Tag Archives: direct editing

SolidWorks, Direct editing and Data Hostages

Posted on October 17, 2013 | 2 comments

Over the last week I have had an opportunity to see exactly what SW has when they talk about direct editing. Really the claims made for direct editing capabilities have been there for some time but I never thought to go and hunt down specific examples that included screen captures of actual parts being worked on. Silly is it not? I know the power of the web to find information but sometimes it seems I get a mental block about using tools right at hand to verify comments, claims and opinions. This led me this morning to go further than just looking for videos of actual parts being edited and into the reality of SW’s failure to have more than the most crude and rudimentary form of direct editing known as move face. It appears their only answer seems to be Catia Lite. So, What do I base this on.

Bertrand Sicot, CEO of SW whose opinion and comments might be better informed than most about what is going on over there had this to say in September. This is not ancient history nor can it be misconstrued. It is their road map and you don’t have to like it. Embrace the new
http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/6283/Solidworks-2014-shows-CAD-Evolution-not-revolution.aspx

And I quote,
“Direct Modeling

Direct modeling allows a digital connection from concept to detail design by paramaterizing the model after the initial design. While other CAD vendors have either purchased or developed their own direct modelers, Solidworks has remained the lone holdout.

Last January the company announced that it was working on a product called “Mechanical Conceptual” that would support concept design. Solidworks now has 10 customers using Mechanical Conceptual and plans to make the product generally available in January 2014. According to Bertrand Sicot, when Mechanical Conceptual is released users will be able to create concept geometry and then fluidly pass that into the Solidworks detail design environment and back.”

Ha-Ha, when it is released. Originally scheduled for release about the time Sicot made this speech it has been pushed back until next year now. It appears to be following the same development path as so many other Dassault SW related attempts these last few years where if something actually even makes it out of the door it is flawed and problematical. DAVE, how can you say that about Mech-Con? (well I liked the abbreviated title an industry analyst gave this program even if you don’t 😉 ) Based upon the sterling achievements these Dassault guys have had these last few years with all the SW stuff they have tried and failed at do you honestly think things are OK with Mech-Con? Kernal translation joy I suspect. There is a reason so much of the Dassault stuff is kind of Freudian and I bet CGM really is turning out to be Concentrated Geometric Masochism in Mech-Con. Of course all this idle conjecture and these evil aspersions could be swiftly ended by Dassault actually doing something right for once. I still think Dassault may be seeing bigger dollar signs outside of pure cad creation and may be trying to figure out a way to make money out of “socializing” their users. I don’t mean the worthless Obama commie stuff but I mean it in the Google and Face Book sense of the word. It seems to be all about the cloud and 3D Experience and design by committees of hundreds over the web. No problems there Eh?

I want you readers to try a test here to ascertain the interest of Dassault giving you this tool of direct editing. Google “Solidworks Direct modeling” 681,000 hits and when you dig into some of them a bunch are talking negatively about it, as in SW users. SE has 3,150,000 hits on this topic and of course most are discussions and not demos but dig in there a bit and see the topical contrasts. And note that according to SW they have four times the subscribers. Now Google SE and SW with “direct editing”. 53,900 for Mega Number#1 SW and 1,600,000 for SE. Now try the same searches adding Video to the string and we get things like 1,660,000 for SE and 470,000 for SW. Now obviously a bunch of these are not actual videos and indeed in any of these categories I am asking you to type in the majority are not strictly what we asked for. BUT you can go through these and get an accurate picture of where these two companies stand on their opinions of the usefulness of direct editing, their commitment to bringing useful tools to users, (and yes I consider any company that does not have more than the most crude forms of direct editing is leaving the most single powerful productivity tool now out there from their paying customers) and the response from actual users where the rubber hits the road.

