solid modeling

[Wolverine]

Is anyone out there using a mid-level solid modeler (SolidWorks, Inventor, etc.) for the complete design of tugboats, barges, yachts, etc.?

[guest12020101217]

Yes, a couple of company in uk use Solidworks to design commerial RIBs, ie for, Oil industry, patrol boats etc.

Hull, Stabilty, powering etc is in Maxsurf, Hydromax, hullspeed or like.
Hull shapes have to be re-modeled in 2000 from maxsurf, but with later verisons of solidworks 2001+ and above, your can import iges files from hydrolink or maxsurf and solidworks will break the hull down into useable parts. In 2000 it tends to keep the hull as one solid so you have problems cutting or extruding parts of it. Also sometimes it cuts the model in half.

The companies has developed large databases of parts. Moulds, engine, pumps etc etc.
Pricing is very good. Look at costs for ship contructor and remember with the basic solidworks package you don't get limited to X number of parts and you don't need autoCAD as well.
Solidworks far out proforms autoCAD and like.
I know two UK companies use Solidworks and a couple of others use other 3D packages. Pro E is used by one l think.
Solidworks is a bit weak on things like doing a simple 2D wiring diagram, A 3D one takes a little longer but can be clear and once you have modelled something, ie a 10amp fuse you can use it again and again.

Check out some of the Franch (and other euro) production yacht makers. They use 3D.

Cheers for reading
cjdengate

[rvt]

Originally Posted by Wolverine

Is anyone out there using a mid-level solid modeler (SolidWorks, Inventor, etc.) for the complete design of tugboats, barges, yachts, etc.?

We did a comparison of Pro/E vs SW2004. It turned out that Pro/E is a high-end package for a mid-end price. Pro/E tend to be more a engineering (Design for manufacturing) package while SW is more like a general modeller and you have to do some more work to get the right engineering data out of it. With SW2004 we still had some problems with surfaces whilst Pro/E can handle them easily.
We didn’t test Inventor because that package is still under ‘development’ and in our opinion not ready yet for complex assemblies and double curved shapes, not even talking about doing that parametric…..

If you compare the price of Pro/E vs SW2004 office then Pro/E is a little bit more expensive then SW (about 2000 euro in three years more expensive compared to SW). But that is because for Pro/E you need some more education (11 days for Pro/E vs 7 days for SW, 1 day update training for both packages) If you want to do calculations with mechanic (or cosmos in SW) then Pro/E is cheaper (about 3000 euros in three years).

The ROI for engineering is only 1 year!! If you take the workshop in account it's about 9 month but that depends highly on your current situation. In the calculations we added Installation, support, educations and a maintenance contract.

The total investment in one year for two licences is about 30.000 euro and after tree years it will be a total sum of 40.000 euro, these numbers look high but REMEMBER your ROI will be after about 8-1.5 year but that highly depends on your current situation.

[guest12020101217]

Dear rvt.

Thank you for your post, my usage of pro e have been limit compear to solidworks and your study was most intreseting.
Am l correct that the study was done for a company you work for? And that your are in the manufacturing sector?

Quote: "Pro/E tend to be more a engineering (Design for manufacturing) package while SW is more like a general modeller."

If so, want was the product type you work on?

[rvt]

Dear rvt.

Thank you for your post, my usage of pro e have been limit compear to solidworks and your study was most intreseting.
Am l correct that the study was done for a company you work for? And that your are in the manufacturing sector?

Quote: "Pro/E tend to be more a engineering (Design for manufacturing) package while SW is more like a general modeller."

If so, want was the product type you work on?

It is/was for a company I work for..
We create masts, flush deck hatches, Inboom furling, spars etc for sail ships in the range from 60' to 150' (20-50 meters) but longer if you want..

Like any other comparison it's difficult to calculate the ROI but these figures where best guessed from know figures found on the net. And you can only do a real comparison IF you have been working with both programs for a extended time.... But if that was the case, you properly wouldn't make a comparison after all
Most people tend to forget implementation costs, course costs and re-learning curves, and maintenance costs..

rvt