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ZeroLengthCurve  
#1 Posted : Friday, December 5, 2008 3:53:46 PM(UTC)
ZeroLengthCurve

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Anybody beside me wondering when ViaCAD will be "deprecated" officially? Is anybody simultaneously running VC6 and Shark LT/etc and still finds they need VC6? Or that there is something in VC6 they like?

I think so far i've used maybe more than 3/4 the tools in VC6 just on simple things. I know VC Pro 5 has things I sorely want. So, as for VC5 Pro, does anyone simultaneously use VC5 Pro and Shark Lt? What opinions do you have. I know it can be personal preference, but i'm very low-budget, and besides running the demo in my own little world, and watching videos, and reading the forums, does anyone have a "you won't look back once you go Shark (*)" comment?

Thanks!
jol  
#2 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 3:46:17 AM(UTC)
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2 thoughts ..

why so many products ? .. 2 branding streams ? That's a lot of dev time

why expect all the goodies for $99 .. you bought the teaser. I think the idea of ViaCAD is as a hook .. that you'd then catch the big one with the fin ? .. Or am I wrong ?
jol  
#3 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 3:55:18 AM(UTC)
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well done Tim - I think the lounge will prove an excellent idea !!
unique  
#4 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 7:30:44 AM(UTC)
unique

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Originally Posted by: jol Go to Quoted Post
2 thoughts ..

why so many products ? .. 2 branding streams ? That's a lot of dev time

why expect all the goodies for $99 .. you bought the teaser. I think the idea of ViaCAD is as a hook .. that you'd then catch the big one with the fin ? .. Or am I wrong ?


Hi Jol,

I agree why so many products!!!.

IMHO - Even though ViaCAD 2d/3d is still going through a big bug fixing era and getting the product more robust I think it is way too cheap at $99, I also happen to think that Shark FX is too expensive at $1795 (If you compare with the likes of Spaceclaim Professional)

IMHO - I cant see any point to ViaCAD 2d, ViaCAD Pro, Shark - that leaves three main products:p

Here are the prices I would personally be happy to pay and what I believe would be competitive in the field of CAD :)

ViaCAD 2d/3d $299
Shark LT (With all constraints) $899
Shark FX (With as above with rendering & animation) $1099

With more aggresive marketing this product im sure would fly into homes and business' :cool:
ttrw  
#5 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 1:08:40 PM(UTC)
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Paul, although I largely tend agree with you, I'd say that the final price of this software more reflects the technology used and licensed from Dassault Systemes rather than anything else.

Personally I wouldn't have bothered with Shark LT, unless the parametric technology was included. I quickly get frustrated with VC because of the lack of these tools (I'm not a CATIA surfaces kind of person- but it is great that it is there).

I've been very closely following the Wenatchee build of Rhino (Mac), and I like Robert Mcneel's attitude to not releasing the product onto the market until the beta testers and users are 100% satisfied with it. I think that this kind of approach to a product demands far more respect than releasing a product that still has a platitude of bugs that need eliminating.
unique  
#6 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 5:21:15 PM(UTC)
unique

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Originally Posted by: ttrw Go to Quoted Post
Paul, although I largely tend agree with you, I'd say that the final price of this software more reflects the technology used and licensed from Dassault Systemes rather than anything else.


Hmmmmm so how do you explain SC2008 LTX at $799 ?

Quote:
I've been very closely following the Wenatchee build of Rhino (Mac), and I like Robert Mcneel's attitude to not releasing the product onto the market until the beta testers and users are 100% satisfied with it. I think that this kind of approach to a product demands far more respect than releasing a product that still has a platitude of bugs that need eliminating.


I too agree with your statement about beta testing......I can see more of that approach is being used at Punch but it would appear at V6 this was not a policy of theirs at the beginning (no fault of Tim's !!)

Glad you like Rhino-Mac.....I know of it obviously but you know me PC thru & thru :D:D
tmay  
#7 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 7:04:07 PM(UTC)
tmay

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Originally Posted by: unique Go to Quoted Post
Hmmmmm so how do you explain SC2008 LTX at $799 ?