You need to look at a real version of direct editing before you dismiss it as the powerful tool it is. I believe with my own out-of-pocket money that you can’t beat Solid Edge and ST. I believe in it enough that I spend my own time and dime talking about it and let me assure you I don’t get one thin dime in any way from Siemens or SE. I have to pay my way at the Universities,buy my blog site and the computers I use, buy my software and if I am late like I am this year on renewal they graciously charge me interest on top of the yearly fee. (Then these same guys turn around and want me to help sell seats for them 😦 Quite frankly they make me mad sometimes but I have to remind myself that I started doing this because I wanted to and that reason is still valid.) But I think that in the community of all cad users once you get past the fanbois stuff if you are going to be an advocate you ought to at least have a good reason besides being a zealot. I talk about SE because it interests me as software and because I honestly believe it is the best value and most useful MCAD tool out there. The guy that talked me into SE ST saved me a ton of money and time over the years and maybe I can pass that on to you. I know I appreciated it. This little journey into the world of SW and move face has been an eye opener. I know I spend my own money and so do you, or your company does. I know I hate getting bad information that I will later be spending my time and money on. This is precisely why I am here with SE and Siemens. There is a proven track record of doing what they say they are going to do and bringing the single most powerful tool in the design world to you, ST. I get a chuckle out of those bemoaning old kernals when I think well yeah, some people can do new things with proven “old” technology and others can’t.

So what really is left for SW users. Three things I believe. They get to work with a design program that is quite capable but is quickly falling behind the productivity advances being made elsewhere. It is still the largest single user base with the not insignificant benefits that can bring. And finally they are data hostages whom Dassault hopes will have to stay because the perceived grief of changing will be too onerous. I see only one compelling reason here in market share and it is going to diminish. In the mean time I am bringing in your MCAD files and doing things quicker than you can with your own created data. Is there something wrong with this picture?

I believe, and so does Dassault because they tell you so if you care to listen like Sicot did in September, that you SW users are in for turmoil and forced change anyway. I think it is patronizing corporate-speak when these Dassault guys tell you your beloved SW will not change. You are soon not going to get the choice of continuing on as you have been accustomed to with your old familiar tools unless you drop maintenance and stay with a particular version. That has a price tag to and you all know this. Or you can make a rational decision to pick the change you are going to be inevitably forced into. You don’t have to like it but you WILL have to deal with it. I think of all the programs out there switching to SE is more painless than anything else and I am betting far less painfull than the migration from SW to Catia Lite will be. Change brought to you by Parisians that have forgotten what made SW great or change brought to you by SE with stable planning with attention to what users want with far more productivity.

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Solid Edge ST6 VS SolidWorks Direct Editing and some Observations

Posted on October 16, 2013 | 25 comments

I have been corresponding with an SW user and he has some very interesting comments to make at times. One of the things he presents is the idea that move face in SW is basically as powerful as direct editing is in SE, or Synchronous Tech for you purists who are not happy with ST 😉 . So he sent me some video links from Youtube and one in particular caught my attention.Now I assume that if you are trying to augment your position for or against that you are going to make an effort to find something that will buttress your positition. So I am using one of the video clip links sent to me as an example of parts done in Move Face in SW

I recently posted on “Editing Around a Pattern” and his contention was that it was as easy to do in SW to. One of the things I mentioned to him was the fact that the file size basically does not grow or change with edits in ST and does not create ever expanding file sizes and complexities that can blow up on you later. The edit I did in my post for instance went from 911KB to 956KB for the first edit. Then reversing that took it to 954KB and reversing that again took it to 957KB and nothing was added to the “History” or Path Finder on this part. I presume I could do this a hundred times and it will stay in this range and back and forth two times each was good enough for me to make this assumption. No size baggage and no added complexities.

So a couple of days pass and I go to see the video links and I decided after looking at the one shown above I would show how I do it in ST6. At this time I will be doing the paper tray and the bracket and perhaps the “Desk Tidy” will be in the future. I want to point out the growth in the complexity and size of the history trees that happen with parametric history based modeling and what I have to believe is the ever growing size of these files and I assume the potential for trouble. I can see the history tree in the video and it is ever growing. Now one of the really nice things about ST is that if what you are doing works it will always work again. If SE accepts what you do and it shows up in the feature tree, or Pathfinder as it is labeled in SE, it is stable and will not blow up. In my experience it either works or it does not and I never have dependencies in the ST Pathfinder that will do the atom bomb thing on my part. I will say though that once a week or so for reasons I don’t understand SE does not like what I do and it tells you that it is quitting now and your data after your last save is lost. Of course auto-save stops this from ever being a serious headache. Now here is a caution about auto-save and SE and this one has tripped me up a few times. In ZW3D I can step back past a save and go into edits before the save. There is a cache in there that allows this until it is cleaned out when you shut the program down. In SE when you save you don’t ever get to go back past that point. Now maybe there is something that will allow you to do this but I have not found it. Where this comes into play primarily for me is when I am experimenting on a part to find the best way to do what I want. These are the times when SE decides to shut down and so I am left with the choice of save and don’t get to re-play the part or don’t save and perhaps lose the part.

