Tag Archives: hsmworks

Value Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Posted on February 24, 2014 | 4 comments

This paragraph is added on 3-26-14. Since this post is still being read fairly often I think it only fair to say that since the original post the situation has changed dramatically. The whole Tech Data Base is going to be reworked and indeed this has already begun. If it goes as I think it will the vast majority of all my complaints will be history soon and CAMWorks will take the place it should have had some time back as both powerful and readily useable. In other words for both major facilities with dedicated programmers and simple one man operations like mine. BIG things peering over the horizon for all CAMWorks users so don’t worry be happy. 🙂 Received yesterday this little notice to. The expected release date for assembly mode machining is 14th Apr. This could shift a few days but the time for this is at hand.

I want to note to readers of this post that Geometric is going to take some time this week to show me how I can work the way I want to work in CAMWorks 4SE, if indeed this is possible. I have had a couple of bad weeks with this program and I hope they can show me a better way to use CW4SE without having to fool around with this TDB.There have also been weird things that just happen that tell me there are still bugs to be worked out to. If I ever elect to use the TDB I want it to not interfere with what pays my bills on any given day and be implemented at my convenience and time of choosing to do so. Some of what I write below may change if my current opinion on things changes. Some like pricing and value will not because my idea of prices and value differs from Geometrics. In any case on to the post.

An interesting letter was received here the other day. But first the reason for the letters existence. I have had some very frustrating days with CAMWorks 4SE recently and some is due to my lack of knowledge I am sure and some is due to a rarely improved methodology for their Tech Data Base and how complex and pervasive it is to your decision as to how to use the program. In order to make automatic feature recognition work well you have to embark on a series of never-ending creations of entries of page after page after page of stuff for each type of scenario you wish in little undersized boxes that often can’t be expanded and you have to scroll back and forth in continuously. So if you cut 20 differing materials with say an irregular pocket in it you now have to figure 20 different procedures and save these and the TDB will recognize these when you bring in a part. And then add in the additional strategies of roughing and cutting and the assignment of these to the material types. Can you see the possibilities here for numerous additions that all take time and will at best merely be close in many cases? What I mean by this is that there is a limit to how many of these you will enter into the TDB and at that point in time there will still be feeds and speeds and cuts you will need to input for a particular situation.

The TDB can’t be omniscient. So just how much time does this thing ever really save me at the end of a year with all this added complexity to deal with. None as far as I see it right now and it will add complexity and require I learn things I would rather not have to. I have enough on my plate already. If Geometric wants to appeal to small and large shops they should offer two ways of CAM creation. One with and one without this TDB crammed full of useful tools like two and four flute 11/32 endmills. I don’t think I have ever even seen one of these but it’s there along with hundreds of other similar ones. And even though Volumill which recommends 3 and 5 fluters for most work is a part of the program it is not a part of the TDB or tool library because not one of these is in there. Get ready to spend some time entering in useful tools and sizes that reflect what you actually buy in real life and removing ones that do not. Theoretically you can do this by creating and using tools out of just one tool crib in CW4SE but I have not been able to figure this out. This is one of the things I hope Geometric will be able to show me how do to in a simple and quick fashion and I really hope they are right and I am wrong on this one. I have my money spent and at the end of the day I do want this to work after all.

There is another way and it is the way HSMWorks does it where you select with three easy fill in the blank and select prompts which quickly create the tools in your CAM plan and just fill in the blanks for the rest and go. This whole process takes little time and it tailors your CAM plan to your specific needs right there and then. A friend of mine has this close by and he has a pressure cooker job shop situation. I stopped by there last week to have a look and he cuts a ton of different things and the tool paths are generated quickly and easily. AND there is no reliance on some byzantine TDB set up procedure to make it all work.

So, the eye of the beholder and just what did this one see. The TDB combined with Feature Recognition is a very powerful tool and I can see serious production facilities with dedicated CAM programmers who have the time to use this and set up for it benefitting. For a shop that may not cut a part for a month because the work did not require any mill time it becomes an unneeded burden of complexity that does not save any time and complicates your life. My friend evaluated CW and HSM at the same time and HSM won. Easy to learn and implement and if you really feel you need automation of your strategies there are templates you can set up for THAT situation and not have to fool around with this TDB idea. Look, all these things that fascinate programmers with the absolute majestic beauty of this programmers wonder they have come up with, this thing they never have to learn from scratch or use in a production environment if indeed they even know what a chip looks like, are not fascinating to someone who just spent a gob of cash to buy a program they just want to work. Without needless complexity and decisions made to favor a shop with little time to learn and simplicity of implementation and add to this good tool paths. Obviously tool paths that work well are an essential ingredient and I assume you readers understand without me elaborating on this any more that this is a primary requirement that has to be in place.

