SE and SE Velocity family happens to have a Masters in Industrial Engineering. His backround IS industry and not counting dollars and planning stock leveraged buyouts/sellouts or stupid social media gamification of cad. He is aware of the lack of integrated products but has had to work on a bunch of stuff to get to the point where this can really be addressed.  I have recently been told that things are going to change in a big way in this area. Every time Karsten has made a public or private to me statement he has delivered. His philosophy here is that he will not make promises he can’t deliver on and he means it. Look for integrated apps, they are on the way. Remember this, even though SE has been around for a number of years in many ways it is a new company with a new philosophy that is replacing the neglect it has suffered from Integraph days through the UGS days. Fixing this is not easy but it is being done.

I think about the upcoming University for ST5 with anticipation. We are all going there with excitement about what is in store for us. I happen to know that the “Final Frontiers” are being driven through at this time and soon this last serious objection to SE’s geometry creation capabilities will not apply anymore and neither will the lack of key integrated apps.

Life is good and if you are a user of SE do you really want to miss this years event? It will be well worth your time to go if you can and I look forward to seeing and commenting on the upcoming new goodies.

As you may have surmised I have an interest in ZW3D. One of the amusing aspects of the ZW3D buyout of VX is how in the domestic Chinese press it is labeled as “homegrown” and domestically produced. It is anything but and VX was bought for it’s unique modeling kernal as a package deal from the real creators in the USA.

Hand in hand with these fluff pieces of feel good propaganda was a recent release of an article talking about ZW3D and domestic cadcam efforts and it is as follows.

CHINA NEWS RELEASE

“Current Location: Press and Publication China News publication reported that the newsletter version 6: Copyright weekly body

Chinese industrial development of software industry alliance first anniversary Domestic CAD adversity breakthrough

: radius of the source: News of China published the report update time :2012-1-12 11:03:44

Chinese industrial development of software industry alliance was held in Beijing recently set up an annual wrap-up, from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, SME Division, the state information technology advisory committee of experts, China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute and Chinese Academy of Engineering, industry experts, corporate and other representatives to discuss the development of CAD software. China Press reported that “the reporter learned at the meeting, foreign CAD software to enter the domestic market and the piracy rampant of the CAD software, foreign software and pirated software, once monopolized the lion’s share of the CAD market in China, resulting in domestic CAD is facing enormous challenges. Vendor alliance to form a concerted effort to promote the development of industrial software, which is the Industrial Software Alliance, set up its mind.

To promote domestic industrial software development is imminent

Union Deputy Secretary-General Du Jingzhe introduced, compared to domestic and foreign enterprises related data, the advantage of foreign industrial software companies more significant, but the situation of the domestic industry software is also remarkable: the low-end market has been popularized in the mid-market share is constantly improved, high-end market is beginning to achieve a breakthrough. R & D products has formed a system, covering the various stages of product life cycle. Among them, the faster the development of CAD, 2D CAD accounted for 30% market share at the low end of the market, some companies through acquisitions, partnerships, etc., to introduce and absorb the developed countries, technology, R & D levels to rapidly improve.

In recent years, the overall level of industrial software development has to have a relatively large increase, but there is a large gap compared with developed countries, on the one hand, our industrial software late start, on the other hand, the vast majority of enterprises understanding of the industrial software is also very limited. On the whole, the development of China’s industrial software has a long way to go, also because of this, it is urgent to promote the development of industrial software.

Local firms a role model

China’s industrial software by leaps and bounds, on the one hand, government and industry associations in strong support of all aspects of policy and resources, and the need to enhance the general awareness for domestic industrial software. Most importantly, the need to rely on the growth of the local industrial software vendors.

Commission by letter from the Ministry of Industry, led the establishment of the joint of the excellent field of industrial software vendors Industry Software Alliance, organized a professional forum in the past year in succession, policy recommendations, the application of research and many other activities, through policy, the application promotion, and at all levels to promote the development of industrial software. Meanwhile, the software vendors who are members of the Union, but also continuously improve its own strength, to serve as a model. For example, 3D product is launched in the hope that a high price, high-end measurements of CAD / CAM software products. In the hope that the acquisition of U.S. VX CAD / CAM software system architecture and technology by adding new products to further refine and improve products, making the look 3D soon in the domestic market place. The introduction of 3D look, in the hope that the company jumped by a 2D CAD platform vendors contains a two-dimensional, three-dimensional CAD / CAM integration solutions platform vendors, ushered in a rapid development opportunities. Industrial Software Alliance executive director, chairman of the unit, the software in the hope that official said, in the hope that software is currently the most professional 2D and 3D design software suppliers, R & D CAD / CAM software is a very important industrial design software for the majority of manufacturing enterprises to provide a strong driving force for innovation.”