My parts were done in ST6, exported as IGES and then brought back in to ST6. A cautionary note here about imports and this applies to STP and IGES files. I round tripped this Paper Tray in parasolids and the edits worked fine as is. When I did the same in IGES to keep as close to the SW example in the video it did not work. The practice the SW user used in geometry inspection is a good habit to get into. the equivalent here in SE is under the “Inspection” Tab and is labeled “Optimize”. In the case of this paper tray part “Optimize” corrected whatever was holding up the ST edits and it worked flawlessly after that. There will be three videos on editing imported files. There will also be one working directly as a native file. In some important ways in history based modeling it is cheating when you work on an imported file. In the native file you have in parametric history based stuff dependencies and ever growing complexities that can and do often cause trouble and doing a round trip is a way of trying to get away from those problems. I think you who are not familiar with ST will be fascinated with what can be done and how little files sizes and feature counts change here with edits.

Join me as I show how this user does this in SE ST6.

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Editing Around a Pattern, Solid Edge for Manufacturing

Posted on September 30, 2013 | 2 comments

This one is for you 3D. Let us try a little more complicated edit which SE breezes through.

Here we have a “Magazine” that feeds capsules into a machine that will fill them.

complete magazine

There are feed problems with the original factory parts and we are changing the end of the magazine assembly to a rounded instead of angled feed end. While doing so and being in a hurry and having three different change requests thrown at me I see a .02″ offset that could conceivably hang a capsule up. Now I think the chances are really slim this would happen but we are going to eliminate this. Now as you look at this part remember that both ends could have been just as complicated and the edit would work in the same exact fashion so this is not a situation where I am fudging things by leaving the XYZ zero point on a simple set of corner faces. It is just how this part is made and since it is a real world part how it is going to stay.

Magazine close up

Now keep in mind as you work in Synchronous the direction you assign to dimensions is important and good habits here will save you trouble later. I assign (lock down) directions where ever possible radiating out from my X Y Z zero point. I also assign the right rear top corner of the part whenever possible ( or the imaginary corner of the block of stock this will be cut out of if there is a corner round or radius at that point. ) as XYZ zero because someone will have to make this thing and you might as well anticipate how they will have to set up to cut it. One of the BIG things to remember here is to check and see that you have as few dimensions as possible to make the part work. You will find that there is a tendency to apply a dimension twice to the same feature as you work without realizing you did so. For example it is easier than you think to have a block and assign a “z” dimension twice to different corners because you did not quickly see the first one. One of the two can cause you problems especially if they are directed to be locked down for different relationships. So look twice and clean these things up or better yet learn not to do it. When you are working with faces and features that can interrelate you can cause problems that can be solved but may take extra trouble to do so. If you want certain behavior to happen just turning live rules off to complete your edit can defeat this and though it is the quick and easy answer to almost all problems caused by dimensions you want to learn to work with rules when you need to have predictable behavior in selected features. Holes constrained as a set for instance where you don’t want to have to pick each feature for an edit but would rather just click once and edit.

Let’s edit this part.

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Cookie Dough Die Round to Ellipse, Solid Edge for Manufacturing

Posted on September 18, 2013 | 6 comments

Here we have a part that failed to produce like the customer wanted. Using a similar die for testing the deposit was elliptical in shape and the deposit needed to be round as in round cookies. The solution was to redesign the die and create elliptical cavities that would yield round deposits and send the customer a screen capture and drawing for approval. So follow me as I edit this part. I have to admit that I can barely remember how clunky life was in a pure history based world and man what a difference.

Now I thought this would be a CAMWorks post too but my temp license ran out. My first time updating this file there worked and did so flawlessly updating ALL the changed geometry and tool paths with a couple of mouse clicks. Sad to say as I redid this video it never worked again so blame the license gremlins. It was nice to sit here tonight though and edit this part with ST and then step over to CW4SE and do an update and it all went so quickly.

You know what? Time IS money and I can’t fathom wanting to work any other way ever again.

Join with me as I edit this part.

