Renew or Not?

[dammerel]

Hi Guys
I will do a review, im off work for a few weeks for xmas break
ill make time to use the 30 day trail and make comments, they are plenty of youtube vids as well
it seems to have everything, sheetmetal, piping, 2d plans..the current price here in oz is $550 plus $200 per year

Andrew

 

[bigseb]

Yeah I saw the videos... a ton of them literally walking you through every process.

They use their own kernel, not sure if this a good thing or bad thing.

 

[dammerel]

Bigseb

using own kernel true, but i have always stored files as cad neutral step, sat, dwg etc
its a habit from a while ago using prime medusa, its more work but thats what i do

andrew

 

[Szumi]

I remembered being told that 299 was what my expert license would cost going forward for support. Then it went up and I renewed one more time before deciding this had got too rich for this hobbyist that has access to a seat of Solidworks at work.

 

[craneaero]

I have used Alibre Design/GM Design since 2006 and have found it to be excellent for my general 3D modelling purposes. Unfortunately, the habit of Alibre/GM of introducing useful add-on programs, only to ditch them a few years later has finally forced me to reconsider for the future. I will therefore not be renewing my maintenance this year. What will I be using in future ?
The answer is Autodesk Fusion 360. I have been using it alongside GM Design for the last year and have reached a stage where I can probably manage with Fusion 360 alone. What are the reasons ?
1. The cost of GM Maintenance in the UK exceeds £400 per year when including 20% VAT. This is around $600 US.
2. The cost of Fusion 360 is $25 per month or $300 per year. This is a no-brainer on its own. Note that this product has a world pricing policy - everyone pays the same.
3. Fusion 360 has far superior organic modelling and surfacing facilities. It includes both parametric and direct modelling tools.
4. Fusion 360 can read in the majority of industry standard file formats.
5. Fusion 360 now has a usable FE module built-in that will handle assemblies. It also has motion capabilities.
6. Fusion 360 has rendering capabilities built in.
7. Fusion 360 can utilise Autodesk A360 for on-line viewing of models and simulations.

I have never really come to terms with Alibre/GM 2D drawing, so I have never been able to do without Autocad LT . The only thing I do with it is generate views for transfer to Autocad, where I complete the drawings for manufacture and issue.
Autodesk's decision to go the subscription route has been great. I now subscribe to Autocad LT and Fusion 360 for little more than the GM Design Maintenance cost.

I will probably resort to my trusty GM Design for some things, such as sheetmetal design, but I think that I can live without the future upgrades, which will probably be minimal in any case.
As well as Fusion 360, I have also been using the Onshape Android App. It works fantastically well on my Samsung 12.2" Android Tablet with a Samsung Bluetooth S-mouse and Logitech keyboard.

To summarise, I still think that GM Design is one of the best general purpose 3D modelling packages around, but the maintenance costs have become prohibitive for me.
I will be retiring in 18 months time, but have decided to give GM Design early retirement.

 

[ynnek]

This has been an interesting read. I am at a crossroads myself. I have not purchased the maintenance in a couple of years, I am still on Alibre Design Professional 2012. I have been keeping up the maintenance on the CAM plugin. My job has changed a little & I now have the need to trade files. I had to jump through some hoops to get a recent assembly to someone in a file that was usable. They were on Solid Works. I was successful. But I do not like work-around's. I have inquired about upgrading to GMD or moving to Solid Works. Now at my new plant, I have access to SW, so I may get the powers that be to get me a seat also. That will require training & learning again. I am no expert in Alibre, but I am comfortable. How well does GMD translate to SW? That is what this will ultimately hinge upon. I have downloaded the trial. Does the Solid Works export work in the trial software? What to do?

 

[RCH_Projects]

...
2. The cost of Fusion 360 is $25 per month or $300 per year. This is a no-brainer on its own. Note that this product has a world pricing policy - everyone pays the same.
5. Fusion 360 now has a usable FE module built-in that will handle assemblies. It also has motion capabilities.
...