PROTECTION FOR IP? REALLY??

China has become famous for the theft of everything they can get their hands on. From running knockoff parts on your equipment you were so kind as to provide them, hacked software and stolen IP, bidding on one thing and then providing lesser quality  to other things like melanine in milk to steal better test results so as to charge a higher price on stuff made by some of the most polluting factories known to mankind.

So it is with interest I see the article talking about the concept that it takes time and money to produce things like CADCAM software. That perhaps there should be a move towards protecting the domestic producers of these things from the rampant plundering and pillaging foreign products and companies suffer from.

I recieved an email this week that was telling me that China’s Premier 3D CADCAM program, thats ZW3D for those of you in Rio Lindo :-), has been hacked and is currently available on Chinese sites.

HEY, welcome to the reality you all have created for yourselves and keep us up to date on how that protection of your intellectual property rights thingy is working for you.

Let me make something clear here. I buy what I use and I don’t advocate doing otherwise. But I can’t help but be amused when a society that makes a mockery of IP rights and protection is hoist by their own petard.

CHINA NOT SOLELY TO BLAME

Just as an aside here. American (and European etal) industry run by CPA’s and MBA’s are partly responsible for this by dictating that cheapest is bestest and we will lower the quality until people refuse to buy anymore. So they go to China and tell them basically that we don’t care how you do it just make it cheap cheap cheap and with little to no oversight of industry tons of bad things happen.

Our wonderful and creative accountant captains of industry go to China to avoid rules, regulations and taxes socialist idiots like Pelosi, Reid and Obama inflict upon them rather than fight for better standards here. They knowingly turn and look the other way as long as they can while writing themselves huge salaries and bonuses so far out of line from the historical norm that it is mind boggling. All this on stock that pays no worthwhile dividends and whose profit for investors seemingly now depends on market manipulations to drive the stocks up and down and you being lucky enough to buy low sell high.

They of course are the primary beneficiaries of this system as they can manipulate numbers for public release and drive stock prices accordingly. Theoretically this is illegal as insider trading and is prohibited unless you happen to be in Congress where the allowed loophole makes it OK for members of this political aristocracy.  Basically they have set themselves up to plunder companies and shareholders and the stockmarket. I am afraid that in part the Chinese are learning these moral standards from our very own Titans of industry and corrupt politicians who have helped to fund this and promote this.

I think this is like viewing a slow motion  train wreck where I sit  in the passenger coach and watch as we creep towards disaster.

So I request my dongle code for 2012 and the reply is that the codes are not ready but they should be within two weeks. Does anyone check anything out there before release?

I go to the forums and I know that the forum is not a part of the software I use but it is an important part of the public face of the company.  I would think they would understand that this should work right as it is one of the first places many prospective customers will go to form an opinion. So you go there  and it is total chaos. No categories, no evident order to posts and the sort by’s at the top don’t  sort. http://www.zwsoft.com/en/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3

They have also taken to removing critical posts that complain about these things and I guess if the ostrich can’t see it when it’s head is in the ground the problem has gone away.

Rumor has it that now that they have released 2012 with lathe that no one can use they are in negotiations with a third-party post company.  My question is how did it get so far without this question being answered? ZW3D has known all along they had no way for you to communicate with your lathe but it was not important to them to resolve this before you plunked your cash down.

I don’t intend to talk long about this stuff today but I will say that first and foremost I am a user of cad and cam. I think that if someone told me that a particular software program was good and convinced me to buy it, then it should be good. Lets face it, the only reason we users have this stuff for is to make a living and anything that gets in the way of that is counter productive.

I go over the fanboy top sometimes in other peoples eyes when I talk about Solid Edge. It may sound corny but I am very happy to be there and I am as happy and enthusiastic about SE as I can be. It has made my cad life that much easier and I tell you so.

On the other hand we have ZW3D. I am going to tell you that my experience here has quickly gone downhill since VX was bought out and I can’t think of anything that would convince me to tell you to buy it. My only reason for hanging on was the promise of lathe being added to cam and I was being a tightwad and hoping to save some money.  Just remember please that when I talk about the programs I use it was my own money I have spent. ZW3D is such a lousy MCAD program that I have never used it for cad since Solid Edge so capably replaced it three plus years ago.   Now I am faced with no lathe and all I can say about ZW3D is if you go there, beware.