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Solid Edge for Manufacturing, Old Insulator Stack

Posted on September 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

Here is an obsolete Westinghouse part that still is in service with electric utilities that needs to be replaced. As is typical with many of these obsolete parts there is no blueprint or file provided so I have to have a physical sample to measure from. This one had a lot of small variances as you can imagine both from manufacturing tolerances which were generous and spark erosion on the inside from use. I use a Gold Faroarm to reverse engineer things like this. In general you can tell what the intent was with the old parts and keeping in mind that simple numbers like fractions were used in many cases on old parts you can interpolate from your collected data and arrive at an accurate and useful part.
Westinghouse Insulator Stack

In this case there were ten different parts in the stack and I will be able to use one jig to cut nine of them.
Westinghouse exploded

Once you have the parts created what is the problem to be solved for machining these is how to hold them for cutting. In past versions of SE it has been a multi-step rigamarole thing to get this done. In ST6 much to my delight this is no longer true. Now it is a simple thing to create an assembly and drag a part into place on a block and create a perfect workholding device for cutting. What I will be showing is the setup for one type of part and how to hold it in place while machining. Being able to do this for a family of parts quickly and easily is key to how much money you are going to make on short run items. I will have twelve sets of these to cut and more than likely will not have any again for a year. Please note that I will not be machining the jig block itself for the sake of time here. It is what happens elsewhere that is interesting. So follow me as I demonstrate how the combination of ST6 and Camworks makes more money with less hassle in my shop.

Later this month by the way CW4SE will have assemblies capabilities in it if you care to use it. With this method that I am going to demonstrate however you pull your xyz zero off of the corner of the block for the cut plan and when you clamp your part in you are good to go. Subsequent parts in this family of parts can be brought into the assembly and positioned with their common hole center patterns and each of them can be saved out as separate parts just like the first one was and cut plans derived for them using the common xyz zero. It is not necessary to have a separate assembly file you have to bring in for every single variation here. In reality it is not necessary to have an assembly file at all in your CAM plans to still be able to benefit from assemblies. Obviously the holes in the rectangular blank stock are the first step in a separate operation with a different clamp method working off of stock xyz zero. Two vice-grips and a strip of metal on another 6″ x 6″ plate will do for blasting the holes out.

Folks, bear with me on the occasional hiccup here. It is time out of a workday to do this and you would not believe how many times you have to go through these things before they are perfect. Try making a video yourself and see. I spent enough time on this one to get close and that is good enough. And yes I know after reviewing the video that I moved the block .09 and not .10 for the zero point but you understand the intent here and can duplicate the correct result on your own parts with the directions here.

Join me as I create the jig and part and then cut with SE ST6 and CW4SE

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Wasting Away in PRitaville

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 9 comments

My mind works in funny ways sometimes and one thing can lead to another. I was and still am completely disgusted with how the powers that be took Matt’s “On The Edge” blog and basically killed it. It should have been left exactly as is with cross links to the official site. It was probably one of the leading sources of reads to the Petri Dish culture site and they have no viable replacement for this. Sorry guys, it is not the same when the pseudopods  of corporate sterility pull it in.

Then I have this guy from Faro show up who does not know anything about SE. Now I kid you not this is how it went with him. I asked him about direct editing and he was not sure what that was. He is an SW CAD user only. We continue to speak and when he mentions Space Claim that’s when I can finally make a bit of headway with him by saying SE has direct editing  like Space Claim does  but actually better. He knew about Space Claim. Now you PR types don’t have to put up with the things I do. You hide in your little offices and talk to each other. I have to stand here and suffer under things like this Faro guy looking at me like I am a little strange. Just like the Mastercam and Surfcam VAR’s I speak to I am reduced to saying “Oh yes, SE has direct editing just like Space Claim does”. Last time I checked Space Claim was a little bitty company compared to SE and just how is it that they are known with these dealers and people and SE is not? Hint for those of you in Rio Lindo, no worthwhile cohesive aggressive marketing or PR plans or execution might be the reason hmmmm?

