Pro-E/UG to Solidworks Translation

[diamondcat]

We soon will be having a problem in that we will have too much Solidworks work in house for the amount of Solidworks people we have. At the same time, we will have Pro-E and UG people who do not have any work to do. My boss would like to have the Pro-E or UG people design the jobs, then when they are done, transfer them over to Solidworks. We have done some translation testing with some native UG files and so far no luck. How ever we try to bring the assemblies over (STEP, IGES, Parasolid, native UG etc.) they still come in as dumb solids and the assemblies loose all of their mates. I know we could then go in, use Featureworks to recreate the parts, and then remate everything, but the idea is not to have to do all that.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Maybe some purchasable translaters that would work?

Thanks

 

[SBaugh]

Translation is translation you are the mercy of the translator. There is no way to bring in a feature from one CAD system to another.

SW has the built in Pro-E converter and will help you out in many ways. SW also provides FeatureWorks to help you with turning a dumb solid into a part with a Feature tree. It will require work on your part though.

But you will still have some hurdles to overcome with the Data translations, they are not all fixed with the Tools that are Avail.

The Data translation type is Parasolid, STEP, IGES, ACIS in that order from good to bad in SW. none-the-less they are all dumb solids and there is nothing you can do about it other then the above.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[diamondcat]

Thanks, I thought maybe there was some magic program I wasn't aware of.

Is that Pro-E converter that you taked about just File/open/select the Pro-E file and it opens? or is there a special tool somewhere?

 

[TheTick]

For the amount of money and time your employer will waste porting UG models to be drafted in SW, he could buy SW for each of the UG users.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

we will have Pro-E and UG people who do not have any work to do

Your boss (& the Pro-E & UG guys) should wake up & see the "writing on the wall" & start training to use SW ... or start handing out resumes.


Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[ewh]

Training will only help if there are enough licenses to go around.

 

[SBaugh]

It comes with SW. File open change type to Pro-E Partor assembly.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[sworks]

Fairly easy to solve this one, buy more seats of Solidworks. If you have enough work to justify the need, then purchase the software. For what you pay for maintenance on UG and Pro/E seats that are just sitting there, you can replace them with Solidworks seats. The UG and Pro/E translators in Solidworks will only do part and assembly models, no drawings. I think they should be able to justify spending the money, unless they don't do an ROI analysis on it. Seems like an easy fix...to me.

 

[diamondcat]

The reason my boss started this thought process is that we were in line for an order that would require us to add about 14 Solidworks people to our group.
Our biggest problem is that we can't find good Solidworks/Mechanical people to justify buying a bunch more seats. Most of the people we test just don't cut it. Usually they are slow and couldn't detail their way out of a box, let alone having a clue about design. The few diamonds in the rough that we do find want too much money (according to my boss) or we do get them in here and they move on quickly. There just isn't alot to choose from.
Having said that, if there is anyone looking for a job let me know.

We basically only have one seat of UG which nobody uses much so my boss thought we could put it to use. We have a guy who knows Pro-e and UG so sometimes he uses it. The slowdown in the Pro-e work is very temporary, so instead of paying people to sit around for a couple of weeks or laying them off (it's hard to find a good group of Pro-e people so they don't want to risk losing them), my boss thought maybe we could make them productive this way.

The "Fairly easy to solve this one, buy more seats of Solidworks" comment sounds nice, but I'm not the one holding the purse strings. We have been yelling for more seats for a few years now and we get the "we need to make money to spend money" comments.

The bottom line is that we have an overload of Solidworks work but we don't have the people to use it, so they don't feel they can buy more licenses yet.

 

[BSMECAD]

Hi diamondcat,

I am currently looking for mechanical design position using Solidworks. My background includes a BSME
and 5 years Solidworks. Please let me a little about your company (website, products, contact info).

Thanks

 

[diamondcat]

We are in Warren, MI are you near here?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Careful guys, Eng-Tips policy is "no recruiting" in the threads

http://www.eng-tips.com/market.cfm

Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[BSMECAD]

Hi diamondcat,

I strongly believe your company should pick only one 3D CAD product for design (Solidworks, Pro-E, or UG).
Otherwise you will always have data managment problems or group confusion. Best for your boss to make this decision to remove the remaining two CAD programs from all computers. Not really to critical which program you select since all are very similar in functionality.

Solidworks can directly import files from Pro-E and UG using the file "Open" command. However importing may not be a problem free process. For example latest versions may not be supported. Also you would have to repair mates and be faced with dumb solids like you mentioned. You might want to also consider leaving as dumb solids if likelyhood of changes are small, just repair mates and continue.

You might want to check the following site for data translators:

http://www.cadcam-e.com/solutions.aspx

I have not used these types of programs before.
Best to obtain a free trial if possible to test quality.

 

[diamondcat]

It's not feasible for a company to pick only one 3D system, I don't know of any company, other than the big three, that can realistically do that. You can't put all of your eggs in one basket especially in this business. If we had put all of our eggs in the Pro-E basket we would have absolutely no work now. Similarly, in the past, there have been times when we have had no Solidworks work. The only logical thing to do is cross train your employees in the different systems. Our customers dictate which systems we use.

As far as data management goes, our Pro-E side and the Solidworks side are on completely different networks due to security issues.

 

[pdybeck]

diamondcat,

How about using temporary workers that you can outsource work to when things get really busy. I look for this kind of work, and I am sure there are many others that would be willing to get extra work on the side in your area. Is this conducive to the type of work you do? I am not asking for work (I'm trying to be careful here as CorBlimeyLimey suggested) but suggesting a possibility. I don't know if the training to do your kind of work would defeat the purpose of using temporary workers outside the company. There are benefits to the company in not having to pay the benefits of an in house employee.

 

[diamondcat]

Again we have the problem of finding qualified people. We have tried that before (with other systems)but we don't like not having full control of a project. Typically, the people that offer to do that, already have a job and are looking for extra money for side jobs. This causes problems because typically our designers are constantly in contact with the customer and have face to face meetings approx. every other day. We also like to watch the design grow and have frequesnt reviews in house.

 

[SBaugh]

Have you talked to your VAR? They might be able to help you find some qualified people.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[TheTick]

If a person isn't qualified to learn SW, they ought not be allowed near UG or Pro/E.

Conversely, if a person is an effective Pro/E or UG user, picking up SWASL ("SolidWorks As a Second Language") should come with minimal difficulty.

 

[J-C]

Good one Tick.

If you guys need more Solidworks seats, are you using FlexLM floating licenses? Sometimes if you have people that aren't using Solidworks for the day, it opens the license for someone else. We had 75 people using 25 licenses.





Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[diamondcat]

Our VAR has found us a couple good people we have had come through here. Unfortunately they haven't stayed long.

Our Pro-E/UG people are definitly qualified to learn SW, it's just 99% of the time they are needed on their own systems. It's hard for my boss to justify the expense to train them all when it will hardly ever be used.

I'm not sure about our licenses. Up to a few weeks ago we only had two seats at this office. I think they have just leased 5 more, if that is the right term for it.