Migration tool from Ideas to Solidworks

[ChristopheMazeaud]

Hi all.

Does somebody of a migration tool from ideas to Solidworks?
If so waht is your experience? Have you got documentation or best practices to share?

Thanks in advance.
Chris.

PS: this question has already be posted here thread404-220226

 

[handleman]

I'm about 99% sure that none exist. It is probably possible to batch-export your 3D models out of Ideas and import them into SW, but no feature history will be saved, and 2D drawings will not be able to be converted. Costwise, your best option is probably to offshore the migration work to India or somewhere like that. However, if you choose to go that route, you need to firmly establish your internal best practices for SW data and how to model parts/assemblies and create drawings in SW. Communication of these standards, along with any Hole Wizard data, templates, standard custom properties, etc. would probably be the most difficult challenge in any outsourcing of data migration. Get one or two small packages done in-house first and send them as examples, then get one or two similar small packages done by the outsource company for approval before dumping your entire dataset.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[ChristopheMazeaud]

Hi handleman,

Thanks for your answer and comments. Outsourcing the migration to India is one of the possibility we are valuating but seems very risky (time/money).

I was told that Elysium Inc have some tools (

http://www.elysiuminc.com/)

but I am not sure it is the best / cheapest way of doing such a migration.
I'd like to know if someone has used this (or other) tools and have some experiences to share...

Regards
Chris

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

As handleman states, there is no native utility in either software which directly converts (migrates) one format to the other. However, you could save the I-DEAS files as parasolid, import those into SW, and then use the Feature Recognition module to create editable features. I doubt this would be suitable though, especially if some of the original files have complex features.

If you want to keep the conversion in-house, third party software such as offered by

http://www.translationtech.com/

may meet your needs. Unfortunately I have no personal experience with it. If you do use it (or any other software/service), please report back with your experience ... good or bad.

 

[drawoh]

handleman,

In the Mechanical Engineering forum, I advised to generate the SolidWorks drawings manually, in-house. My primary point was that this would be good training for his users. It would be nice to have some practical experience with the software before you start trying to do real work with it.

You cannot have good CAD procedures unless you have used the CAD software. Thus, you cannot communicate your CAD standards to an Indian sub-contractor.

I observe that ChristopheMazeaud identifies himself as a comuter person, not mechanical. The problem is being perceived as a computer problem and not as a mechanical design problem. In the end, either you want to be doing mechanical or industrial design, or you need a different piece of software.

JHG

 

[josephv]

One thing we tried a while back was to export a PKG file from I-DEAS to UG NX, and then STEP or Parasolid files from UG NX to SolidWorks.

This worked quite well. Of course these were only dumb solids, but it was ok since in this project the parts weren't changing.

cheers,

 

[ChristopheMazeaud]

Hi all.

Thanks for all your answers.
The point is that I was looking for an on-site, feature based migration tool for both 3D and 2D files. The goal is to migrate thousands of files.

Thanks to your inputs and the following page:

http://www.tenlinks.com/cad/translation/software.htm

I have enought information, even if I haven't found yet the perfect tool :-(

Best regards