The train it appears is heading down Cajon Pass with no dynamic brakes working and do you really want to be there as a participant?

So I download the RTM version of ZW3D yesterday and I find some things of interest. First and most exciting for me is the long-awaited release of lathe for cam.

We see in the first screen capture the pretty new lathe icons in the cam plan section.

There is however a minor problem with this. In order for this to be of any use there has to be a way to communicate with your cnc lathe of choice. The following two screen captures are of all the machine posts that come with ZW.

and

Perhaps I am missing something but there is not one lathe post in here. So you see it is hardly a noteworthy new feature to claim, as ZW does in their new release statements, when it is not useable for anyone anywhere unless they can write their own posts. They did a rather remarkable thing here and one I have never seen anywhere else. Rather than hire a third-party post writer to do what they could not do they just stuck lathe in there and told all their customers who thought they were going to have something to go fly a kite. Perhaps I am being presumptuous here when I say they can’t write their own machine posts. Maybe the ability is there and what the truth is is that they just don’t care if what you buy is useable. I don’t know what the problem is I just know what they had the audacity to release 2012 lathe as though something wonderful had been accomplished.

However there is hope for the frustrated ZW3D user here in the Western Hemisphere!

http://www.zwsoft.com/en/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=lists&catid=171

You can’t make this stuff up and I have posted the link so you can see for yourself. THREE BUSINESS DAY GUARANTEE, yes that’s right, three days before you hear back from support is their buyer support promise to you. Live chat is not available to us during our business hours because it is nightime there in China support land. Not that live chat would have helped anyway.  But in the middle of the sleepless night as you ponder how to get your work done and waiting on answers you can perhaps while away the time in friendly communication with Ms Robot Q.

No live tech support unless your VAR is willing to help and if he has no answer then it is VAR + three days X how many times to get an answer. Of course I can see the following happening with great regularity. You have a problem and a part on the mill and you are going nowhere until tech support provides an answer. So you email and wait for three days. This was on Monday and so now you have your reply on Wednesday. There is a further question about the problem you are having and now you are into three more days. Oopsy woopsy, now it will be Monday before you have that answer if indeed that just does not mean another email cycle begins anew. I thought the days of the Pony Express being the fastest method of communication were over some time ago but I have cause to reconsider that here. Maybe three days is their worst case scenario but they picked the number didn’t they and thought that was good enough and the heck with live tech support that had been available here in the USA from day one before VX was bought out.

I am not going to talk about direct editing they claim to have because it is by far the worst attempt at this I have ever seen. I will not make any further attempts to get it to do anything, it’s just not worth the aggravation and escalating blood preasure.

About all I can think of to say as I sit here laughing at this stuff and pondering my money pissed down the drain is——-

Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah

ZW ZW HA HA HA

I am seriously thinking that if they don’t give me a refund based on what I was promised not being there I may have a contest. Now if this is of interest to any of you start thinking of your entry. The contest will be you win a ZW3D 2012 dongle if you come up with the best use for a useless dongle.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE   3-1-2012

For those of you who have bought or did buy and are awaiting your dongle code. It appears that within two weeks after release of 2012 it should be ready so please overlook this inconvenience. I know you expected to be able to actually use your dongles when 2012 was released but ZW has been busy and I guess they though you would not mind. I wonder if this is the same group busy writing posts for lathe 😉

ANOTHER UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 3-11-12

There was a thread posted on the ZW3D forums about  “synchronous like editing” from 12-5-09 where I was asked by Bob Fisher and a user to post some stuff I had done with SE Synch Tech. I did so and was promised return videos by Bob. Well he was prohibited from releasing videos and never did so. Last week when the ZW3D forums were sanitised of many critical comments while Bob was in China this thread was removed in it’s entirety. It appears that ZW3D management is painfully aware of how inept their version of Direct Editing is and just elected to remove the comparison from the forum. Now if they could just erase Solid Edge and the other direct editors from the web, EH!!!

3-17-12  HA HA HA, what goes around comes around.  Of course now that the Chinese are trying to launch their bought version of ZW3D as a  domestically produced program they are now worried that piracy may be a problem and have become a part of an SME advocacy group to protect among other things the fledgling domestic CADCAM software authors. Well guys to bad for you. You have allowed rampant piracy and theft of intellectual property so much that it is a part of your culture that will not be changed. So it is with great amusement that today I can state according to an email I recieved that ZW3D 2012 has been hacked and is available FOR FREE on various Chinese sites.

