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Moving to R17

Moving to R17

Moving to R17

(OP)
Hi there,

As for product design and surface modeling, would the enhancements in R17 justify an upgrade from R16?

Anybody using Free Style and Automotive Class A WB extensively in the two releases?

Thanks in advance.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Quote (CadArtist):

As for product design and surface modeling, would the enhancements in R17 justify an upgrade from R16?

What exactly do you mean "upgrade from R16?"

Are you talking about BUYING the upgrade from R16 to R17?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

Cadartist - what do your suppliers use?  This would be the question to answer.

From a tooling perspective - R16 is very adequate, R17 will be used for symmetrical tools only.

Regards,
Derek

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
DBezaire, I just want to know if there is anyone familiar with the two workbenches I mentioned in the two releases who don't mind gives his/her findings regarding the enhancements or any useful added features to these two WBs only from a practical point of view concerning freeform modeling and surfacing.

If I set my mind for an upgrade I have my contacts. Thanks for everyone's concerns regarding it.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Quote:

If I set my mind for an upgrade I have my contacts.

What does this mean?

I was trying to ask you what you meant by an "upgrade"?  Are you talking about BUYING R17?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
solid7

I was clear. I ask for a professional advice. I am running both R15 and R16 together on XPs. And really if there is any considerable improvements in the two WBs I mentioned I would consider a half working day loose to back-up all the current jobs and add 17 to our primary workstations. Otherwise I will continue on the two I mentioned earlier for the current job. No Risk.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

CadArtist - I asked because it *wasn't* clear. (I'm sure that it was to you)

I won't bother to explain myself, since you got the answer you wanted.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

Clarification: you don't pay DS, IBM, or any other resellers for an upgrade to CATIA.  Paying your annuall license fee entitles you to upgrades.  You do have to pay internal costs for testing, intstalling, and deploying your upgrade.

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
It's not the matter of the cost or licensing, that is the business of the company owners. As for what I am concerned and designing and my quality policy any move to a newer version should be justified by the added features and enhancements, performance improvement and stability tests after a certain period for certain tasks. I don't do beta testing. And for CAE  and CAM there are nice guys here who know what they are doing and clients' and manufacturers' requirements and how to be attuned to their demands and what output they are looking for.
But I don't jump straight into a newer version unless it's been qualified even if it comes free.

My question revised:

Has been there any noteworthy enhancements and improvements in Part Design, Generative Shape Design, Imagine and Shape, FreeStyle and  Class A workbenches and overall stability in R17 compare to R16 with SP8?

I know who might have the right answers would be extremely busy with his/her job and it would be of his/her extreme kindness to mind a post for a professional comment.

Thanks all anyway.
 

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

When we choose to upgrade from one release to another, we do an analysys that includes not only enhancements, but also bug fixes.  Generally, we give more priority to bug fixes than we do to enhancements when we chose that release.  

That being said, we are still on R14, and feeling a lot of pain from current bugs.  We intentionally chose to skip R15, because R14 was pretty stable at the time.  When we tried to implement R16 this last summer, we finally hit so many problems that we gave up.  Now we are looking at an R17 upgrade that is an absolute must.  But it will still take us 6 months to implement.  Oh, the joys of a complex environment :)

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
catiajim Hi

Did you mean the R14 (currently SP10 is there for it) is more stable than R15 and 16 (with sp7 and 8 respectively)? Are they still supporting R14? I mean they will do bug fixing for it as with any more SP in 2007?
All those damn bugs! I hate them. At least NXs are better in that respect. I mean less buggy.  

God bless McNeel and associates!, Rhino does great things. There is always a place for it on my desktop.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Quote:

At least NXs are better in that respect. I mean less buggy.

Ahem!  You mean like that little issue in NX2 (that existed in every service pack) where you could type in 4.0000 and it would interpret it as a different number than 4, or 4.0?