Now about this letter I received. I was chided a bit for not appreciating the value of what was in CW4SE. The guy who works for Geometric felt they were offering good value and my reply was he was not a buyer and hardly had an unbiased opinion. That true value is in the eye of the beholder and the amount of cash they are willing to spend to express interest in something. One of the things I have striven to do is to remember that I am just another user. I look for advice on programs as best as I can and try to determine the truth behind what I read and see in person. I am an unabashed fan of Solid Edge. I think it is the flat-out best out there for mid range MCAD and so it is not hard to talk about it in glowing terms and feel that even though I may gush a bit at times it is all still honest and it is what I bought with my money and use with satisfaction. Then there are things like CW4SE where after some time I have big warning flags raised and questions as to exactly what type of shop should be buying into it. It is a lot of money and right at 18% yearly cost of purchase fees to stay current and complex to implement the way they have designed the program to be used. Plus they have been charging full ticket to customers even though this unfinished program still can’t import and use assemblies. This has impacted my work negatively and even though I have paid for it I still don’t have it. I have a set of extrusion dies that I would like to cut as assemblies and I can’t so instead I have to redo the whole thing into a separately created part whose volume and exterior shape mimics the assembly and this is a waste of my time.

What creates value anyway? For my shop it is not five axis or four axis. At least not yet anyway. It is not full-blown G Code machine verification. It is not metallic looking surfaces on verification. It is not a tech data base that is complicated to set up. It is quick and easy to create cam plans with great tool paths for up to three axis parts and two axis lathe. I don’t know what percentage of the market for CAM programs falls into this category but I suspect it to be the vast majority. I don’t have the time or desire to introduce unneeded complication into my days. I also don’t have the desire to pay extra for all these things I do not use or want to use. Make no mistake when you buy the three axis program or the two axis program you are supporting lots of things you did not want and will probably never want. This is true today for almost all software and Microsoft Office comes to mind. We all have it but only use parts of it but at least the price tag is reasonable. So how to choose? What is value? What represents value to YOU.

I am looking at HSMWorks and CAMWorks right now with this thought in mind. One is complex and about twice as expensive to buy initially. And one is one-third the cost annually from then on. One is attached to the CAD program I love and one is attached to that wreck called Inventor or SW which is another place I do not want to be in. One is quick to learn and implement and the other is not. At this point in time I advise CAM buyers that they should be very careful and meticulous in their evaluations of CW4SE. As a matter of fact I consider the idea of a 45 day full trial for CW4SE with tech support made available to you the only condition allowable for you to make an informed decision. If you can’t get this then caveat emptor. And they need to complete the product and make sure the bugs are out of it. I also think they should update the ease of implementing this TDB strategy and the programmer never cut a chip in his life tool database and be aware that few tools you will use are in there. Be fully aware of just what exactly this TDB will mean in time to execute correctly to make it work. As compared to out of the box functionality quick and easy to learn. There are solid reasons for choosing one over the other depending on the size of your operation and the degree of automation you may be able to achieve under certain circumstances and I chose these words deliberately. As far as I can tell the time to use fill in the blanks HSM is not much more time-consuming than a filled in after great time and effort TDB would be. Now some guys at Geometric aware of my frustrations and complaints are going to take the time to educate me as to how to work the way I want to work in CW4SE. My metric for comparison will be how long it takes to do the same things in HSM based on same parts and watching how my friend does it with these. Time will be time and complexity will be complexity. But right off the bat CW4SE is twice as expensive and even more so for ever after.

Value IS in the eyes of the beholders and if you Geometric guys think you are worth twice the price for what you deliver the proof will be in sales volume. Value is not what you wave a magic wand over and then declare it to be. It is what educated buyers or slick salesmen who can sell anything to anyone make it to be. I would rather depend upon honest value myself and at this time my advice to anyone who wishes to buy CAMWorks is to evaluate carefully what you need and what you wish to spend today and forever more. Integration is a great thing to have but it is not an end all be all unless all parts are right for each other and the intended market.

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Autodesk May Be Off My Hate You List

Posted on February 18, 2014 | 2 comments

Just a short post on this today. All the publicity I have seen for some time for Autodesk has been strictly cloud promotion oriented. I have been having some rather lengthy conversations with Anthony Graves about CAM and Autodesk things in general this last week. He expressed some surprise that I thought Autodesk was going to just the cloud. He was quick to point out that this is not so and some prices over at the Autodesk site seemed to bear this out.

I have been told that in the near future publicity for Autodesk will not overlook this desktop paradigm and indeed it is not in their plans at all to phase this out. Seeing will be believing and they have to publicly start making mention of this as official policy with time frames for it to be real to me. I am impressed with Anthony and not only is he a first-rate eloquent and knowledgeable advocate for HSMWorks he is also one for Autodesk. He tells me it has never been the intent by Autodesk to go purely cloud for the foreseeable future.

Software authoring companies might want to consider something here. All of you. What is the message you are really giving to readers and seekers of knowledge? Do you wonder why your plans and intents are not being accurately perceived by the public? I have looked a lot for info RE Autodesk and the cloud and honestly this is all I hear about and it is the only future way of operating I hear about so just what am I to conclude? And if you mean you think the cloud will be ubiquitous and technical problems all solved in ten or twenty years but not now why not say it that way? And I am most certainly not alone in this impression. And then in addition nothing ever comes out from Autodesk to correct this idea many of us have. So if you persist in half messages I am going to persist in comments based upon half reality because you made it so.

