NX for the OS X is a classic case of vaporware. I talk to a rep a few months back and he sounded incredibly exasperated. It's in the works, has been for the last 3 or 4 years, and it might be a few more years yet, but could be next month. Nobody wants to commit, nobody seems to really know. Price will apparently be the same as the PC version around $3k I think he said.

I guess what I would like in an ideal world would be a 'Pro' version of SharkFX, same tools, but re-tooled to handle large files and assemblies better. A vastly improved layer manager would be a big step towards this. Import and export to ProE and SolidWorks if possible with histories would make the other designers, engineers and vendors that I work with very happy. Price would be about the same as FX $1800 - but without a rendering module. Rendering would be a $500 module that could be plugged in at a latter date.

I wish it was $3k. I was quoted more around the $16k mark!

As for any CAD on OS X, it's the same old story...."Mac?? I've heard it's good at DTP"!!!!!!!

I think that most people don't like computers, full stop. ("Period" to you Americans ;) ) Then they spend years getting to grips with Windows (which gives them the fear- mostly through trojans, worms and viruses). Introducing another OS- no matter how easier it is or how much more powerful it is, and they don't want to know. Most CAD is pretty stable on Windows now- who then cares for the 'better machine', even if you tell them that you NEVER have to run registry cleaning facilities or anti-virus checkers (people think I'm lying when I say that there are ZERO viruses for OS X).

Yup agree with you. I have to like windows because it runs my business almost!, that said if I had the choice between Mac & say Linux it would be Linux..... Mac is stupidly overpriced in comparison with a PC and is far less powerful....it has a long way to go before it gets my vote :D:D

Here's a benchmark...

http://web.me.com/studiodc/Stud...C/Apple_Macbook_Pro.html

Benefits of a laptop design arguably better than its peers in the Windows world, sans militarized laptops.

tom

Please, Please, Please.

No Mac / PC comparisons with the inevitable "Mac's suck. PC's are real machines for real men / work".

Different OS's for different folks, just like we all drive different cars and no one brand is "better" for all things.

I have XP and OS X on two machines. I prefer the Mac, but thats not to say that it is better. When I have t run software that is not available on the Mac I use the PC, if the software will run on the Mac I use that. Please, please, please no platform discussions that go no where.

If Macs were better than PCs they would be more popular. The world must be full of masochists.

Cheers.
Martin.

............!!!

I rest my case. LOL!

:D ;)

It's not a question of being unreliable, it's more a question of that there is no choice- except there is, but it is also really really daft that people choose not to take it.

I sit at work watching my colleagues struggle with their PC's. I guess you are right Martin, these guys are masochists? But then you can't really blame them as it is far easier, as always to take the soft option, and go for the mainstream- I guess that is human nature (up unto a point?).

Macs are faster to use than PC's. I too use both (OSX and XP), and I far prefer OS X to work with. It's a difficult thing to explain, without using OSX for a while (and we are talking OSX really- not the nice bit of industrial design). I couldn't really say this works like this and that works like that- because OSX's behaviour is so different in every aspect to Windows (yet also so similar- but then that too is hardly surprising, because Apple are sort of Microsoft's 'R&D department', if you get what I mean).

My advice is to get an MSI Wind or an HP Mini netbook, and load Mac OS X onto it. It works okay (although it'll never replace 'the real thing')- and is fun to do.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2.../12/gadget-lab-vide.html

Never having used a Mac, I'm blissfully ignorant of all the goodness I'm reportedly missing out on, although my wife brought one home the other day. She's struggled with PCs from day one, and I'm probably not helping because she calls on me for advice and I have to plead guilty to making my frustration (with her inability to be as intuitive as Bill Gates) obvious. I'll be interested to see if she copes with it better, because like Sgt. Schultz, I know nothing. I'm not in any of the higher echelon categories for CAD needs, being an occasional designer, occasional fabricator, occasional draftsperson, but I do know what to do with it. I've used TurboCAD as a generic CAD doall for probably ten years, and still do. Back to back, I prefer TurboCAD's interface to ViaCAD's. I draw and model from 2D primitives more than features, but even features are easier for me to find and orient from in TC. That's probably inexperience with VC, I've still got a long way to go, but I'm giving serious thought to Shark LT. The reasons why I use like to use VC: it appears to be more stable than TurboCAD for some tasks. It appears to leverage some of the ACIS features better than TC, ie blending and shelling, and if it can't do it, VC gives a coherent meaningful reason that often gives a clue as to how to go about getting it done via workaround. TC is obtuse if it can't do something, so I often transfer a .sat object to VC, blend or shell, then put it back into TC. ViaCAD is much better at combining solid and surface elements, replacing surfaces or producing parametric surfaces (that spline import feature rocks), and it's got some surface shape production methods that TurboCAD doesn't ie net, skin and cover surfaces. Birail works better, too. That being said, VC is as obtuse as TC with some messages like "curves not connected!".
Some of the nicer features of Shark attract me. Booleans on surfaces, not just solids. Advanced capping and lofting with guides. Until I've worked up inarguable (with my wife) justification for Shark, the Rhino import for TC costs $50, so VC is a good deal purely as a Rhino importer. Aside from that, TC and VC transfer seamlessly with .sat for solids, dxf, IGES or STEP for 2D.
I first heard about CU around version 2, so sampled it back then. I'm still not in the market at the CU/SharkFX price point, so I'm lucky that VC became available. FX now has the same sorts of constraints that've been in TC Pro for a while, so that's something that I've some familiarity with. I don't use them very often, and I have even less requirement for pure parametrics. When I do need parametrics, well, then there's Alibre, which is free for the "lite" version, but which can only save 10 entities in one file. That's about the most I need. Again, .sat is the transfer medium of choice.
So, with the OS that a lot of you don't like, I'm spoiled for choice. So Windows isn't elegant? Neither am I.

murray

Ah yes but that really isn't the point is it? (it's got you rattled though eh?!). Although the GM thingie is old, there is still an awful lot of truth in it.