Let me put this in perspective for you. We also talked about workstations. I mentioned that even though Dell was all I ever see for workstations I remember reading stuff about what a big percentage of the market HP had in this area. He and I both agreed that all we ever see is Dell and could not figure out how these claims could be substantiated based upon our personal observations. So here I am trying to convince this guy that there are many hundreds of SE users in TN  and that SE has the best direct editing and is better than SW or Space Claim. I can see in his face and comments he is thinking another HP.  And based upon his personal experience why shouldn’t he?  This is also what I get from the Surfcam and Mastercam officials I speak to because some companies make a point of promoting their well planned and executed  messages to markets they actually have plans to and then do  target. So now Space Claim is being pushed by Faro, Mastercam and Surfcam dealers in my area but not “SE who?”.

I believe there is an entrenched almost government like bureaucracy with SE that is the legacy of years gone by that has as of yet not been fixed. I figure these people band together to protect the way it has been over they way it should be.  Void of creativity they plod on  spending time with safe things they have done year after year and not one of them ever stops to think of the idea that doing things the same way does not bring about growth. It is a damning indictment of these individuals who are stifling the growth of SE to protect their paychecks. That they have so little vision for the future that they would be willing to sacrifice the future of the company to remain on familiar and comfortable ground. Technically brilliant the guys in Huntsville who code SE  must wonder what is in the water over in PR and Marketing. I hope they never step over there to drink any of this.

I believe that if this problem is not fixed the fate of SE to be also ran will be sealed because these people will prevent SE from ever knocking SW off their throne if things are not changed. Again I say that expecting different results from  the same tired failed methods and people is not the paradigm a hungry for success company would employ. If I was in charge when these sorry Petri Dish guys come in offering the same old tired excuses for why they can’t do things right or won’t do things right and not providing good results it would result in severe discomfort. These people forget that their sole reason to be employed is to deliver results and they are supposed to FIX the problems stopping dynamic growth not offer reasons why this can’t be done. I don’t care what the problems are. You guys have had how many years now to figure this out and plan for growth and you can’t do this?  I don’t get it. Rather than being excited about being with a company that is experiencing  tremendous growth these clowns want to stay where they have been turf protecting themselves and their paychecks and relegate SE in the mean time to also ran status.

So as I stewed over this for the next few days thinking about how I personally had over three lost income and unpaid weeks of my time in hurry up last-minute beta training, testing and parts cutting for SEU13 and time spent blogging to promote it all plus money out-of-pocket to attend because I care and want things to work out right inspiration strikes. Don’t know how wasting time morphed into wasting away in Margaritaville but then inspiration needs no logical explanation does it.  So for the marketing and PR sides of Siemens/SE a theme song.

Hats off  to the PR and marketing guys at Solid Works who prove it can be done and dedicated to those with SE who prove how it can’t be done.
Wasting Away in PRitaville

Been here for five years
Watching the things here
It is the best soft ware never seen
Rarely been heard of
Nary a sight of
Some things don’t change sad as that seems

Refrain
Wasting away again in PRitaville
Searching hard for something to find
Some people claim that it’s still the same
But I know, it’s not PR’s fault

I don’t know the reason
I searched for all season
Not much to show but this internet bill
But it’s a real beauty
A big monthly cutie
Why I still search it I haven’t a clue

Refrain

I blew out my Laptop
Cleaned out my desktop
plugged the cable back in at home
but no website contenders
the drought never ends here
It’s just blind hope that keeps me around

Final refrain
Wasting away again in PRitaville
Searching hard for something to find
Some people claim that it’s still the same
But I know it’s not PR’s fault
Yes some people claim that it’s still the same
And I know it’s not PR’s fault

 

UPDATE

OK folks I go to the    http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Community-Blog/SEU13-Presentations-Available-for-Download/ba-p/2351    web site today and we have a perfect case in point. I want you to go there. The first half of this long scroll down page is one third content and the rest is just stuff. Who really cares about company officials taking up one half of one third of the whole page and being placed at the top right section of this page? Top right is one of the two most important placement areas when you wish to convey a message and these marketing PR whizbangs fill it with company rosters. 😦 😦 😦 Right where we should have relevant community and user information or links or articles or SOMETHING of value we have instead space just filled to be filled. Scroll down and tell me how much more of this is the same. Can you believe this is what PR and Marketing think is an attractive selling and information tool for SE? It is a perfect example of crank a mindless cookie cutter fill in the blanks page out like we always have and get a paycheck stuff. They do these things and think they are of worth in PRitaville.