Sorry Dassault, I am not talking about you today as I think you guys are truly wacko and sold out to some sort of social media group think CADCAM thing. This thing you hope will sell to enough of those kids with iWhatever tunnel vision blinders surgically attached to their ears and lives to the exclusion of reality around them. An alternate universe that will go Nova when their batteries fail. I can see the sweaty palms as panic sets in. Thumbs futilely twitching the device as fear of having to actually talk to someone sets in. You know these people as the ones at the restaurant enjoying their night out as each sits there in silence never looking or talking to each other with their eyes glued to their iThings. The Dassault future world as far as I can see.

In this day of the internet what you say and what you don’t say carry equal weight. Your poor message or lack of messages can sink your future just as surely as poor technical capabilities can and word WILL get out for better or worse. This word can be negatively and severely exacerbated by your lack of product improvements or your lack of correct or corrective information.

This of course assumes that you have a marketing department of quality to begin with to do these things.

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Retired And Bored, What To Do?

Posted on February 18, 2014 | 2 comments

There are some videos you run across by accident that can be quite amusing at times. I live right next to my shop and so travel will never be a problem to get to work. Or to the play room when I get around to semi retirement. It is my goal in the next few years to develop a few lines of manufactured goods and hire a few people to do this so that I will not have to be here all the time. Now with this new-found free time what to do?

Men are quite free compared to women. For instance I can bet your wife has asked you when will you ever grow up as her eyes roll backwards and that expression of smug superiority is put in place. Admit it now. If it has not happened yet and you have a sense of humor and a lighthearted outlook on life your day is coming too when you will be asked to artificially age your mind to match your body. It is just a women thing I guess and they think you need to get all serious and grown up just like they are. But here is my reply to this nearly universal, I fear, womanly request. A request which I suspect is ignored in most cases and for sure in mine.

I want to build one of these and invite the grandchildren over. Check out the treasure this guy has for a wife as she assists the launch and overcomes her maturity straightjacket 🙂

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CAM Tech Support Is Needed When It Is Needed

Posted on February 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

OK today you get to hear Dave vent again. An unprecedented action I am sure. But I think something needs to be made clear here about the value of time to customers VS the value of time to VAR’s and CAD CAM companies. This involves CAM and it has an entirely different concern than CAD and here is the situation as I see it.

You have a part and a deadline for this part and you need to cut it TODAY. It is not like CAD where there are other things you can do in the mean time. You have one goal and one purpose in life this day and it is to cut this important part. So the VAR and the software companies try to walk a fine line between being frugal with their costs and I get all that. I do the same thing and that is why when I have an $84,500.00 dollar mill sitting there and a customer breathing down my neck with a rush job I really really understand costs. The cost to ME when I can’t get timely support for whatever reason. There are other times when you have a part on the mill and a problem and you really don’t want to take it off and do another part. You are dialed in and no relocation zeroing problems until you remove this part just so you can move on and come back to it later. There is some kind of immutable law written somewhere I am sure that says the more variables you introduce into your manufacturing life the more problems you will have. So we like to finish what we have started from beginning to end. It is not in any way shape or form like coming back to revisit your CAD file which is pretty painless.

That $400.00 chunk of metal sits and looks at you because you could not get support and it has problems from bad cuts. You machine shop owners all know what I am talking about. You have heard that silly stuff about just wait until tomorrow or Monday because you have the nerve to be cutting late at night or on a weekend. So you can’t wait and you take a chance and now the scrap that comes out of your pocket. Since it seems that all these CAM companies and VAR’s that sell this stuff do this is has become a condition we buyers have to suffer under. Where the customer is not king except for our customers who demand this from us and we have to service them to pay our bills. They never cut us any slack is the way it is most of the time.

Today I want to mention a rather good experience I had happen in regards to support. I call Ally PLM and I am sure I sounded as frustrated over the CAM support guy being out of the office as I was in real life. However I get a call from the CAM guy about ten minutes later and he pulls to the side of the road and gets his laptop out and has an answer for me in short order. Now I know I am not going to get him after hours but I can say for sure today I am off the hook because of a timely response.

I can’t begin to tell all you CAM authors and program vendors how important this is to us and we do not view what happens with CAM the same forgiving way we view what happens with CAD. Tip of the hat today to Ally PLM, thanks.

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The Autodesk Juggernaut Starts Rolling

Posted on February 12, 2014 | 4 comments

One of the things that started my sojourn into blogging was interest in CAD and CAM in general. This of course means interest in topics besides my CAD CAM flavors of personal choice and I have always watched what others are doing. The cloud has in many ways been tied for equal interest with software as it may have such a profound effect upon how we do business in the future for those who foolishly go there. The other side of the coin which was alarming to me and the single largest reason I have had for posting bad things about Autodesk and Dassault’s Solid Works was the idea that they were going to try to force the cloud upon users whether they wanted it or not. I believe that if this paradigm were to be proven successful that other companies would probably follow this path to if vendor and cloud lock in with forced subscription only models for these two companies proves to be successful. Other than that the software from these two is what it is and if they dump this cloud garbage I would not have a whole lot to say about them because at that time they would not represent a potential threat to my future anymore.

Today just for the heck of it I went to this Autodesk site. http://cam.autodesk.com/pricing

Autodesk Juggernaut

Now I have to admit that this is the first real evidence I have found that the cloud is not inevitable here contrary to the statements made by Carl Bass. It would serve him well I think to clarify just what really is going to happen here. But at least at this current time cloud and not cloud are available. But what most impressed me were the we want you as customers prices. And per comments from Autodesk regarding a question from Al Dean the other day that Delcams PowerShape had technology in it including Direct Editing that would be incorporated into future versions of Inventor.