How does one choose what software they use if they have a choice and control the vetting process? For many of us it is pick which one to learn that you think might have greater capabilities in getting you a job. You aren’t really picking software as much as you are picking the promise. You intend to work for someone else and thus your decision is driven not by real capabilities of the software but the hope for wages. Don’t get me wrong here as this is a serious consideration and one I looked at to.

However, I own my company and the primary consideration I had was for what cad program gave ME the best tools for geometry creation and editing and sheet metal for MCAD.  The very first time I saw Solid Edge ST I knew this was the paradigm for me and the now dwindling Solid Works job market gorilla never had a chance after that. But you see my bottom line as a producer, and not as an employee hoping for work, was what worked best for me. Most of the files I get as imports are still from Solid Works and I just sit there and grin sometimes when I think of how hard it is for those SW guys to work on the same stuff I do produced in their own software. Insert the name of your favorite history based CAD here to and the same still applies.

This however leaves the thorny issue of CAM because I, like many companies, still have to produce what I create and really is this not true with every cad design out there? Let us not forget that people have built things since the Pyramids and earlier without CAD. CAD was created to allow for communicating to the very first CAM machines as there needed to be something to drive this new manufacturing ability. Obviously CAD, like many other computer driven things, has acquired a life of its own and a ton of uses but the premise for CAD is still that in the end there is physical production of something somewhere.

One of the hot button topics of CAD is CADCAM integration. I moved from an integrated CADCAM to creating in CAD that was not integrated with CAM. The following is a dialog I am having with an SW user that I believe that will shed some light on why I did what I did and yes I would do it again now having walked this path

As an aside here first. I am coming to the conclusion as I shop for CAM to replace the sorry mess VX/ZW3D has become that my first choice to get the best CAD for my purposes was correct. My second choice on CAM is starting to place more emphasis on how well and how easily quality CAM plans are produced over true integration as bad or byzantine CAM creation is a big time waster too even if it is tightly integrated. Believe me I know this to be true after my experience with VX/ZW3D. Now of course I do see the value of complete integration and great CAM integrated with SE would be a wonderful thing but it would be the icing on the cake and not the cake which was what I was looking for.

How do you truly know what your peers want outside of just asking in your circle of acquaintances or perhaps in a blog what they use for cadcam and why? Do the answers you get reflect axes to grind or accurate data? How often do you get to see meaningful results that truly do indicate what these may be?

Yeah, call up your CAD company and demand to see the data they use to make decisions by and see how far that gets you! So you do ask around in every manner you can to get answers but even then is your small base of users asked truly indicative or just a result that like users tend to congregate together and answer accordingly?

I participate in the Cyon CAD survey each year and as a result I get to read their rather pricey results. SO, I sit down to read it this morning and this year was a real eye opener and a reminder that each of us can see the world as it is for ourselves and extrapolate this to be the norm without really knowing this to be so. Solid Edge users led all other large population mainstream cad user groups for a preference for best in class solution over the concept of well-integrated solutions. http://cyonresearch.com/whitepapers Lots of other things in there too but get the report if you want to know more. One could assume this could partly be a result of not having choices for SE for so many years that there is no expectations to have choices here. But this idea might be dispelled by the same, although to a lesser degree, stated opinion of all other mainstream CAD program users to have best in class to.

It appears that I may well indeed owe an apology to Siemens/SE for thumping on this integrated bandwagon. It looks like the vast, and I do mean vast, majority of actual users, according to this survey, want best in class CAD first and foremost and then are moderately interested in the integrated ecosystem of apps. This survey does not cover CAM so I am making an assumption here that CAM would correlate into these statistical results  just like the CAD related apps did.

To say I was shocked at these survey results is a real understatement and sheds light upon what has been a series of baffling, to me anyway, decisions to seemingly concentrate solely on CAD and forgetting the rest.

Now I still hope for and really really want integrated CAM but at this point in time if it does not happen I can understand why.  Would it help to sell seats of SE? Yes I think it surely would but I begin to think it may well be regarded by the majority of potential and existing  SE customers as the icing on the cake and not the cake which is what they were shopping for.