Look, I'm a big fan of UG - but don't kid yourself.  It's a similar product, in a similar predicament.  Certain parts of it are bettr, or "less buggy", but the same can be said for Catia. (or anything else)

And Rhino - while it's a great supplement to Catia - especially for those who think that FreeStyle is NOT an optional module - it's still just exactly what it is - and that's a low-end CAD package.

Get somebody who can provide low end CAD quality and service,and high end functionality, and I'm all ears.  Otherwise, it's just your frustration speaking...

Good luck with the new release.  I haven't seen any major improvements with R17 - but in all fairness, I, like most Catia users, don't put the software through all of it's paces.  It's easy to miss things that way.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

About R14...

As we also are still using it... the choice of going to the next level is not only about new (bug) functions... CATIA is not alone, VPM, ENOVIA, oracle... have to follow the way up. So sometime it is better to wait a little bit and make a full test and a big jump then several test/validation and small jump.

Happy are those who can change to new release when they are out. I wish it could be that easy.

we do not change catia level for the fun of it (if there is any) but because we gain something. That's what CadArtist wants to know.

I would have ask another question : Do you know any bug going from R16 to R17 ... AS FOR THE NEW STUFF CAN BE FOUND IN THE ONLINE DOC (AS USUAL)

Eric N.
indocti discant et ament meminisse periti

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
Solid7,
I have here FreeStyle and Class A, also the best of surface modelers (Alis, Icem and Imageware)here and I still keep Rhino. In my job meeting class A surface standards and matching all those tolerance required for high-end packages is an everyday part of the job. Please don't worry about the quality of my surfaces. At least in this field I am an expert an being consulted and I am not just a surface modeler I am a designer and an engineer too. For me Rhino is a handy and lightweight toolbox and I still can have G4 blends without any needs for healing or rebuilding in any of those high end programs or any downstream packages. Just my familiarity with Rhino and all those programs I use is more than that of starting and closing the program and browsing the menus and far longer than that of a demo testing. And as for NXs it was in my opinion for sure, based on practical use. Depending on what we've used NXs for, and for how long our findings can vary. It's normal.

Anyway good luck to you too. Thanks.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
itsmyjob

What platform are you using?
I am still on R16 and the SP3 just has been released for R17. I will ask those guys working with R17 if they've found and reported anything not mentioned by IBM.

I myself will wait till SP6 or 7 before doing any serious job by R17 entirely.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

I would not say that R14 is less buggy than R15 or R16. It's just that it was stable for the functionality we were using at the time.  We have now started using some new functionality, and we have discovered some bugs with that new functionality.  When we decided we needed a new version, we chose R16, but due to some internal company issues, we didn't start until June.  After 3-4 months of testing, our last critical bug was not repeatable by DS, and we said enough.   We knew that we needed some functionality in R17, and we didn't want to push R16 in October/November and then turn around and try to push R17 in February/March, so we stopped testing R16.   Unfortunatly, internal resource issues have again struck, and we are now looking at R17SP5 (instead of SP3 as we had hoped), which puts us at the end of June for a production migration. :(

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
catiajim

That's it. I was questioning about the workbenches I mentioned in my posts. Other modules for CAM, CAE, etc, are not my concerns at the moment.   

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Hello, I was reading your posts, guys, about the fact that V5R14 was better than V5R16 or above, but due to DS lifecycle policy, we HAVE to migrate to new releases if we want to be supported. In a why it is good since we can benefit from these functionalities for free, and get all existing corrections too, but this could also somehow tricky since it forces us to constantly test and install new products.

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
It's not fair that customers are being forced to move into each new releases by CAD vendors even if you don't need those extra functionalities. Vendors must follow what their customers demand and they have to convince customers to pay for what they need.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

DS does not force you to migrate to new versions.  They generally support 2 versions back from the current.  And there is nothing forcing you to migrate anyway.  It's only if you want fixes for problems you are having, they will not fix anything older than 2 releases back (Currently R15 and R16, plus R17).   I can't blame them for that.  