Autodesk is gearing up here for conquest. Look at the prices for just HSMWorks on this web page and it is the same as the prices will be for Inventor HSM. Except that HSMWorks will be + your full price seat of Solid Works and I would imagine two maintenance payments per year. If Autodesk really does a good job of integrating direct editing and other needed capabilities into Inventor and they make it the equal of Solid Edge or Solid Works and maintain this pricing it will be hands down the value leader in mid range MCAD and CAM combos.

I like HSMWorks. The Tech data base in Camworks IF you spent the time to implement all the stuff needed to make it work will get you quick toolpaths on most of your parts. As a matter of fact it is the best out there for Feature recognition but set up is a fairly involved process. Volumill is the very best HSM strategy out there right now and HSMWorks does not license it so plus another one for CAMWorks. HSMWorks does not offer these two things but I have to say that for those shops that just want good tool paths quick to learn and not cumbersome to set up HSMWorks is pretty darned good. They also have their own version of HSM which is capable. A friend of mine close by has one of those pressure cooker job shops and he swears by it and does a lot of different stuff each day. To be honest HSMWorks was my first choice for integration with SE back when I was asked to look at CAM programs for possible integration with SE.

In this day and time with each dollar counting more and more I believe that if Autodesk keeps permanent seats available this combination of Inventor HSM is going to be tough to beat as value leader. Now I presume that they intend to make Inventor into being more capable. But even if they don’t it is still way cheap and for that kind of money many will make the choice to just deal with a cam program that is not fully integrated with their CAD as long as Inventor handles imported parts well. Retail on SE and CW4SE up to 3 axis + Volumill 3 axis + turning is now right at $18,000.00 or $19,000.00 and there is not too much to be had in the deal zone off of that. My maintenance on this duo is going to be right at $4,000.00 per year and I bet yours will be to if you buy this. I don’t know what a full five axis and mill turn seat would cost from CW4SE but I suspect it would crowd you real close to $20,000.00 just like Mastercam would and probably be $4,000.00 per year on maintenance and with the additional maintenance from SE would add up to $5,500.00 or more per year. I also have no way of judging the relative capabilities of HSM versus CW4SE when you get into 4 and 5 axis and mill turn because I have never cut parts doing this. The labels however say these two can do it and I can say that after a trial of HSMWorks I did about two years ago if the capabilities of the rest of HSM are as good as the three axis stuff was it is more than capable.

That rumbling sound from down the road and just over the hill where you can’t quite see it yet just might be the Autodesk Jugernaught heading straight for you.

UPDATE 2-14
I have been told that the maintenance for the inventor and HSMWorks combo is 11 or 12% per year. This gets back to the idea of compelling potential customers to consider you and to keeping customers as customers with reasonable prices. Money is money and as a small business man my bottom line is more important to me than Siemens or Geometrics. So we have for new customers with SE and CW4SE to get what I have will be $18,000.00 plus $4,000.00 per year and a cam program I am getting increasingly irritated with. I don’t think I like this TDB and I would rather have templates if I were to be interested in automation at all. I am hoping someone shows me how to work the way I want to work with CW4SE and I will be all smiles soon. Then there is the $9,990.00 price above for cad and cam and only say $1,200.00 per year and I get a cam program that does things the way I want it to. I have to admit to sitting here and thinking real hard about where my future money will go because the payback with this HSM stuff is three years based on my recurring costs with SE CW4SE.Then I would have annual costs of one third what I will have if I continue the SE CW4SE path I am on. It is my money and it does have to be earned if you want some of it. I have a lot of thoughts wandering around in my mind right now that I never thought I would have three months ago. If Autodesk promises to maintain desktop permanent seats indefinitely and I feel I can trust them to do so I may just buy into it. Truthfully CAM is the most important part of my business in some ways because I may only design something once but make thousands of them afterwards. It is just as important for my CAM to work right as my CAD because I am a manufacturer and the recurring costs are a part of my profit picture. I have to admit that when my must pay maintenance jumped over 4G recently it was a wake up call that began to ask the question do you really want to be here.

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HEY Three Stooges of Siemens Failed marketing and Publicity, Check This Out!!

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 6 comments

An article today I am reading today http://den-media.com/portal/wts/cgmcgbbe8sibbsyAqcksD86ckBkrAwa has jelled some thoughts in my mind. While I despise the idea that Carl Bass and Autodesk want to establish a feudal overlord cloud kingdom I am really coming to admire their plan for doing so. If they reconsider this cloud only paradigm they will probably be the powerhouse that will take the SolidWorks throne in the future and not Solid Edge. I hate to say this but this referenced article has me thinking hard here about the possibility for the first time that Solid Edge might not be the heir.