I too agree with your statement about beta testing......I can see more of that approach is being used at Punch but it would appear at V6 this was not a policy of theirs at the beginning (no fault of Tim's !!)

Glad you like Rhino-Mac.....I know of it obviously but you know me PC thru & thru :D:D


I'm not convinced that SpaceClaim is going to make it financially. They had to abandon their original leasing plan due to lack of success, and they had a major shakeup of the principals not too long ago. I just don't see that they have had all that much success in the MCAD world to this point and Autodesk is poised to release Inventor LT which would be major price competition.

The real glitch is that the window of opportunity for explicit modeling (as PTC likes to call their similar CoCreate package) is getting competition from SolidEdge/NX and I expect all the majors will have similar capabilities a couple of revs in the future.

the other Tom
ttrw  
#8 Posted : Saturday, December 6, 2008 8:45:25 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: unique Go to Quoted Post
Hmmmmm so how do you explain SC2008 LTX at $799 ?




LTX doesn't exist anymore (ie it's been pulled- due to it's poor value for money), but more to the point LTX couldn't take any of the plug-ins- so no sheet metal. Also the licence ran for a year, after that you could either pay the extra 1200 yearly service pack charge, or just get the fully blown SC for 3000.

This information was supplied to me by John Milne, SC's UK rep. :)
unique  
#9 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 7:30:57 AM(UTC)
unique

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Originally Posted by: ttrw Go to Quoted Post
LTX doesn't exist anymore (ie it's been pulled- due to it's poor value for money), but more to the point LTX couldn't take any of the plug-ins- so no sheet metal. Also the licence ran for a year, after that you could either pay the extra 1200 yearly service pack charge, or just get the fully blown SC for 3000.

This information was supplied to me by John Milne, SC's UK rep. :)


I have exchanged email with John in August 08' and there was no mention of dropping LTX then, although I would agree something has happened because it is no longer on their website. As for value LTX can be bought for approx 500 which I think is very good value considering it is supposed to be a partner for Rhino.

Look on Novedge. The license is NOT for twelve months it is a perpetual license.

[URL="http://www.novedge.com/brands/89"]http://www.novedge.com/brands/89[/URL]
NickB  
#10 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 2:52:05 PM(UTC)
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I had a rep try and sell me a copy of LTX a few weeks ago, and am suposed to be evaluating SpaceClaim, but have not been able to find the time. At $799 it would be easy to make the move. What makes it harder is the amount of time you have to invest in a package before you become comfortable / proficient and productive with it. At this point that, and the lack of any other Mac alternatives are the only things that keeps me attached to Shark. Moving to a new package is just too much work. Moving to a new platform more than doubles that work.

If there was a more stable, less buggy version of a shark like program with a more modern interface - layer manager and history management particularly I would jump ship immediately. A year ago I made the decision to stop beta testing. It requires a huge investment in time and energy for no monetary gain and no major interface issues ever get addressed. How many times do you have to bang your head against a brick wall before learning that the wall will not budge. As a profesional I need a stable workable tool, not a work a progress and for as long as I can remember Shark has been a work in progress.
Shark FX 9 build 1143
OS X 9.5
3.6 GHz Core i7, 8GB, GTX 760 2GB

matter.cc
ttrw  
#11 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 4:00:46 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: unique Go to Quoted Post
I have exchanged email with John in August 08' and there was no mention of dropping LTX then, although I would agree something has happened because it is no longer on their website. As for value LTX can be bought for approx 500 which I think is very good value considering it is supposed to be a partner for Rhino.

Look on Novedge. The license is NOT for twelve months it is a perpetual license.

[URL="http://www.novedge.com/brands/89"]http://www.novedge.com/brands/89[/URL]


Paul while you were exchanging mere emails, I was happily exchanging pints across a bar with Mr Milne- who incidentally lives 1.5 miles from where I work. ;)


"Novaedge" wrote:
Support and Maintenance
Live support not included. No maintenance offer. Service packs included through to next release only.