I also didn't say that R14 was better than 15 or 16, just that we had problems when we tried to implement 16, and DS couldn't figure them out before R17 was released. We could have kept working and gotten fixes, but we didn't want to implement R16 in December, and then turn right around and start R17 right away.  R17 is mandatory for us, as it has some functionality that we really need.  

RE: Moving to R17

OK, so from your perspective, the current DS model is OK with you? Precisely, we know that the V5R14 is out of support on the 1st of January (I just got that from their web site), do you really think that this gives you enough time to migrate to a newer version?

By the way, I heard that DS is now taking the responsibility on the support for some part of their customers. We then probably will have DS havinf its own web site, support front-end teams, etc... I would be really happy to see that, because I don't feel IBM is today making an efficient job on that... But it may just be the same with DS, who knows?

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
Since only those two big boys are on the playground high-end CAD market lacking the much needed competition between innovative CAD vendors and more options as a result. I hope someday someone rise the bar.
  

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

OK, that's interesting. I myself am ready to start challenging DS on their support capacity and efficiency, and I think it will not be very difficult to be more performant than IBM today.
I got in the past some pretty bad experience with them...
What means "rise the bar" from your perspective? Have you some complains about IBM or DS Support to tell us?

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
For the high-end CAD users choices are very few. DS and UGS are the dominant vendors and almost all the other vendors are using either ACIS or Parasolid or both (except few who may use Granite or those from Think3 and Autodesk). Since you have not much choices, naturally you have to adopt those policies of your CAD vendors since you can't trash the new announcement for your maintenance support by your vendor and call others to send you their sales representatives.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

What do you mean the "other vendors" are using ACIS and Parasolid?

ACIS and Parasolid are simply modeling kernels, upon which a CAD system is built.  Catia is built on ACIS, and UG is built on Parasolid...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
Acis is from Spatial(owned by DS) and Parasolid is from UGS and others are licencing the use of the two's kernels. Only two majar suppliers for core modeling engine. No other competitor in that level (maybe PTC and Autodesk can do it in  future) to introduce new innovative features and a much more competitive environment for vendors targeting high-end CAD market.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
And also a much better customer support and much flexible options to choose from.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Hi
IN R17 you have the option to unfold free form surface that was previously unavailable in R16.that's the only improvement i know of.
ciao

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
rkhan,
Thank you very much for your concise note. Very much helpful.
I personally have started looking into R17 closely.
Do you have any experience with ICEM Shape Design?

Anyway,

Thanks all and a happy new year everybody.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

Quote:

IN R17 you have the option to unfold free form surface that was previously unavailable in R16.that's the only improvement i know of.

That's certainly not the only "improvement" that was released in R17.  R17 was a major release, and the changes are well detailed at Dassault's website.

By the way - I will be releasing an article concerning the DL1 workbench. (which is where the compound surface unfold feature resides)

-----------------------------------------------------------
Catia Design|Catia Design News|Catia V5 blog

RE: Moving to R17

Hello CadArtist,
What would be for you a much better customer support?
As I have only been a DS customer, I cannot compare with PTC or AutoCAD... Of course, I can't say that the IBM support of CATIA products is a very efficient one...

RE: Moving to R17

UG has excellent support that is included with your yearly maintenance fees.  They have expert's available by phone during normal working hours M-F. They always have someone
who answer's your call without having to leave a message or send an email that may never get responded to.

Our experience with Dassault is that your support is usually though a 3rd party who usually sells other software
as well which makes you wonder if you are really a priority.
Not to mention that their fees hover around $140/hr for tech
support.

It seems that Dassault could at least offer the same level of support as their main competitor.  They have a great software package but it's frustrating when you cannot get
immediate assistance when you hit a major roadblock or bug.

Just my two cents.

RE: Moving to R17

ncprogrammer,

You are right on the money. Dassault should look to UG as a benchmark in true customer support and should seek to emulate a system that works quite well.

thixoguy

RE: Moving to R17

(OP)
Exactly,

Except for Imageware(to my experience), UGS provides acceptable pro level support. I also like Delcam guys. They have a helpful user forum being monitored by their support team and normally you get immediate response and a solution for your problem from them and it's free of charge (sometimes just as effective as a direct call). Delcam is not the only one with an effective and useful forum for their users. For Catia users I doubt someone can claim same level of readily available support.