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The Parable of “O’Charleys” Restaurants and Solid Edge

Posted on July 10, 2013 | 4 comments

O’Charleys is a restaurant chain based out of Nashville TN that I used to do a lot of work for. In years gone by they had franchise holders and one of them owned a store on University Drive in Huntsville not far from SE’s headquarters. And it is this store where this story began.

My wife had been a server at O’C’s for a while and I had worked on probably over a hundred of their stores by then. We were very familiar with the standards that were supposed  to be in place for service and hygiene. At that time they had the best Prime Rib you could buy and so we decided to go to this store for a meal.

Well we get in there and sit and wait. For quite a long time actually before the waitress could be bothered to approach us. In the mean time I go to the restroom and come back out with a bit of disgust as I tell my wife what a foul smelly cheap bar place it was. Still no yeast rolls and these were supposed to be quickly presented according to corporate policy. None was ready it seems and so the waitress could not bring them out until after we had our salads. Big no-no and the server attitude was lackadaisical at best as she was more interested in talking to friends than customers.

I came back to the Commissary operations for O’Charleys which was in Nashville and my biggest customer at that time and told some of the people there how awful the meal was. Their comments to me were “did you tell Wayne (franchise holder who also had an office there) about this? I was a little hesitant to do so but they prevailed upon me and I did so. Talked to Wayne about it and described from beginning to end what I saw and experienced there. Wayne did not have much of a response and I left his office.

A few weeks later I ran across him and asked him about the store and this is what he said. He went down there and walked in unannounced for a surprise little visit and it was every bit as bad as I said it was. He spent some days there getting things fixed up again and firing the managers that had allowed this to happen. I asked him how this situation had occured when the store was just a two-hour drive away from the offices in Nashville and easily checked on.

Wayne went on to tell me that the numbers from the store were decent and based solely upon this there was no reason for him to go there. He had six other stores  so I guess he would concentrate on the worst one only. I don’t remember asking him about this so I can only conjecture.

Some time  later I asked Wayne about that stores numbers  and he said that after his surprise visit and  ensuing cleanup and management purge there was a pronounced uptick in sales.

The moral to this story is that numbers only do not tell the complete story. Here we have Solid Edge whose numbers are decent and sales are going up in spite of how the help is presenting the “food”. They should be and could be much better is my belief.

It is not just the basic quality of the food you sell but it’s appearance and presentation too. You can have great food and spend lots of time sending out select aged prime rib from the commissary but if the people “selling” it in the store don’t do their job it will never matter how good the commissary’s beef is.

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Does A Solid Edge Publicity Department Really Exist?

Posted on July 9, 2013 | 8 comments

I have been thinking about this at great length and I conclude that in spite of what I was told about publicity and my commitment not to talk about it for a while I have to now comment. The reason for the original decision is I think still valid but there is another problem that is systemic with UGS/SE and now Siemens and it is a different one.  It is a publicity department that does not have a clue about the passing of time and what to do. 3D has asked me questions for instance about the rent SE by the month announced at SEU2013. And here we are a week after and just nothing.

Lets look at this particular problem. I believe this was one of the major vehicles being offered to entice potential full-time new customers. So here we are heading into SEU2013 and we know it exists. Karsten talks about it and speaks of it in the keynote address. So you publicity wonks, I now have a few questions for you. Why was there not a cohesive plan to promote this with details worked out and on the shelf ready to go on day one in Cincy? Why do I have to sit here two weeks later and tell people I don’t know because you either don’t know or can’t make a decision to tell the public about it? I thought the days of Bruce Boes advertising paralysis were over but by golly I find myself wanting to look behind closed doors to see if he is still here. Do you people understand that you only have one major event/product release a year and you have to utilize it to benefit from it? The buzz never burst upon the scene in my opinion because it is the same old same old long time employee total lack of vision and do it the way we have always done it because my head might hurt if I do something radical. And apparently profuse timely publicity and the free flow of information is a radical concept to these publicity people.

Here is another one. There is to be some sort of ST only version of SE that  I believe was created for two reasons at around $2,000.00 I think if I remember this right. My belief is that it was meant to be a competitor to things like SpaceClaim as a direct editing reduced function program for CAM users to use and also as a cheap way of getting the power of ST into more hands. I don’t hear anything about this and I thought this was a big deal. Evidently the PR department thought it was not as they can’t be bothered to talk much about it or provide many details about it that I have seen.