And apart from Rhino and ACAD, in LTX, you can't import much else either- so imo, not a very good deal at all.
ttrw  
#12 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 4:44:43 PM(UTC)
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Nick, well put. :)

Have you had a play with Rhino for Mac (Wentachee version)? It may be in beta, but it's pretty stable already- best of all, the software is free, until it comes out of beta of course. Oh yes, even better than 'best of all', McNeel associates have made the interface native, so it looks, works and feels like a Mac app.

OTOH, Autodesk's Maya, is horrible and clunky, it doesn't work like a Macintosh application at all imo.
unique  
#13 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 5:33:58 PM(UTC)
unique

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Originally Posted by: ttrw Go to Quoted Post
Paul while you were exchanging mere emails, I was happily exchanging pints across a bar with Mr Milne- who incidentally lives 1.5 miles from where I work. ;)


Really happy for you Tom....

Quote:
And apart from Rhino and ACAD, in LTX, you can't import much else either- so imo, not a very good deal at all.


As we know LTX is a partner for Rhino which opens up the importing side of things a little further, that said STEP is quite good.

--

NickB: I take your point on learning another app. Personally, having already got Rhino I feel that VC or Shark will do my job but lately im seeing lots & lots of time wasted waiting for things happen in modeling & MTOS tasks in drawing space....time will tell...hopefully Tim & Ryan get tune it up :p
NickB  
#14 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 7:38:58 PM(UTC)
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I have looked very seriously at SolidWorks many times, and have even gone so far as doing some classes. In the end there are a few things that hold me back from making the move:

1. SolidWorks requires that almost every feature start with a dimensioned sketch. This means that you are constantly going back and forth between sketch mode and part mode and things that can be done incredibly easily in Shark require many more operations and have multiple dependancies.

2. Parametrics. This is both a blessing and a huge curse. Often having features tied to other features prevents you from deleting, moving or otherwise changing a part. The few times times that parametrics would be useful are not worth it for the majority of the time when they get in the way. If parts have dependencies in Shark, you can chose to delete the dependencies (dumb the part down), hide the part on another layer (keeps parts histories, but allows you to move forward as though the part did not exist) or delete the part and dumb down the dependent part.

3. Modality - Assembly mode and part mode. Shark does not differentiate between the two which makes it easy to build parts around other parts. Having a separate assembly mode means that your assembly file is smaller, but it also means that if you move a part file your assembly gets broken. If parts are constantly changing and you reorganize your folder structure to allow for more complexity models get broken. Shark does not have this problem. Instead it is easy to end up with huge (200mb + ) project files which take forever to open and save.

4. Price and service contracts. Approximately $3500 to get into SolidWorks, plus the cost of a new machine and then another $1300 to $1500 a year maintenance. This makes the $1800 that Shark FX costs and $500 for major releases feel like a bargain. Given the current state of virtualization on the Mac it looks like it feasible to run SolidWorks in a VM, of course this is less than optimal, but better than working across two machines.

Sharks model to sheet feature is almost useless to me. If you are working in a large file with hundreds or even thousands of layers the only practical way to create a 2D drawing (like of a circuit board with components) is to export the parts to a new file and then do a model to sheet. Creating the sheet views in the main file destroys the file because it turns of every single layer that you may have had on, even sub sub sub sub layers whose parents were not on. Recovering from this can take hours. Not exactly a way to speed things up.
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tmay  
#15 Posted : Sunday, December 7, 2008 11:38:11 PM(UTC)
tmay

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Nick,

It is true that in SW (and Pro/E for that matter), that you enter/exit a sketch mode to generate geometry, and while you are required to generate references for each sketch, you aren't required to dimension the geometry to create the feature; the feature manager will accept implicit dimensions.

Shark uses a 2D/3D mode via an icon pick vs sketch/part mode of SW and Pro/E, though both SW and Pro/e hide the sketch in the switch to part mode.