Car Designer

RE: Moving to R17

From my perspective, I think DS should develop a knowledgebase of information about their products, something you can search by yourself and gives you a quick answer without having to call someone.
User forums are for me only one part of the solution, they should publish documents, or at least all the hits & tips they could gather from their support stream.
The key question is how to get quickly to the right answer, and through forums, I feel that even if the answer could be there, it is quite tough to find it.

I would be interested to see DS participate more actively in the technical discussions with their users, again through forums, but also through webcasts.

I don't know about UG, do they have these kind of support functionalities?

RE: Moving to R17

Been gone for a while, and I have several comments:
1. Flattening of compound surfaces is the driver for R17 for us.  R17 also has a bunch of other enhancements, especially in the V4 to V5 migration arena (or are they just bug fixes?).

2. Yes, I am currently out of support at R14. Fortunately, I have a copy of R16 around that I can verify new problems and issues, and submit new PMRs based on the R16 validation.

3. We have the Enhanced Support contract with IBM, and I find that it is usually DS that falls down.  I get responses from IBM usually within a few hours.  When they have to turn it in to DS, however, it can take months.   My biggest complaint is statusing. I can submit a PMR, receive an APAR almost immediately, and get absolutely no feedback until all of the sudden the APAR closes.  It would be nice to here from them earlier stating that they are working on the problem and have found the source.

4.  The problem with a public Knowledge Base is that the competitors will be the first to use it - to show potential customers completely out of context, thus trying to convince them to select their product.  We know this, because it has happened in the past.  DS will be glad to provide you these documents for a price, and it's usually a high figure.  This is primarily to keep them out of the public domain, and thus away from their competitors.

RE: Moving to R17

Hello catiajim,

My comments:
2. OK, you submit your problems based on a R16 certification, but you have no way to receive fixes on R14 anymore. In the case of a critical problem, don't you think you take quite some risks?
I understand that migrating to R16 or R17 could be expensive, but I better migrate regularly than risk to be stucked in production on an unsupported level...

3. I agree with your comment about transparency: once the incident goes to DS, it seems that there is a blackout period where you don't see anything, until correction is available, or APAR is closed. But I think this is the complete chain of support, including IBM, which is failing. IBM should be our unique focal point of contact, and they should fight with DS more to get statuses, or better, improve their tools to provide enhanced visibility. DS could take much too long to correct a problem, I agree, but I also understand that they need time to build a patch and ensure the quality of the fix. So I think transparency is the key point here.
Now, as DS is taking the hand on some part of their channel, and will ensure the support directly to their customers, let's see if they have learned something from their past experience with IBM.

4. I suppose that DS would give access to this KB only to their customers, and publish only known bugs, like IBM is doing today. I don't think they have the choice anyway, all software editors is doing the same today.
In addition to that, I would be glad to get a database of FAQ, for free, to avoid contacting people when I have a question on how I do this and that.
What would DS competition do with such information?

By the way, happy new year!

RE: Moving to R17

Happy New Year to you as well!

2.  Yes, we can't get any R14 fixes.  But we haven't had any problems w/ R14 that could be fixed in R14 in 18 months.  All of the problems that we have encountered were not fixable in a Hot Fix.  There were a couple in later SPs, but it takes as much effort for us to test and validate an SP as it does a new release.  Bear in mind that we have ~1400 workstations (mix of Unix and Windows), and around 3000 users.  And rolling an SP usually involves pushing a new PTF of VPM, along with new PTFs for V4.  Big Mess!

3.  We actually pay not only for Enhanced Support, but also for a Customer Advocate (at IBM). I know that the failure is at the DS side, as even he cannot get response from development at times.

4.  There have been an number of efforts in this direction.  COE has come the closest to this, but whenever we have tried, companies have not been willing to share their PMR database.  

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