Ideas vs. Solidworks

[dklarz]

Can anybody give me an opinion regarding Ideas vs. Solidworks in relation to modeling capabilities, ease of operation, drafting/assembly transitions and user friendliness? I've recently joined a consulting firm that has a client request for an Ideas project that I'm trying to convince will be much happier with Solidworks (they use both systems). Any opinions? I know it'a a loaded question but I'm looking for some rough comparisons here. I'm a Solidworks fan myself and believe I can complete the project in less than half the time it would take to do the job in Ideas.

Thanks - Dadelar

 

[BobM3]

There's an "Engineering Computer Programs" group with subgroups on Solidworks and, I'm guessing, Ideas. I know a year or so ago there was a long heated debate on Inventor vs. Solidworks. I'd guess you'd find a lot of opinions in those forums.

 

[jelmerra]

i-deas takes a bit more effort to get going. The pdm bit works quite well when you are working together on projects. Drafting is a bit different. I think you would use ideas for more complicated stuff when you make use of the pdm part. Modelling used to be quite good. Now that ugs has taken over it is no longer main stream. I still have ideas running but I changed over to nx.

good luck with your ideas project.

 

[GregLocock]

So far as managing the project goes there is no difference, and any competent operator should be able to swap between the two reasonably quickly, or else you hire someone who is proficient in the new program.

Oh, and good luck with telling your client what to do, I'm really sure they'll appreciate your sales pitch.

modeling capabilities- identical. may require some hard work. IDEAS is better for boolean operations, and its history tree seems more robust but less easy to understand.

ease of operation- who really cares, that's the CAD guy's problem

drafting/assembly transitions- 2D CAD - IDEAS, but not by much. Both make a job that a simple program like AutoCAD v11 can handle well rather difficult IMO. Assembly - can't say I like either, I think I get SW right more often than IDEAS on the first try, but neither seems to match my expectations.

and user friendliness-see ease of operation.

For free form solid modelling I'd rather use SW myself, but if I already had IDEAS and was paying someone else to create models I'd expect native IDEAS models.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[KENAT]

Can’t speak for Works or Ideas as my experience is Solid Edge (Solid What, I know) and some Pro E.

However, I’ve been in a similar situation regarding which CAD system to use at my last employer. They’d had Solid Edge for a couple of years. They had a change in Engineering director to someone more familiar with Pro E. They decided to move to Pro E, their argument being that some of our major customers used Pro E, it was more compatible with Catia than SE and that it was more mature/advanced/powerful. In reality I think it was mainly because it was what they were used to.

After a couple of years they left the company. Leaving the company in a situation where they’d shelled out a lot of cash for Pro E without seeing much reward. Despite having had some training & small projects on Pro E most of the other Engineers & I couldn’t use it as well as we could SE, and just to put the icing on the cake the guy the director had brought in that was familiar with Pro E left a few weeks after the director!

The new interim director decided we needed to get up to speed on Pro E as he’d been sold on the propaganda. A job came up to take one of our major products which was still on paper/linen/film and put it on CAD. They did the costing based on using SE, I was involved in this. They then decided to actually do the work on Pro E to justify it’s cost. As our staff was busy on other projects and wasn’t very familiar with Pro E they brought in 2 contractors to help. The contractors didn’t seem to know any more than us, in one case less and just bleated on about how we had Pro E set up differently from where they’d worked before!

Anyway, to cut to the chase, the project ended up going around 3 times over budget, plus pretty much killed any remaining enthusiasm for Pro E.

So we were left with a major product on a CAD system none of us were still any good with as contractors had done most of the work, with some questionable modeling practices as the contractors were of questionable quality and we’d paid tens if not hundreds of thousands of $ for the privilege.

Chalk one up to good management!

Anyway what I’m trying to say is make sure you do all the research you can to get a comparison. Prepare comparative quotes based on each CAD system if need be. However, at the end of the day the customer, &/or manager makes the decision. There may be factors beyond your understanding/control.

Good luck!

 

[Theophilus]

An oft-overlooked factor--but one you're already dealing with, so may as well high-light. SolidWorks is much more commonly used (within my realm, anyway) than IDEAS. This means simplicity when files change hands from design to marketing to manufacturing to documentation, etc. etc.

Obviously, you'll want as little headache with a project as possible, whether it's on the CAD guys shoulders or yours. Ultimately, if you're running the project there's no point whatsoever in making a decision that makes more work for a team member.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[Heckler]

I remember my days at Lockheed Sunnyvale which was a big user of SDRC Ideas....600+ seats. It seemed Ideas was very convoluted especially with drawings. This was back when they used this thing called drafting setup...circa 4.0. We also had some programs that used Pro/E which was choice back then. I thought UGS had converted IDEAS to NX?

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
XP Pro SP2.0 P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
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_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he's all right." -- George Best

 

[65Roses]

Just a smart-allec comment from one of the guys in the heated SW vs. Inventor argument forum: AT LEAST YOU ARE NOT FORCED TO USE INVENTOR! Anything other than Inventor is an improvement and a pleasure to deal with.

Why is my handle 65Roses?
Please visit

http://www.cff.org/aboutCFFoundation/About65Roses/

to learn why!

 

[tygerdawg]

probably one of the most useful opportunities to get some opinions on this would be the internet newsgroup comp.cad.solidworks . If you don't have a newsgroup connection, I think that it can be found also on Yahoo Groups.

Beware, though, once you ask this question it will probably ignite a firestorm of invective from the self-righteous highly opinionated CAD nerds who prowl those discussion groups. You'll have to filter the comments for useful info.

TygerDawg

 

[Theophilus]

Yikes--I find the local discussion on SolidWorks much MUCH better than the newsgroup. Direct, to-the-point, and almost no invective.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.