Where are the ready to go videos showing the power of ST in assemblies this year? Why were these not done well in advance of SEU2013 and posted on YouTube on 6-25-13? Now that I think about it why were there not videos on every important aspect of ST6 posted on YouTube no later than the first day of SEU2013? You knew what you had to work with six months ahead of time and I just have this vision of people standing in a room with a dart board in front of them. It has various PR categories around the bullseye and after the darts are thrown the arguments ensue and the whole process starts over again and again. I can just see it. A dart misses the board and now we have to debate if this means there was a category that should have been on there but wasn’t and nothing is ever decided or done.

I was forbidden to talk about some of the things I knew about CAMWorks because, well because someone somewhere decided that the perfect and anointed time to do so had not arrived. A totally farcical situation considering the fact that this whole integration and the company it was to be done with had been publicly announced A YEAR AGO! Do you people understand that if you talk about it and have a vendor there showing it in SEU2012 it is not secret to be hidden knowledge? Alright let me see if I can put it in terms you all might understand. When PT Barnum comes to town they make a big deal out of it and they have (shocking I know, the very thought scares me) a PARADE to entice the public to be their customers. So as I remember, you PR guys can help out here if you wish, the only mention for the next ten months about this came from a blogger that does not reach all that many people. But for months I did more to promote CAMWorks for SE than Siemens did and I just don’t get this disconnect. Is there something wrong here or am I just an idiot for thinking that if you want people to buy your product your better promote the bejeebers out of it?

Which leads me to my next topic. Where the heck is all the info, the Powerpoints and videos from SEU2013? Do you ever intend to release these? You do know the time to have done so was 6-25-13 don’t you? It should have been canned and upped on the site of choice and ready to go with links active the night before SEU started. You do want to create buzz don’t you? You do want to compel people to consider SE don’t you? Then here is a suggestion from Remedial Marketing 101. I say remedial for a reason because evidently some individuals have to be taught first that marketing has value before they are taught how to do it. Tell you what. I don’t have to sit in a room and argue with people or worry about perfect timing or whatever you guys do that stops worthwhile plans and efforts dead in its tracks. I was given a flash drive as were HUNDREDS of other attendees and it has the SEU2013 Powerpoints on it. (You know, the ones you have not released yet. But they are public and this is what bothers me so much. WHY oh WHY is this stuff not out there yet that I can find) I am going to help you guys get off the dime and give you a week to stop prevaricating. Then I will figure out how to post the whole thing to my blog.  Who do I send the bill to by the way for doing your job for you?

Heaven help me and I know JB will have a field day with this but the day Jon Banquer makes more advertising sense than what I am seeing from the PR wonks at Siemens or SE or whoever it is responsible for this mess I just cringe. Can you imagine that even he is getting this right but none of the paid advertising people are? I have to admit that I find defending inaction is not a task I am up to and so I am not going to. I guess the idea of “The Best Software You’ve Never Heard Of” has legitimacy as advertising genius to “The Best Publicity Department We Never Hear From”.

I think hands down SE in its combination with CAMWorks is the single most powerful mid range MCAD program for manufacturing out there. I believe in it enough to spend my own time promoting it and I don’t get compensated to do so. As a matter of fact it costs me some money and time out of my life I can’t replace because I do believe in it. It makes me furious to watch this neglect from those who are paid to promote SE not do so and not do so for year after year. I can’t conceive that once again we are heading down the path of anonymity and the opportunity provided for PR with SEU2013 is being squandered for reasons I don’t know and can’t begin to fathom.

Why don’t you people get off of your dead rear ends and start earning your money? I am at the point where I don’t care if people in the PR department are offended because I darned sure am offended. What do you people do with your time? What can you possibly be thinking to let this precious time go by? Dassault and Autodesk are doing everything they can to destroy their businesses and all the plans that Karsten and his team come up with for the future are just shot down by your incompetence. This is your last year to get it right. I don’t believe this hiatus of coherent planning at Autodesk or Dassault will last more than another year. When they get whipsawed by declining on-maintenance and new customers they will reconsider their ways and your free ride will be OVER. These guys know what they are doing in PR and they will eat your lunch.

The question is do you even care?