Parametrics as you say is blessing and curse, and both SW and Pro/E can turn off dependencies as necessary. On the other hand, one of the nice features of parametrics in an assembly mode would be the example of adding a feature through multiple parts, so that each individual part would retain the feature independently, but would still allow for modification in the assembly mode. An example would be a fastener through hole in a panel and a tapped hole in a frame.

Since I'm assuming that you work for yourself, I can see that an integration of sketch, part, and assembly is something that you can manage in Shark. As you add complexity though, it becomes more difficult to manage all of the layers, and a PDM (Part Data Management) system becomes useful and necessary. Not only does it maintain parts, part variants and assemblies, but it also supports versioning, and supervisory control. Frankly, I am frustrated with the current sketch/part mode of Shark and the current Concept Explorer and I would be happy if Shark supported an Assembly mode with a part library, and I don't see that as being as difficult to implement as a PDM system, an certainly easier to use.

Need Sheetmetal functionality...

I agree with you entirely on prices and subscriptions, and I agree that not only is Shark a bargain, but that I can bring Shark parts into SW, Pro/E, GibbsCAM, or whatever else for that matter. It is also true that there is a heck of a lot of added functionality in higher end systems. If you need it, I guess you can find a way to purchase and maintain it, and

Regarding Sheet to Model, it seems to me that you are demonstrating the limitations of Shark's lack of Assembly management. I have difficulty managing 30 layers in Concept Explorer (I'll blame most of that on fairly old hardware), but even so, I would argue that a board layout of that complexity on a regular and ongoing basis would be best served by PADS or something equivalent, and an IDF to solids translator (Solidworks Premium gives you Circuitworks, and Pro/E has an optional ECAD to MCAD module) if you need a solids model of your pcb assembly.

In conclusion, I would like to see Shark grow to include:

Sheetmetal
Assembly Mode and management
modal Sketch/Part as an option to current 2D/3D
SW / Parasolids translators
3D constraint manager

tom, the other
robertbrichter  
#16 Posted : Monday, December 8, 2008 12:10:56 AM(UTC)
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Even though SolidWorks doesn't have primitives (I have build entire parts in ViaCAD with primitives and features only without one profile), I still prefer the way SolidWorks hides its sketches when you are done. To me, that more than compensates for it lack of primitives.

You forgot to mention another curse of parametrics (especially assembly in-context) causing the entire assembly to explode to smitherines. Been there, done that with SolidWorks, but I am sure Shark could probably be made to explode, too.

I have ViaCAD, not Shark, and I assumed the lack of being able to save layer state was because I paid 2-digit dollars for my copy. I would think the money people spend for Shark should have the ability to name and save layer visibility.

I don't know how much of this wish-list would apply to ViaCAD, and for two-digit $, I have no room to complain. It is actually much better than I expected for what I paid. Some of these may already apply to Shark.

--Better tape measure

--Part configurations (named configuration, where one can choose what features to apply and what not to apply)

--Abilility to copy as instance when the copied part already has a copy as instance in its feature tree. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate limitation in ViaCAD, or if it is to protect us from ourselves (not blowing up an assembly by mistake), or technically not easy.

--Ability to apply feature to the parent instead of the object (if the object only has mate/transpose additions), such as an assembly in-context relation. Doing so could update all instances of the part in the assembly and make top-down easier.

--Better mating, and a choice as to whether the mate is part of the part history (and then can later be moved), or whether the mate must always be satisfied. I guess these last two comments are because of how I am used to using SW.

--subassembly support other than using groups and/or layers.
ZeroLengthCurve  
#17 Posted : Tuesday, December 9, 2008 6:01:19 PM(UTC)
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I last December got my copy of ViaCAD for $99 at the now defunct CompUSA. If it had been $250 or $300 at that time, i would NOT have been able to afford it. Initial entry price is often the make or break item for me.