It has been a struggle for SE for years under UGS and now Siemens with gosh awful marketing and publicity. Thanks Larry, Curly and Moe and I hope you know the grace period you have been given for three years with Dassault screw-ups now has to be shared with Autodesk. Because of your corporate paralysis and your inability to do anything worthwhile in a major way for YEARS I truly believe that you have allowed a hungry, organized and totally capable rival to in a very short time threaten to take the place that should have been yours. And Carl Bass won’t have much trouble whipping you sorry individuals most thoroughly when it comes to appealing to new customers in spite of the cloud he proposes. I sit here today just fuming and it is hard to describe the total and complete contempt I feel for a company that is so ossified and preserves such incompetents and failed policies with such vigor. I really wish someone would buy Solid edge out from Siemens hands at this point in time if this is all the opportunity you three stooges ever care to give them. This brilliant software deserves much more than you can deliver.

Here is why I grow increasingly mad with this situation and it is not just because of a couple of ads. It is because I see a well conceived plan being made and executed and absolutely no coherent plan from Siemens to counteract it. Frightful thoughts keep creeping in to my mind that the three stooges may not even discern this is happening or worse even care.

First off MCAD is just design stuff and if you do not have a method to build these designs by you are incomplete. This has been one of the problems with SE forever and the closest they have ever come to software that can’t go away from them is NX Cam Express. OK look I am thrilled that CAMWorks is now integrated with SE and I have bought into it. But deep down inside with all the acquisitions going on this last year and a half I wonder when Autodesk will buy this too and then I will be in the same boat as HSMWorks and Delcam users. I believe that Autodesk has totally bought into this end to end idea and further I think Carl Bass himself designs and builds and he gets the connection. And unlike Siemens Stooges he cares and he has a plan.

This is what I see. If I were Carl and just twiddling my thumbs one day idly dreaming of beating my rivals, I bet he does that you know, I might decide to take SolidWorks place in the market. It is pretty clear that Solid Edge is a good product but Siemens has no clue on aggressively marketing what they have. And you know when you go toe to toe with Siemens, a company that has a hard time getting past meetings to plan on meetings and retains numerous people who specialize in ways to say no, action will win the day. So what to do,,,, Hmmmmmm,,, I know, lets create a cohesive complete rival ecosystem and clean everyone’s clock.

First we will buy HSMWorks. It is a powerful program that has good tool paths, is really quick and easy to learn and allows you to generate toolpaths the way most shops I know prefer to do so with a great logical intuitive GUI. And it is attached to our arch rival. Now that you have bought this no one can take it from you and you can plan however you want. You have a job shop with gobs of different parts each day and don’t want to fool around with complicated Tech Data Bases this is it. In the mean time you continue the 2.5 axis FREE machining package that now is entering into its second+ year and also port it over to inventor where you do the same. I know this level of functionality in Surfcam for instance is about $4,500.00. They aren’t giving away cheap crummy junk here.And you treat the old SW users right and with respect and defuse all the bad vibes the takeover caused. My friends shop was given two years free maintenance for HSMWorks to defray the cost of him having to get a full seat of SW AND they gave him a really serious discount on a second seat just for the cost of maintenance basically. You are now creating loyalty from HSM users and giving them exposure to your 3D offerings via things like Fusion 360. No this is not a capable midrange MCAD program but it gets you in their minds eyes and you are going to improve it.

Now lets tackle the thorny problem of 3D design. I know Inventor is not what will draw many to my company so what do I do now? OK, Delcam has a pretty good modeller out there and a really stellar suite of manufacturing products. As a matter of fact when it comes down to strictly making things I think Delcam has everyone beat for variety of strategies from machine probing to 5axis dental implants to you name it. If it has to do with measuring, verifying or various machining strategies overall they can’t be beat. Single things out there like Volumill are better than Delcams HSM stuff but overall no one beats them. I think I will buy them to. You know what says Carl, I really like this ownership thing and the control it brings me. Hmmm, Should I buy Geometric to? Hey Mabel, set a meeting up for me with Mr Big at Geometric for next month. I need to get the ball rolling there to.

So now Carl has all the pieces needed to assemble a cohesive and complete manufacturing from design cradle to build out grave ecosystem that will appeal to huge numbers of people over time above and beyond the ones he has purchased. And they are treating those who have been bought out right from users to VAR’s as far as I can see so in this case so far the buyout company looks to be on track not to run old customers off. And he solves the stigma of only having Inventor to offer to MCAD prospects. I see all these buyouts and for the first time I am beginning to reconsider the idea that they mean to force everyone to the cloud. I think there might be a line of demarcation here and they will end up offering most to autonomous and cloud customers because way to much proprietary manufacturing information goes along with the Delcam purchases and many of them will not go to the cloud. I don’t think Carl intends to just throw them out. But if he does then the Autodesk plan of conquest will be short-lived and they wont do it and SE wins then in spite of gross Siemens marketing and PR ineptitude..