Today also brought me back to why I bought SE in the first place and my decision was based solely on CAD capabilities. I needed sheet metal and I wanted the potential I saw in direct editing. I have to tell you that the first time I saw ST in action I could immediately see tons of ways that this was what I had been looking for. You see, without knowing these tools existed at the time I just kind of figured that history based was what I was stuck with until I first saw ST in action. I had looked at Ironcad before and I know it had a type of direct editing too but it just seemed like a bizarre interface and way of working to me and I never went further with it.

I find it interesting that my SE peers placed a strong emphasis on best in class CAD over everything else as that is precisely what I had done too without thinking of the choice having been made in those terms. I just wanted what worked and cam was not my principle problem at the time.

I also found it VERY interesting that over every other cad program in the survey the where the question of preferences was asked by program that SE buyers led in selecting best in class as their first choice as a percentage of users.

Before I get into this post I want to pose a question primarily to SW readers who may be stopping in. Actual users of other programs with integrated cad and cam are welcome to chime in here too and please do so. Of what value to you is the ecosystem surrounding SW? Specifically I am asking here about CAM integrated with SW. Did you look for software integrated with cam before you bought? Is it even important to you to have cam integrated with your cad program? Would lack of integrated CAM be a serious consideration for your place of business as to what you would buy?

Now on to the rest of the of this post.

Between various business ventures and the headaches of getting things going I haven’t written much about SE for some time. There is a reason for this as it just does everything I want in cad and then some. In a spirit of community I suppose I should have produced more in the way of videos and how to’s but time just goes quickly in a one man shop and when your tool set works well you tend to not make the time to talk about things. Lets face it, a lot of times when the topic of software comes up it is either how do you do this or a complaint about bugs or features or lack thereof. Like today.

On the way to creating an invoice for a finished part some amusing detours are encountered here. I am reminded every time I use ZW3D for my cam plans of the solid benefits of integration with cad and cam. As it is now of course I take my part file over to this wretched ZW mess, where I am surely reminded of the true value of great direct editing every time, and proceed painfully to cut a part. Clunky and cumbersome as a way to do things and a constant reminder of why I am in the process of changing software to, well, I don’t really know because you see nothing is truly integrated with SE. So I have the best mid range MCAD program out there with no cam sad to say.

So today in my in box I get this from Desktop Engineering and I quote in part.

“Interesting things are happening in the world of CAM software. For example, right at the end of November, Geometric introduced CAMWorksXpress at the EuroMold show. Next week, this 2.5-axis CAM system makes its North American debut at SolidWorks World in San Diego. Here’s why I found this package interesting.

CAMWorksXpress is the smaller sibling to CAMWorks, the company’s full-featured CAM system. Smaller, however, does not mean weakling. It means right-sized for many many, many shops. Like its big brother, CAMWorksXpress works inside of SolidWorks and has things like a CNC tool database, simulation step-throughs, and functions for operations like roughing, contour and face milling, holes, and what have you. It has interactive feature recognition, and it automatically recognizes holes. Changes made to a SolidWorks design propagate to the toolpaths automatically.

What it’s missing — and I use “missing” advisedly — is the high-end stuff like 5-axis milling, automatic electrode creation, machine simulation, and floating licenses that are often unused, but paid for, functionality for many CAM users. This has two quick benefits. First, you can equip yourself or the kid in the shop with a CAM tool that matches the job you want done, reserving the high-end functionality for your gunslinger. Two, if you’re thinking of getting into some machining, CAMWorksXpress gives you a cost-effective path to try out your wings since, as of this writing, it’s priced at $595”

http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aabebh.htm

Another cam company that will have their integrated cam at SWW. Has anyone with Siemens asked yet how these cam companies work with SW to get integrated and what each side brings to the table to get it going? I know I have personally mentioned interest in this topic to Featurecam and TopSolid reps in the last month but what I am told in reply really boils down to this. I do not represent Siemens or SE and it is nice that I am telling them there is interest but only Siemens or SE can call them and MAKE them know there is interest. I sent these companies for instance a screen capture of this thread count  (this was posted in part on the Siemens BBS SE forum and this reference is to a screen capture I took of the thread count) to show interest and that is as powerful a statement as I, a user only, can make. What precisely has been done if anything in this area? Guys, cam for SE is not going to happen by osmosis and let me tell you something. If you are signing up new customers, and they have to buy cam elsewhere that you are not involved in, your’s is the opportunity missed.