Update 7-9-13

Had a Faroarm rep here today at the shop. While talking I of course mention SE. I mention SE because he was talking about Faroarms being integrated through Dezignworks to work with Solid Works, ProE and Inventor. We continue talking and he is familiar with SpaceClaim because some of the machine shops that have Faroarms are using it with the new Spark program. He has heard of SE just a few times over the last five years.  WAY TO GO MARKETING AND PR!! I know very well there are a number of SE users in Tennessee which is this guys district but he does not and this is the result of a total failure to effectively communicate the SE message here.  I hate it when people look at me like I am delusional when I say this software they have rarely or never heard of is better than SW. I just wish I could send these people straight to the publicity/marketing departments of SE so they could see what dismal failures they have been at getting the word out.

The primary reason he had not dealt with SE is because nothing has been set up with Faro to work natively inside of SE. And of course the lack of any publicity for SE reaching him through the internet or other media.

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Solid Edge for Manufacturing, CAMWorks for Solid Edge Constant Stepover

Posted on July 1, 2013 | 13 comments

One of the family of parts I design and manufacture is extrusion dies for Polin Depositors. One of the recent designs is one you have seen in other posts as the Guitar Die. Soon if you go to the Music City Arena in Nashville  you may just find a guitar crouton next to your salad or maybe a chocolate chip cookie made with this die for the Polin Depositor.guitar die top

Now this part has presented problems before with finishing where the corner round goes into the cavity. The way I have had to deal with this to prevent stair stepping in the past has been to basically create three or four cut paths to accommodate varying degrees of slope.

Besides the Volumill routine in CAMWorks for Solid Edge (CWFSE) my second favorite tool path is constant step over. This gives me a constant step over based upon the distance across a face and not just in “Z” or “X-Y” as was my previous fate in life. Now a word of warning here. This tool path follows contours it assigns across your part for maintaining this constant step over. This can result in gouging if you are using this path to cut down to a face. The way to avoid this is to create a contain or avoid feature and this will stop the tool path from gouging the floor of the part.

Guitar Die closeup

Is this not a beautiful thing? It did not matter where I looked in these cavities all the tool marks were completely concentric. I used a sketch  profile around the cavities for containing and picked tool on the profile and I have a perfect blend going into the hole and then completely down to the bottom. Now keep in mind the finish can be as fine as you want it to be if you are willing to spend the cutting time to get there. This quality of finish is good for this type of application and requires nothing finer.

I can see that many of my 3D parts will require two tool paths only. Volumill with intermediary step cuts at sufficiently small cut amounts to allow for going directly into the constant step over finish tool paths.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge Beta Team

Posted on July 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Beta Team

Wanted to take a bit of time to thank the BETA testing team for CAMWorks for Solid Edge. Some of these guys flew in and spent four days of time in Huntsville and we all spent time there and afterwards fiddling with stuff new to us. So from left to right we have Solid Edge users and testers Tim Hoeing, Dave Ault, Joe Hourihan and Larry King. Jim Wright from Siemens, Marc Bissell from Geometric and Mark Burhop from Siemens.  This was a small team because what we were really testing was the interface between Solid Edge and CWFSE. The CAM program is robust and proven but the integration with SE was new. I have been particularly impressed with how quickly and dramatically this integration has improved from the first beta version we had to this last one from 6-19. I look forward to using again a completely integrated CAD and CAM program and not having to look for another CAM program again in my working career.

A special tip of the hat to those with Siemens who knew that things the way they have been were not good enough and they determined to change this to the way things should be.  This lack of CAM integration was perhaps the single largest remaining vestige of the Venture Capital types who are so good at buying up companies and then saddling them with new debt, starving them of funds, direction and R&D while writing themselves grossly out of line benefits packages.  It appalls me to think of both the damage to the companies and then to this head below the radar cookie cutter mentality that has become so pervasive here they are having to work on as a result of these guys. Who knows where Solid Edge could have been if someone like Siemens who understands what CAD and CAM and PLM etal software really is about had bought them before the loot and plunder venture guys did.  I am sure that the competitors of UGS/Solid Edge have really enjoyed watching them being shackled but those days are over.

Just as a reflection upon the CAD and CAM community with any software here. It takes people who are willing to spend some of their time they can’t replace to help things move forward to the benefit of all concerned. From a local user group you participate in or help to run up to beta testing software so what is released can be better your involvement is important. Have you considered getting involved in your software of choice to make it better?

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