And talk about planing for the future! I admire the way they have slipped their product into the Superbowl in such a clever fashion where a huge audience will in many cases for perhaps the first time see what design and analysis software is. Kids in college, parents writing checks for kids in college, tech schools wanting to teach programs people have been inspired to learn. Junior on the sofa in grade school watching this with his Dad will in many cases remember this years later. You know darned well things like this have affected every one of us. And what name will they remember? Why Autodesk of course. I think they are slick to buy time ahead of time in anticipation of the SWW2014 debacle for things like Josh Mings post. I know I have not seen most of what Autodesk is doing so I have no idea how pervasive what they are doing is. I am going to bet that when they get the 3D ball rolling in a big way they are not going to give out such chintzy inducements to get new customers away from SW and SE as has been the norm at SW and SE for some time now. I still can’t figure out how I could buy Solid Edge Classic for basically $3,000.00 five years ago and no one has been able to since that promotion ran out. It’s like there is a life time limit of once for SE to be really hungry for SW users. Is SE going to profit from this since I will probably be with them for 15 or 20 years unless they get stupid? Autodesk will understand this and eat everyone’s lunch at SE and SW. I have to think this football thing is a sign of things to come. Carl has a plan and he is visionary unlike Bernard Charles who is delusionary and Siemens Stooges pervasive incompetence. He is not afraid to step out and do it. Siemens has studies and navel gazing and circular logic sessions. Talk about making more money you Siemens big wheels, get rid of this albatross of unproductive incessant meetings and those that create them so they don’t have to actually produce something or heaven forbid make a decision and I bet your bottom line would be noticeably better.

The big tech school on the north side of Nashville teaches SW, Autocad and Featurecam and they have a lot of students. I bet they may be teaching Powershape and or Inventor soon to but nope, not SE. Losers.

The other serious thing here for SE and SW in particular with their track record of vaporware is the speed with which Autodesk seems to be creating viable test beds that actually work and they don’t hide behind a shroud of secrecy when they do it. They have had a history I’ve been told of buying things and taking bits out to use in poor integrations and letting old programs die. I am not so sure this is going to happen this time.

Carl Bass, I despise this cloud thing you espouse and I think you lie about the clouds capabilities but I truly admire someone with a coherent plan who steps up to the bat. I watch with admiration as you step by step make plans to conquer your rivals in ways they seem to be in able to respond to.

For the first time I am seriously considering the idea that the stupid side of Siemens is going to be what defeats Siemens and this infuriates me.

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Dell Shows Appreciation for Autodesk and Dassault Cloud Efforts

Posted on January 24, 2014 | 10 comments

I like to look at workstations even if I am not in the market for one. You never know when some new deal will come out that compels you to reconsider. Like the new Dell M3800 and M4800 Laptops with available 15.6″ UltraSharp QHD+ (3200×1800) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit screens. I think I would like to see one of these. But perusing the site today led to some other not so pleasant discoveries.

It is and has been my position for a few years now ever since Dassault began its drive to force users to the cloud plantation that the CAD CAM software authoring companies that do this are duplicitous and do not have a shred of moral concern for their customers. And of course add to this now the whole line of Autodesk products and the comments from Carl Bass regarding his goals of moving it all there for Autodesk products. I don’t know if Dassault is just so incompetent that they can’t produce more than they have to showcase their efforts at tyranny. To date what has really made it to the marketplace after years of effort? And coming up at the SWW 2014 End Of Life convention supposedly the new CAD utopia of Mechanical Conceptual will be revealed in all it’s glory. Late of course and no one has seen any previews of this wonder. I have images in my mind of Charles standing there on stage, just like another individual did at the COFFES conference a while back, and being subjected to software or cloud failure to perform as touted. This to an audience that did not ask for their yearly subscription monies to be abrogated to such a thing they neither asked for nor wanted. This has all been mentioned before but it bears repeating because it is a direct indicator of the competence of Dassault to create a new paradigm and it is also a multi-year indicator of their contempt for customers futures that they would be willing to put those who would continue to use Dassault products at risk.

Autodesk has come further in a much shorter time than Dassault based upon products that are actually out there and available for beta testers and pretty much whom so ever is interested can be one. Unlike the sworn to secrecy small group of beta selectees Dassault has. So Autodesk is making an honest effort to show beforehand what they are producing and how it will work. In addition they are purchasing relevant programs essential to CAD and CAM creation like HSMWorks and Delcam which may give them critical mass for forcing enough people into the cloud that they will succeed in this effort. I give kudos to Carl Bass and Autodesk for being upfront about their goals and transparent about what they are doing. Based upon this if I had to make a choice between Dassault and Autodesk for the cloud I would choose Autodesk in a heart beat. Their problem is that albatross Inventor which from all I hear is the bottom of the barrel in midrange MCAD.

But the two big things both of these companies are guilty of is A, they know what they propose to do to you can’t be made secure so no guarantees of security and no indemnification for you the buyer and B, they NEVER talk about all the additional costs you will incur here over time above what you are currently spending. I would also add that neither will guarantee you that you will never become data hostages to them. Neither have done so and they are not intending to do so. You have to become chattel for all this to pay off for them.

