New job using Solid Edge

[Standing]

What advise would you give me, to get up to speed using Solid Edge, as quickly as possible? I am coming from a SolidWorks environment. May 5, 2003 is my starting date. The things I am interested in exploring is automating Solid Edge, plus mechanical design. Can Solid Edge use Visual Basic 6.0 to fill in the title block information of the drawing? Can the solid model populate the drawing title block? Can the date and time be printed on the drawings at time of printing?
Thank you,
Bradley

 

[Pekelder]

I only have experiance with SE, not with SW, but I think you will learn quickly.

SE has some nice tutorials which might help you get to know the program and the look-and-feel.

SE can be automated using VB, there is a programming-manual (I think on the CD, else use the support-site. There are examples of automating SE on the CD. When you know VB, they can help you to make a start.

The program itself has some automating functions in the call-out textblocks such as filename, dates etc. but with VB you can automate it further (although I have no hands-on experience).

What might bother you the most is the different approach to relations. In SE, the solid is the base, the drawing is the derivative (?). You can alter a dimension only by opening the part (or assembly) and changing the solid model, not by clicking the dimension in the drawing. To me it is logical, to a SW'er it might take some getting used to.

Good luck in your new job.

Regards,

Pekelder

 

[Standing]

Thank you for your response, Pekelder

What you are telling me sounds very encouraging. Sounds like Solid Edge will work out just fine. I am glad to see that a lot of Solid Edge users do not fill in the title block with text. Thank you pointing out that Solid Edge can use Visual Basic. Of course then again this data entry could be a built in feature of Solid Edge, which would be even better.

Changing the model to get the drawing to change is the only feature I use. I have always turned of the feature of clicking the drawing dimension to change a model. Your right, it is very logical.
Thanks again,


Bradley

 

[Edgeomatic]

The Best Advise I can give you is that if your employer has an active maintinance contract with Solid Edge, check out the news groups hosted by EDS. Although this is a good resource for Solid Edge, the fact is there is a much larger user base on the EDS hosted groups.
Go here to find out how to access the groups:

http://support.plms-eds.com/html/conferencing.html

The titleblock is most effectively filled in by using the callout command, which get their attributes from the part, assembly or draft file. As far as printing the print date on the drawing I'm not sure if that can be done with callouts.
From the Solid Edge Help menu check out "Programming with Solid Edge" to see the VB capabilities.