Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
(OP)
We soon will be having a problem in that we will have too much Solidworks work in house for the amount of Solidworks people we have. At the same time, we will have Pro-E and UG people who do not have any work to do. My boss would like to have the Pro-E or UG people design the jobs, then when they are done, transfer them over to Solidworks. We have done some translation testing with some native UG files and so far no luck. How ever we try to bring the assemblies over (STEP, IGES, Parasolid, native UG etc.) they still come in as dumb solids and the assemblies loose all of their mates. I know we could then go in, use Featureworks to recreate the parts, and then remate everything, but the idea is not to have to do all that.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Maybe some purchasable translaters that would work?
Thanks
Does anyone have any suggestions? Maybe some purchasable translaters that would work?
Thanks






RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
SW has the built in Pro-E converter and will help you out in many ways. SW also provides FeatureWorks to help you with turning a dumb solid into a part with a Feature tree. It will require work on your part though.
But you will still have some hurdles to overcome with the Data translations, they are not all fixed with the Tools that are Avail.
The Data translation type is Parasolid, STEP, IGES, ACIS in that order from good to bad in SW. none-the-less they are all dumb solids and there is nothing you can do about it other then the above.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Is that Pro-E converter that you taked about just File/open/select the Pro-E file and it opens? or is there a special tool somewhere?
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Our biggest problem is that we can't find good Solidworks/Mechanical people to justify buying a bunch more seats. Most of the people we test just don't cut it. Usually they are slow and couldn't detail their way out of a box, let alone having a clue about design. The few diamonds in the rough that we do find want too much money (according to my boss) or we do get them in here and they move on quickly. There just isn't alot to choose from.
Having said that, if there is anyone looking for a job let me know.
We basically only have one seat of UG which nobody uses much so my boss thought we could put it to use. We have a guy who knows Pro-e and UG so sometimes he uses it. The slowdown in the Pro-e work is very temporary, so instead of paying people to sit around for a couple of weeks or laying them off (it's hard to find a good group of Pro-e people so they don't want to risk losing them), my boss thought maybe we could make them productive this way.
The "Fairly easy to solve this one, buy more seats of Solidworks" comment sounds nice, but I'm not the one holding the purse strings. We have been yelling for more seats for a few years now and we get the "we need to make money to spend money" comments.
The bottom line is that we have an overload of Solidworks work but we don't have the people to use it, so they don't feel they can buy more licenses yet.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
I am currently looking for mechanical design position using Solidworks. My background includes a BSME
and 5 years Solidworks. Please let me a little about your company (website, products, contact info).
Thanks
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
http://www.eng-tips.com/market.cfm
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
I strongly believe your company should pick only one 3D CAD product for design (Solidworks, Pro-E, or UG).
Otherwise you will always have data managment problems or group confusion. Best for your boss to make this decision to remove the remaining two CAD programs from all computers. Not really to critical which program you select since all are very similar in functionality.
Solidworks can directly import files from Pro-E and UG using the file "Open" command. However importing may not be a problem free process. For example latest versions may not be supported. Also you would have to repair mates and be faced with dumb solids like you mentioned. You might want to also consider leaving as dumb solids if likelyhood of changes are small, just repair mates and continue.
You might want to check the following site for data translators:
http://www.cadcam-e.com/solutions.aspx
I have not used these types of programs before.
Best to obtain a free trial if possible to test quality.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
As far as data management goes, our Pro-E side and the Solidworks side are on completely different networks due to security issues.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
How about using temporary workers that you can outsource work to when things get really busy. I look for this kind of work, and I am sure there are many others that would be willing to get extra work on the side in your area. Is this conducive to the type of work you do? I am not asking for work (I'm trying to be careful here as CorBlimeyLimey suggested) but suggesting a possibility. I don't know if the training to do your kind of work would defeat the purpose of using temporary workers outside the company. There are benefits to the company in not having to pay the benefits of an in house employee.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Conversely, if a person is an effective Pro/E or UG user, picking up SWASL ("SolidWorks As a Second Language") should come with minimal difficulty.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
If you guys need more Solidworks seats, are you using FlexLM floating licenses? Sometimes if you have people that aren't using Solidworks for the day, it opens the license for someone else. We had 75 people using 25 licenses.
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Our Pro-E/UG people are definitly qualified to learn SW, it's just 99% of the time they are needed on their own systems. It's hard for my boss to justify the expense to train them all when it will hardly ever be used.
I'm not sure about our licenses. Up to a few weeks ago we only had two seats at this office. I think they have just leased 5 more, if that is the right term for it.
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
I can't believe you live where you live and can't find any qualified Engineers/Designer when there are plenty of Engineers/Designers looking for a job. I would think some training would be required. I have never started a job and there not be some training involved especially if the job requires a new or possibly similar CAD system. Or if the I have used SW in the past that I have to learn new tools.
There are some colleages that teach SW, you might consider looking towards those schools for some talent. They need work when School is over and they will work for less then I would. IMO training could be justified when they take less wages then it would for someone like myself that is seasoned in CAD.
Best Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Here's their web site http://www.translationtech.com/
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Try getting the file in a different format and see if that helps...
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
current employer (I am a contractor) using nothing SW, and not requiring their vendors to do the same.
I just upgraded our set-up to give me FeatureWorks, now I just have to find some info to read on it!
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
See FAQ559-716
Featureworks:
Use the interactive portion of Featureworks, that will be the only way you will get your model to work.. Automatic only finds the basic stuff.
Did mean anything by my comment about you as a person and your history in CAD... other then it looked like you came here to complain about SW and the built in Translator.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
bc
RE: Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation
Some design houses have customers that want CAD data in their native format, so they own many CAD systems.
David