Dell is going to help establish the nature of the fraud of the cloud claims to cheaper better faster multi-unlimited core compute power no IT staff auto-updating cloud computing Nirvana. Dell has a new product suite out there for the cloud. I guess they figure either enough companies will be forced into the cloud by people like Dassault and Autodesk that there will be a market for cloud security. Maybe they figure that all this cloud junk is going to appeal to enough C-Suite types who figure it sounds good and all they have to do is wave a magic cloud wand at their computing infrastructure and all will be well as they fire tons of staff and save gobs of money. (As an aside here heaven only knows MBA CPA C-Suite types have not been known for prudent long-term planning beyond 90 day stock market manipulation time frames. Kind of like these idiots fire all their American workers and move jobs to China and then lobby Congress for illegals to be allowed to replace American citizen labor. And then they have the unmitigated gall to complain of dwindling sales here as people run out of money. Gosh, just when they thought they had invented a new way where actions would not produce negative reactions and now no one has money to buy their stuff. I have such utter contempt for these short-sighted idiots that it is hard for me to adequately describe it. Unless manufacturing is brought back to the USA by a different class of manager we will become has beens. You can’t be a prosperous large middle class world power without manufacturing. Something this guy Henry Ford understood so well and MBA CPA pillage and plunder morons have no clue of.) Dells new offering is called Sonic Wall.

Never let it be said that Dell marketing can’t speak tongue in cheek and my favorite of their new offerings is, I kid you not, the “SonicWALL NSA 220”. No double entendre implied intent there I am sure and the NSA stands for Network Security Appliance. http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/sonicwall-nsa-series/pd?oc=swnas220&model_id=sonicwall-nsa-series

Here is further info on this family of devices and services.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/acq-sonicwall

Dell is telling all of you who care to think about what is happening that the internet is fraught with danger and that companies like Dassault and Autodesk are perpetrating huge risks on you the more you have to use the web for critical data in your business. Not that you would ever be in jeapordy of losing irreplacable IP on-line right? Just ask to see the indemnification and guarantees of security from Dassault and Autodesk as proof of their confidence in their own products.

No costs added to you dear customer is our Dassault Autodesk cloud pledge. So lets see here. I want to buy a Dell Precision T3610 with decent ram and graphics that would cover most users. But look at the new options. This NSA whiz bang thing adds 60% to the cost of the workstation.

Sonic Wall Dell cost for t3610

Then you have another category of Dell Cloud Clients.

Dell Cloud clients

If you dear reader care to look around you will find a lot of evidence of ancillary costs that will be incurred in so many ways if you are ever foolish enough to relinquish your destiny and control to those who would demand you work on the cloud for your business. Specifically here I am addressing primarily CAD and CAM users. This class of individuals and companies who can never be made whole from security breaches unlike financial transactions where damage is finite and amounts provable and reimbursements occur. How do you calculate the damages from a product that you have spent three years developing only to see your IP being manufactured by a country like China before you released it yourself? I can see Dassault and Autodesk trotting out their weasel words lawyers who would then say things like “Your Honor, there is no proven track record of sales by Company X for them to base their claims of damages on” in a case like this. This is the degree of honesty I think cloud perpetrators bring to the table and then want you to sit still for it. “And further your Honor this company signed an agreement not to hold us liable for anything as a condition of use and we move for dismissal”. And it will be dismissed because the lawyer weasel words are there and you did sign on.

So as the SWW 2013 EOL convention nears I think it is appropriate to consider the honesty and integrity of Dassault and the individuals that will be presenting the future of Dassault and SW to the attendees. I expect a lot of people to leave there contemplating where they are going to go to avoid this thankless future that Charles is going to present to them.

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If You Can’t Innovate Obfuscate

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 4 comments

What prompted this post was reading today about conjecture over Windows 9. My eyes kind of rolled back in my head at the title but I had a look anyway before they rolled back to far. Part of the article was conjecture on what MS would have to offer to get people to continue to spend gobs of cash with them. What would they have to offer? Indeed considering the state of affairs in most companies what is there to offer that buyers would VOLUNTARILY spend cash on.

I am not a code writer nor am I an expert OS tweeker. So what appears to me is what appears to the vast majority of all users I would imagine. And what appears to me is innovation stagnation. Other than this execrable ribbon bar monitor real estate hog what has MS really done for some time now? And the same for über cash cow MS Office. Tweaking around the edges it seems to me without anything really profound or new. So what you do in these cases is change the wrapper and call it new. Drum roll for the ribbon bar which I still see no reason for and which was a PITA in the CAD field to all I spoke to.So we have to relearn how to do the same things all over again for no purpose. Think about it, did this ribbon bar paradigm bring anything to you except the consumption of your time to learn new so MS could claim innovation? And WIN 8 with all those cool new hand gestures. I have had a Dell M6700 for a while now with the touch screen and quite frankly with the option to work however it pleases me I hardly ever use gestures. But then I am working with mine and not playing or showing friends how cool it is to make things zip around without a mouse. So we have the New Big Deal for Win 8, an environment designed for touch screens. The unparalleled thrill of having a 24″ smart phone and how cool is that? Now this window dressing did not bring anything of value to most users so MS had to relent and change things so you could work the way you used to. I think that is conclusive proof that the innovation ceiling has been reached doing things the same old way. Change for the sake of change again. I for one am not going to adopt Win 8. I know Win 7 is not “optimized” for touch screens but I see enough of the functionality to know this is not for me.

