One of the most frustrating things I experience with SolidWorks is how Drawing files will build up in file size quickly for no obvious reason, and become slow. I’m pretty sure this is an unnecessary issue because if I save a sheet (from a one-sheet drawing) and re-insert it into a new drawing, file size may be considerably smaller… Also - the inability to use hatch patterns in detail views has generally not been possible.
I’m currently doing some tutorials with a trial version of SE. Most of our workflow is pretty simple in the part and assembly environments, with most of our real time spent in the drawing environment, so my general question is : How is the Solid Edge drawing Interface generally? What ways is it stronger, more reliable than SW, and are there any ways in which the SE drawing environment is weaker than SolidWorks’?
SE drawings or Draft as they call it is the area I’ve spent the least amount of time in. The SE reputation is built largely on drawings, so I would expect it to be pretty good. Keep us appraised as you find interesting things. I’ll try to crack open some drafts myself and give it a go, although I have to admit that’s not my specialty area.
We’re in process of going from SE to SW and aside from people not understanding what PDM is, and lacking Sheetmetal functionality; the bulk of CAD issues I get questions and gripes about is the Solidworks Drawing interface. Solid Edge draft is better from what our ~30 users have experienced. BUT, that’s given what we use it for. Maybe there’s some ‘thing’ that you do with SW drawing that SE drafting cannot do, I don’t know.
I haven’t had time to use SW a tremendous amount, but the context menu and UI in general is just not very handy in SW.
SolidWorks has a certain philosophy on things. They want to make everything easy. One way to do that is to have a lot of data calculated before hand that you may or may not want to use later. So unlike Solid Edge, SolidWorks puts a lot of your model data, including display information, configurations, and who knows what else, into the drawing. Sometimes there’s a way to strip out that extra data, and sometimes not. They do the same thing with assemblies. The thinking is that storage space is cheaper than cpu time. I’m not defending either way, just repeating things I’ve heard from SW.
When placing views, Solid Edge beats SW over and over in my opinion. In Edge you can select the view (even 3D rotations or align to edge or normal to face) right from the drawing without needing to open the model to add a view.
This business of needing to edit the model to make the drawing is compounded with PDM where the model will get new versions (making where used out of date) just to add a view for the drawing. Even worse is if the drawing is done by someone that shouldn’t be checking out the model and the model is in released state.
SolidWorks really needs to work on a purge command to allow the user the ability to view all these things, purge them when possible, and if not possible, have the command point what prevents it from being possible. I’ve been saying this for a really long time, but I think it would help a whole lot, both the software and it’s users, as it would also allow people to “visualize” how the program creates such links.
You know, I’m really glad to hear that because we’re mostly likely going to be migrating to SE in the next year. SE’s UI seems extremely clunky to me so far…but I’m glad to hear you say the same thing about SWX because that means it’s my lack of knowledge, and I can overcome that with time.
Yes, I think you are spot on. Some large percentage of the “CAD xx is slow to…” complaints are just due to lack of practice with the UI. Unless contract engineering/modeling is your game, it’s hard to justify he cost of relearning everything.
Exactly. For years I trash-talked AutoCad when the problem was really my inexperience! Only now, after three years of seriously trying to learn Autocad, I am starting to see its real value!
Like with what Alex mentioned, a “purge” command, if SW only provided some sort of way for the user to have some control over the data in drawing files it would be a great help. File size is not only about storage - from my experience, bigger file size = slower drawing performance.
I’m not following this. You can make drawings of models without having to open the model. You can add pretty much any view you want without the model open. About the only view I know of that you need the model open for is when you want a view that can not be arrived at by some combination of projected or auxiliary view.
Furthermore if you need a view that you can’t get to you can open the model, present the view you want and create a view of that all without checking the model out or changing it in any way. Not sure I would do that because then the drawing view is not really tied to anything you can just go back to, but you can do it if you want.
What he meant was having the model(part/assembly) loaded in it’s cache, not necessarly opened. To create a view in a drawing, SolidWorks must first load the model of the assembly/part in it’s cache. Not sure how it could work otherwise though
Maybe he can clarify because “This business of needing to edit the model to make the drawing is compounded with PDM where the model will get new versions” that sounds to me like he’s talking about actually opening, checking the model out and checking it back in.
Unless I’m missing something, which is entirely possible, you don’t create new version by loading a part into cache and I wouldn’t think it would effect PDM data at all.
What would trigger such thing, IMHO, would be external references, which would cause the model to update itself and therefor create a new version upon saving drawing, as it would also save the model(assembly or part)
Lots of assuming in there though, I’ve never even used PDM.
In the PDM you can’t save changes unless you’ve checked the part out. Again, unless I’m missing something, in order for a new version to be created, which is created when you check a part in, you’d have to check it out while creating a drawing view.
I’m not aware of any situation where you would need to check the part out to create a drawing view unless you are also wanting to save that view in the model like in the case of where you add a named view.
Most other views can be created using projection, section, auxiliary etc.
He’ll try to clarify. I had to get into Solidworks and work through example to make it clear in my mind and find the proper jargon that SW uses. What I had in my mind is display states. Yes, Solid Edge has those two but it seems Display States was the go to answer for our questions like “how do I … in Solidworks drawing view”
I think Marshall Wilson’s point of users need to know more about the software is the answer here. As with any CAD there’s a dozen ways to do just about anything; when a new users asks how to do something, they may get a dozen different answers. Ten of them may cause problems somewhere else or just not work because of the hundreds of other variables.
Without knowing what you’re doing it’s hard to say, but I rarely, dare I say never, use display states to control my drawing views. You can make parts visible/not visible right in the drawing in the feature tree. If I’m trying to show assemblies in different positions I make a configuration and you can change what config the drawing view is using. You can hide individual lines if you want to right in the drawing.
In fact I really don’t even like display states. Not sure if it’s my own ignorance of not know how to use them well or if it’s that SW just doesn’t work, but most of the time when I try to use them, renderings, illustrations etc I struggle to get them to do what I want.
Exactly. Display States are a quick way to trouble if you rely on them for part display in drawings. Configurations are a much more reliable way to go. I rarely use display states for anything after some unfortunate experiences a few years ago (Display states in drawing views would only display correctly if the model file had the same display state active)
I had to get into Solidworks and work through example to make it clear in my mind and find the proper jargon that SW uses. What I had in my mind is display states. Yes, Solid Edge has those two but it seems Display States was the go to answer for our questions like “how do I … in Solidworks drawing view”