I get really angry over all this when I think that the premise for SE is to create things for manufacture and here we are reading about good stuff at SWW.  I bet there will not be one cam company at Nashville with the exception of Cam Express which has been soundly rejected by us. Not really expecting an answer here as much as I am blowing off steam over a really egregious lack of planing for users and the user ecosystem that goes back for years. You better get something going quickly here before Dassault forces the SW users to leave with the advent of the big upcoming double whammy change of the kernal and to the cloud because time does not last forever for your convenience to do things in. You are going to lose, I think, a lot of sales potential because you have not spent the time to create an end to end manufacturing ecosystem and time is not on your side.

Well the information about the upcoming Nashville SE “Summit” is starting to trickle out and the announcement by Ally PLM is the begining of the public information about this event. Yeah I know they say University but we users like “Summit” and since I write this blog Summit it is 🙂

I can only say as a user that I HIGHLY recommend you attend if at all possible. Besides the abundance of information and how to’s you get to meet the people who plan and write the code and they are interested in YOUR opinion in formulating the direction SE will take. My particular interest at this time is of course the integration of CAM with SE and if there are adjuncts to SE you would like to see the leadership of SE will be there listening.

Is it not nice to use software where your input is desired and sought after! I think of situations with other companies right now and I know I look forward to the “Summit” with pleasure as compared to perhaps attending another event shortly to be held where you have to wonder what bone headed stuff are they going to pull this time.

More information soon to follow.

You’re Invited!

I am sitting here with a grin on my face today. As a matter of fact this post was saved in Notepad for initial editing with the title “Happy Cam Post” while I was figuring what all I wanted to say.  Here is the deal. There will be a series of Productivity Summits again this early spring. I don’t have a lot of details yet other than it is going to happen again this spring and they will be held in a number of locations nation wide. And yes there will be a Summit for SE in Nashville around the begining of summer.

Now leading up to this are some things to consider. Basically ST5 is done and now begins the serious effort towards what and which are the final decisions as to what will be included in the release of ST6 and other future versions. I am not privy to what will be in there but I can say this. SE is paying close attention to what current and prospective users actively need and want in a product they will use or want to buy into. If you see an SE or Siemens official asking questions about features and problems I suggest you pay close attention and respond with what you honestly need and think. Decisions are being made and while the route of the SE highway has been pretty well laid out, where the interchanges are going to be located and where the exits may lead can be heavily influenced with active actual user feedback.  No one way tickets to cloud land either as far as I can tell by the way 🙂  It does not matter which program you are using and I think you can see with the active surfacing discussions going on over at Matt Lombards blog SE is interested in YOUR opinion. Isn’t it nice to have the attention of those who actualy listen to what you say? They want to know what tools USERS want for geometry creation.

Yeah that stuff that has to be created by the end of the day because if things aren’t created there is no reason for you to have a job.

So Dave, that all sounds like nice stuff but what exactly does this have to do with CAM? I am pleased to say that there is going to be something done in this area. It will not be in time for ST5 but there are plans being made for the future. Exactly what is yet to be determined but now is the time for current and prospective users to begin speaking up about their needs. Part of this will be a better collection of data, especially from current SE users, as to what needs to be done in this area. Other areas too like perhaps CAE but for sure CAM is going to be in there. My wish list would include an interface with my Faroarm 🙂 SO when you attend the Productivity Summits (You are going to try and be there aren’t you?)  be sure to fill these surveys out. It is my hope that VARS are going to be involved in this to so that users who can’t get to the Summit will also be asked.  You guys who attend the Summit (You are going to try to be there aren’t you?) in Nashville who want a cam solution for SE better pay attention this time and make sure your voices are heard. Don’t walk by the CAM jar and not toss one in because you don’t think it will ever happen this time around. Don’t throw the survey form in the trash can. They will be asking not to patronise you as a user and fend off criticisms of nothing being done but in a serious attempt to get you to help determine what needs to be done.

Ahhh yes, cam. Because if there is no production of a real thing somewhere there is no need for that cad job either is there. Reality rendering so to speak instead of just making pretty pictures.

OK FELLOW USERS, LISTEN UP

Now is the time to speak up about what your needs are, what works what does not work. This IS the stage at which all of our feedbacks are needed if planing for eventual cam is to include your desires. Please be thinking about this now and in the months leading up to Nashville. In the upcoming productivity Summits and the real Summit this spring your feedback, or lack of it, will determine in part where we end up.

This is not the time to sit on the fence here and think about how it has been but to consider how you want it to be and help make it be so.

Yuppers, end of the post and the smile is still there!