I am ALL TO HAPPY to buy in at a price, then purchase modules every few months if i become addicted to them, but would first want a 2 or 3-month introduction to each module because i too many distractions to achieve much "trialing" in a 2-3 week time. It could take me 3 or 4 days with only a very few subset of tools.

So, if I could "subscribe" to buy a +$500 CU/Punch! product at say $150 down and pay the rest in modules, i would. But, that is not fashionable for software sales.
dexter  
#18 Posted : Sunday, December 14, 2008 1:34:45 PM(UTC)
dexter

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Originally Posted by: NickB Go to Quoted Post
I have looked very seriously at SolidWorks many times, and have even gone so far as doing some classes. In the end there are a few things that hold me back from making the move:

1. SolidWorks requires that almost every feature start with a dimensioned sketch. This means that you are constantly going back and forth between sketch mode and part mode and things that can be done incredibly easily in Shark require many more operations and have multiple dependancies.

2. Parametrics. This is both a blessing and a huge curse. Often having features tied to other features prevents you from deleting, moving or otherwise changing a part. The few times times that parametrics would be useful are not worth it for the majority of the time when they get in the way. If parts have dependencies in Shark, you can chose to delete the dependencies (dumb the part down), hide the part on another layer (keeps parts histories, but allows you to move forward as though the part did not exist) or delete the part and dumb down the dependent part.

3. Modality - Assembly mode and part mode. Shark does not differentiate between the two which makes it easy to build parts around other parts. Having a separate assembly mode means that your assembly file is smaller, but it also means that if you move a part file your assembly gets broken. If parts are constantly changing and you reorganize your folder structure to allow for more complexity models get broken. Shark does not have this problem. Instead it is easy to end up with huge (200mb + ) project files which take forever to open and save.

4. Price and service contracts. Approximately $3500 to get into SolidWorks, plus the cost of a new machine and then another $1300 to $1500 a year maintenance. This makes the $1800 that Shark FX costs and $500 for major releases feel like a bargain. Given the current state of virtualization on the Mac it looks like it feasible to run SolidWorks in a VM, of course this is less than optimal, but better than working across two machines.

Sharks model to sheet feature is almost useless to me. If you are working in a large file with hundreds or even thousands of layers the only practical way to create a 2D drawing (like of a circuit board with components) is to export the parts to a new file and then do a model to sheet. Creating the sheet views in the main file destroys the file because it turns of every single layer that you may have had on, even sub sub sub sub layers whose parents were not on. Recovering from this can take hours. Not exactly a way to speed things up.


You need to see Solid Edge/UGS (Siemens) NX6 in action...look up synchronous technology. Unfortunately, price is still an issue. NX6 was supposed to be released for Mac, but never materialised. There are many videos, but here is just one showing off the tech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UVXSqdWeZY
tmay  
#19 Posted : Sunday, December 14, 2008 2:04:18 PM(UTC)
tmay

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Originally Posted by: dexter Go to Quoted Post
You need to see Solid Edge/UGS (Siemens) NX6 in action...look up synchronous technology. Unfortunately, price is still an issue. NX6 was supposed to be released for Mac, but never materialised. There are many videos, but here is just one showing off the tech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UVXSqdWeZY


here's a link,

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=212255&page=1
John, the NX evangelist states that NX6 for the mac is still on, but delayed, and not many modules. I got the impression that the delay is due to some issues with MS Office, which they require (don't know why).

tom
ttrw  
#20 Posted : Sunday, December 14, 2008 2:52:09 PM(UTC)
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The issue with MS Office is simply that Microsoft decided to leave out Visual Basic in the Mac 2008 version. That's all.

NX uses VB for some functions. Pro/Desktop for eg, uses VB for creating functions such as helical shapes. Arcane or what?

I think that it is utterly crap that there has been zero CAD solutions for the OS X platform. Recently I've been playing with Rhino. I think this is fabulous software for the price. I also think that all Mac CAD users should get into Rhino, as it offers serious bang for the buck, but best of all, it's developers are really on the case.
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