Considering solidworks - need advice

I've used both solidworks and catia in limited fashion, but i've seen experts use both, and its amazing in little time what can be drafted. From my limited understanding is solidworks is aimed at small engineering firms while catia is aimed at the big guys, like (in my field of work) Boeing and Airbus. From what i've been told is that Catia allows multiply designers to work on the same assemblies at the same time, ie. one designer can be drafting the compressor blades for the jet engine whilst another can be drafting the turbine blades for the very same engine in real time, but correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Thats it,---- I ain't flying again

 

Oh i forgot to mention that with catia it does the hole kit and kaboodle, hydralics and electrical wires, even down to componets on CCT boards, it is suppose to be the total solution, which i can see would work really well in a large ship designing firm.

 

Formsys, maybe i wasn't using SC correctly.

The drawing creation i was referring to was the frame booklet. From what I remember the frames could be brought in but I had to label everything and put all the dimensions and hassle with the longitudinals to get them in there(times "X" amount of frames). Maybe I should look into SC again...

The solidworks videos make 2D creation look so easy, I assume catia does it like SW?

 

Ship Constructor

If you’re in shipbuilding, this software is built for you. If used and setup properly, this package can give you everything required for ship construction. And yes it can be used in nesting quite efficiently.

 

I used Solidworks 2008/2009. Tired of bugs and crashes I traded it in on Inventor 2010. It doesnt have as many modelling features but the ones it does have work well - most of the time. It crashes every now and then but a lot less than SW (using same machine). But I dont use it stand alone. My hull shapes and plate development are done in Maxsurf, everything else is done in Inventor. I import the surfaces as iges and work from there. (same for when I used SW). All the 3D programs have sheet metal but they dont develop compound surfaces properly hence the need for Maxsurf & Workshop. BTW with this combination I have no need for Rhino and dont use it.

I didnt choose Ship Constructor because it wasnt fully parametric back then. Dont know about now. Simple test. Model an engine girder then move it 200mm out board. Does it automatically re-trim itself to the bottom surface. Advanced test. Can you take a deck house assembly, change the length, height and width dimensions and have all the parts and drawings auto update. All 3D cad can do both of these in seconds.

Inventor is cheaper than Solidworks, comes standard with rendering, vault, Autocad standard and Autocad Mechanical, so you get a lot more for your money. It's frame generator and BOM are much better. Its also 64bit native so model size isnt a problem - but I must admit though that my assemlies arent that big - yet (only 250 parts, same when using SW). The way it regenerates the model is far superior. SW regenerated every part every time you edit anything, even if it's not directly related. Inventor doesnt. It only regen's what is relevant making it much faster. SW says you can turn that off but that's only if there's no parametric link, not sure if same for 2010.

That said, Solidworks now has 2010 out and maybe its better. Check out their forum and see what the users are saying. https://forum.solidworks.com/index.jspa

I have only demo'd Solidedge but I didnt like the Interface. A friend of mine just traded his solid edge in and switched to Inventor.

You should also look at ProE. More expensive than INV, SW and SE but cheaper than NX and Catia. Didnt support multi body parts when I looked at it. Neither did Solid Edge. I use multi body parts all the time.

SW and SE can send assembly features back to the base part. Inv cant which is a pain that has to be worked around using multi body parts and derived parts.

One perceived disadvantage of all of them is that they are not aimed at shipbuilding so they dont have any ship building specific features. This for me is also a huge advantage as you're not limited by the way they think ships should be built and you can model anything, from seats and steering wheels to engines and girders. And you have the choice to be fully parametric or turn it off if you want. You can rearrange your assembly as the model progresses and you can re-use parts and assemblies over different projects. Being general makes them very flexible.

For nesting I've just finished evaluating Sigmanest and Pronest. Both work pretty much the same and give similar results and nest in similar times. It will come down to price which is still being haggled.

They will all have good and bad points but I went for Inventor as its better value for money and comes with Autocad. If you do go for SW try and negotiate a 6 month money back period. Ask the re-seller for a current and past bugs list.

You have a steep learning curve ahead and will have to re-think the way you design and the way you present your drawings. Once you get your head around the best way to put your model together it can be quite fast.

Good luck!