Now a word about tech Neanderthals. This is about the time you cutting edge super wonders chime in with how I am a foot-dragging Neanderthal who just does not appreciate new. I dare say that out of my own pocket in the last couple of years I have spent far more than most of you on innovation and buying into more productive ways of doing things both mechanically and in software. I search and look for innovations and better ways and I am an early adopter when it makes sense to do so. The very first time I saw direct editing in SE before ST1 was released was enough to convince me this was powerful in so many ways that I could not afford to do without it. It took until ST3 before what I saw became user-friendly reality but this was new for the sake of users and not new for the sake of new. It was not new window dressing meant to gull the unknowing or naive into coughing up the dough. Now I know that the idea of direct editing has been around for some time but how to make it work really well and with power and precision and wrap it up into a user-friendly package? Plus it required a certain amount of compute capabilities which were not here until recently, or so I have been told. I looked at Ironcad years before I had a look at SE ST. Ahead of its time but it just never clicked with me like the very first time I saw ST. I assume there are serious limitations with it and that is why it has never gained much market share. The idea was sure interesting though. I think Direct Editing is the last powerful thing that can be done for CAD as we know it and it was the last unused innovation arrow that will hit the bullseye for CAD. Until there is a new paradigm for how shapes and data are created and at the age of 60 I don’t expect to see it.

SW has been moribund for years now and the parent company has run into both technical and philosophical social media oriented barricades they may not be able to surmount. SW World 2014 End of Life convention is going to be full of smoke and mirrors. Don’t look at the man behind the curtain look over here. Look at our shiny new old CGM kernel stuff we have for you because we can’t do it with parasolids. So lets put an, ahem, “CAD Ribbon Bar” or “The power of 3DExperience Social Engineering Group Think Power of Cloud Compute” monikers on our stuff and call it cool to hide the fact we have run out of ideas and or talent.

Adobe has not brought about much that I can see that is remarkably better than what has been out there from them for years. Incremental improvements. New improvements of mediocre import they make available to cloud buyers only is all I see.

Autodesk has not been much of an innovator either but they have been a prolific buyer of talent and market share and they do have a plan. And it is the same plan as all the above companies have and it is the same common thread that ties them all together and brings me to my main premise for this post.

When you run out of things people will voluntarily buy, when you run out of true innovations and you can no longer sell yourself on provable new benefits and features to your buying market what is left? Why the Cloud of course. It is the last refuge of those who see that their existing customers could do quite well with permanent licenses and not send you another dime for years and years because what they already have bought does everything they need. The closest thing to a new way out there in CAD right now is SE. It is not coincidence that they are the only major CAD company that is not pushing you into the cloud. They are going to draw customers from the existing pretty much static sized CAD customer market from their competitors because they are the only ones doing really good stuff right now.

Autodesk is my favorite set of bald-faced liars. They stand there and look you in the eye and babble about unlimited compute power when you are using cad and cam programs that have core limits. And yes they do on the cloud too so you just go ahead and slurp that Kool-Aid these guys serve up. Throw in all the connectivity problems and the additional layers of software and software problems that they are going to heap on this and add in no ability to guarantee security and just where is the compelling reason we all should voluntarily buy into this junk?

So scratch the voluntary cash transfers and move on to pay to play. THIS is the new innovation which of course accrues benefits to those who created it and not buyers and it is the last resort of companies that fear a level competitive playing field and who have run out of new things to sell their customers. I believe this whole cloud thing is solely about digging into your pockets. There is a reason why none of these companies have been able to present proof of concept at this time for complex cad creation on-line. Yes I know there are some things out there in controlled laboratory condition dog and pony land but I have yet to see a typical connectivity situation proved out and a concise list of all expenses from every angle that typical users are going to have to pay created. In other words no proof it works better and saves you time and money. Remember, this is from the same group of people who can’t bring enough solid innovation to you to sell their stuff on its own merits. Nor is there any indication they intend to maintain loss leader costs on their programs with a guarantee of time duration for them because the sky is the limit as soon as they figure they can get away with it.

I figure that in this time of fiscal austerity sub rates are dropping for many software companies or they see them dropping in the future. Now one of the chief weapons companies have had over time is user lock-in. Traditionally this has been accomplished with proprietary ways of saving and using data that makes it hard to go elsewhere with it and fully use it. And the expense of new programs and training add to this. Today this is not enough security and thus the creation of a chattel instead of a customer market. Or so they hope. Make your customers work under the above conditions and then add to that the forced archival of their intellectual property and then also make them pay to use it forever and withhold access to their data if they do not pay. The destruction of permanent seats will be a key part of this if these guys can get away with it. There is nothing benign here and it is all about heaping on costs to a captive market in ways that will guarantee and grow profits for all involved except YOU the customer. It is why none of these guys layout with proof the benefits to you. What true proof can liars bring to the table anyway? Remember the fraud of unlimited data forever for iPhones utilized as incentive to get people there? Remember what happened to costs when a certain critical market size was reached?

So remember the rules of engagement for the CPA MBA attitude of corporations that figure earning your business is too hard. If you can’t innovate obfuscate. Tune in to the latest episode of this new way as the MIRV Bernard Charles straps his iPhone and iPad on and launches for San Diego. Or check in to the latest words of feudal overlord wisdom from Carl Bass as he tells you what you are going to do instead of selling you on what you should do or want to do.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2014 to be released

Posted on December 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dassault’s SolidWorks End of Life 2014 Cloud Poster Boy

Posted on December 19, 2013 | 4 comments

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

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

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

Dassault splash screen

Is this not priceless 😉

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

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