2. The cost I would pay is zero (as a startup - < $100,000 a year).
5. I've wrung out every conceivable problem in GD motion. I read your post while taking a break from what appears to be a last(?) unsurmountable problem. On Smooth Surface single point contact a "seam" and/or angular relationship can trigger unusable chart results or cascade constraint failures.

I consider GD the most user friendly CAD to be found for my work although limited by lack of gear and CAM/Follower features. Motion studies suck big time for my particular demands.

But Fusion is cloud computing and only as secure as the integrity of everyone from the director to the janitor (no offense to the janitor).

It is still a tough choice to relearn a CAD application, Motion; and no certainty the softwares perform any better (while risk of losing all containment of confidential work).

What features remain after a 30 day trial or how long the current fee structure remains is as uncertain as with the old Alibre.

 

[RCH_Projects]

Also consider for Fusion; no user version control (backward compatibility not assured at any time), no clarity when or which legacy files should/must be reprocessed to maintain viability when the software is upgraded, and no perpetual license (especially for a fixed local version) it appears. What if a user needs to drop back from a new release/patch due to compatibility issues? Are you willing to be a perpetual quasi-Beta version tester?

If perpetual licensing and a local version is made available I'm guessing it will be "without a discount".

Fusion could easily become a crapfest unless these issues are addressed.

 

[RCH_Projects]

Off topic but since I brought it up and found a solution, a reference to the issue in the proper forum is presented.

Resolved: "Noisy charts or other fail solutions" viewtopic.php?f=68&t=18816&p=116902#p116902

On Smooth Surface single point contact a "seam" and/or angular relationship can trigger unusable chart results or cascade constraint failures.

 

[simonb65]

I hesitantly renewed GD maintenance in December 2015 and am now wondering if I've really done the right thing!

Has ANYONE heard ANYTHING from 3D Systems with respect to GD development? ANY sign of a patch for the bugs introduced in 2015.1.1? Is there an update Beta out there beyond 2015.1.1? Just a Yes or No would give me a bit of confidence.

For someone who only uses this forum as support (and very rarely at that), and the lack of any noises from 3D Systems on bug fixes or roadmap ... I'm getting the feeling I've paid a significant amount of my cash into a black hole!

Don't suppose I'll get my money back if I never call support or get an update this year! Get a lot of emails about industrial grade printers that I'll never be able to afford though. :?

 

[DavidJ]

Hi Simon,

I'm not aware of any beta builds beyond 2015.1.1 so far.

The most complained about bugs in 2015.1.1 have proved troublesome for support/development to replicate - they are by no means universal. I haven't heard anything on this for a while.

I understand that there is work going on to improve the robustness of the Flexera licensing implementation. A ball-park target date was mentioned to me, but I don't know what other changes might make it in to any such release.

Development have asked for opinions on certain aspects of the complete GD package - I assume that means they may be thinking about changes, but I have no idea of timetable, or priorities.

All I can say really is that there are some signs that there is development work happening, I don't know likely scope or timetable though.... and if I did I obviously couldn't mention it here.

I appreciate that the deafening silence from Geomagic about its intent for the product can be quite worrying.

 

[simonb65]

Thanks for the feedback David. I know you can't say anymore, but at least it sounds like there is still movememt within the product ... all be it slow!

When 3D Systems announced it was dropping some product lines and rationalising, it did give the impression that resources would be more focused on a complementary suite of products and that they would then flurish (maybe just my perception based on similar mergers and buy outs), but the momentum seems to have died ...and sadly, so will the customer base if they are not careful and respond soon.

It would be interesting to know the size of the software team working on the Geomagic products. It may give an appreciation of the task they are dealing with and why the response is as it is.

 

[JL82]

http://reviews.caddit.com.au/2016/01/la ... unity.html

"Alibre Upgrade No Longer Available after 30 April 2016"

 

[simonb65]

http://reviews.caddit.com.au/2016/01/last-alibre-upgrade-opportunity.html

"Alibre Upgrade No Longer Available after 30 April 2016"

This is only a partial quote on the article ! It only states that CADDIT (one distributor) is stopping support of OLDER Alibre products and that Geomagic Design IS NOT AFFECTED !