Oh I forgot, I hated Inv 2008 which is why I originally went for SW, but Inv 2010 has a new interface and lots of new stuff which is why I switched to it.

 

That was very helpful alidesigner, thank you very much!

I'll take a look at ProE.

This is the first I’ve herd of a frame generator in INV. I've defiantly got to look into that too.

 

No Probs - didnt realize it got so long!

In SW frames are generated in weldments. They arent saved as standard parts.

In Inv, weldment and frame generation are seperate. The frame generator generates the frames as individual standard parts which means you can use standard modelling tools to edit them if you want, but it also has its own end treatment commands too.

The BOM reporting of lengths needs a bit of customisation but is far superior to SW - and accurate (SW sometimes gave incorrect lengths and quantities).

 

Everyone has their own opinions, and cad packages tend to incite religeous wars. With that in mind:

We did an 18 month evaluation of cad packages last year and the year before. Inventor was the clear loser. I spent 5 years with inventor before I started here and got further with nx in a month than I had with inventor in all that time.

I have turbocad pro platinum at home and would use that ahead of inventor any day. It's not a proper modelling package but what it does it does elegantly.

If you do a proper analysis of workflows and mouse clicks inventor is really poor. We found the fea was giving wrong answers on standard tests.

If you like it more power to you, I hate it with a passion.

Finally here is Australia NX is modular licenced. A basic mach 1 package is about as much as solidworks. You can then add licences as you need them. It has dedicated ship design modules. I have not used them nor know what they cost, but I am sure the sellers would be happy to demonstrate for you.

alidesigner:

I would be interested to know if you had any specific problems with solid edge, apart from not liking it generally.

 

You're right these discussions always draw out the passionate supporters. However my opinion on SW and INV is based on using them daily for over a year each. INV the clear winner.

That said if DSS got their act together and released a version of SW that was reliable and worked properly, then it would be the best. But they dont. They are happy to subject their customers to around 1500 bugs per release and around 6 service packs per release. The 2009 version had a bug where drawing views didnt update after model changes. It wasnt fixed until service pack 2.1.

NX looks great, but its just too expensive and the sales reps refused to give a demo license and there was no one here to do a demo. So I couldnt do an evaluation on it. They were so hopeless they couldnt even tell me what modules to buy or give a fixed quote. When I asked for technical data on the capabilities of the modules all they sent was the sales brochure off the web site. They were just hopeless to deal with. Also they are owned and sold by the same people as Solid Edge yet they compete with eachother so you cant even get an honest comparison out of them.

I think with what the mid range cad has to offer these days that NX and Catia are becoming expensive overkill - could be wrong though. But I have to wonder what productivity gains NX would give at around 4 times the cost, and then you still have to buy Autocad on top. Might be a different story if you need free form surfacing but I dont. I can do a small boat in around 6 weeks. I dont think NX or Catia would bring that down to 1.5 weeks.

I had no specific problems with Solid Edge except that it doesnt support multi body solids, and its smart ribbon bar step by step modelling is sooooo sloooow.

I agree the old Inventor was terrible but the 2010 release and the changes that came with it made a huge leap. Inventor fusion which is in beta testing is going to give Solid Edge's synchronous technolgy a good run for its money

INV 2011 is due out next month. Will be interesting to see what they have added.

 

I forgot, I need to be able to sweep a surface and constrain it to be perpendicluar to a surface along its length (for modelling bottom stringers).

Solidworks and Solid Edge couldnt do it without extensive work arounds, Inventor does it easily as part of its sweep feaure.

 

Make sure we are comparing the latest releases. A year and a half old software compared to today is like apples and oranges.
Thanks for all the feedback guys.

 

I have seen the video of um.. mega yacht? designed totally in SW. The video showed the model rotating around a bit, it didn't seem too bad..

Anyone else have some solidworks ship design experience they would like to share?

 

I guess you're talking about the Westport video. I have spoken with them about how they use Solidworks about 2 years ago. They use it for their interiors. Hull shape and structure are done in Rhino which is then imported into SW so the interior can be modelled. When we asked the why they used Rhino instead of SW for structure he just said that's what the Naval Architects prefer. Have another look at the video. It's all interior and exterior. Not much in the way of structure and machinery.

You might like this artice about how 3 German shipyards chose NX
http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIII/MMIIIJan14.html