So slightly alarmist and selective quotage there JL82 !

 

[HaroldL]

Only CADDIT dropping support? Well I'm not so sure about that, the second paragraph starts with "3D Systems business channel" so I would think this is a 3D Systems decision and will affect all distributors. And along with their (3D Systems) decision to close down the Andover, MA facility (isn't that where Geomagics' software group is?) it makes me wonder if Geomagic Design will be upgraded/updated or even be around. Remember, 3D Systems is 3d Printer company.

Wait and see... :|

 

[Jimpulse]

HaroldL>> decision to close down the Andover, MA facility (isn't that where Geomagics' software group is?)

Once purchased by 3DS, the Alibre product was "dumped" on the Geomagic software group in Morrisville, NC. (about 7mi. from my office) They purchased Geomagic a few months before the Alibre buy out. Theoretically, this would be the appropriate business unit to stick Alibre in, but alas, we were doubly cursed, Not only was the 3DS printer group a poor fit for Alibre, but Geomagic's claim to fame is it's well respected high end($$) point cloud reduction software. I rather doubt that the product developers / managers see much relevence in a product such as Alibre....but upper management said "here is a new product for you to support, have at it"

I did not get a comfotable feeling when I heard of the purchase and relocation of the Alibre product, and 3DS / GM has done nothing but reinforce that intuition.
After 7 years, I have dropped maintenance as a result. I hate to say it, but the best thing for this product (which I happen to like) is for 3DS to finally get bored with it, and sell it off to someone who actually is interested in running it as a business, with the intent of gowing the sales, supporting the customers and improving the software. It's hard to say if the product could survive another name change, though.



Jimpulse

 

[JST]

Do you mean that the 3DS people got the program completely without any of the folks who had been writing and supporting it? Basically they got a bunch of files and a management edict?

And that their people were supposed to come up to speed and support it without any added people to do this in addition to whoever was already at 3DS and already busy?

Was anyone who ever has written any software or managed development involved in the decision to do that? It certainly doesn't look like it if that was how it was handled.

 

[Jimpulse]

>>JST Do you mean that the 3DS people got the program completely without any of the folks who had been writing and supporting it?

I do not want to sound as if I have actual inside knowledge of what's going on there. I cannot do more than speculate about the disposition of the original programmers, support staff and product managers, only that I see very few (if any) appearances here on the Forum from folks who were known to be at the Texas location. There certainly were some held on for a while, but I get the sense that they were telecommuting, and now have moved on. I think Kyle (who, thankfully, still chimes in) dates back to the Richardson location and I believe Ryan is also still around.

The most telling indictment of the non-direction for this product is that it does not appear that Geomagic Design has its own product manager at GM.
A product of this complexity and scope should have one individual who has final responsibility for it's development....If there WAS such an individual we would know his name. Instead, the product management has been done piecemeal by a variety of people at GM. GM Design is a secondary (or tertiary ) responsibility for them...and it shows.

 

[SAE05]

Am currently using this forum to gauge insight as to renew or not. Reading through these posts has been quite telling. What are the long term goals of the company? Is there a business plan that paints a more positive picture than what I've been reading on here? Are decisions to renew being influenced by user feedback? It seems that the analytical user comments have not been mirrored by a 3DS response directly to the forum as reading here would suggest. We have a budget to go elsewhere. 3DS management, please convince us, that is, lay out the direction for continued software development which enhances the product, problem solving metrics, root cause analysis approaches, updates to users on a collective basis here on the forum. You know the ...... here's our proposal, here's what we're doing, here's how we're doing it, this is what we're using, this is our expected result. Next steps, give us some comfort level. That seems to be what is oozing from the pores of users posting on this forum. Make us feel like we belong, instead of like buying an annual ticket for a ride at the carnival. I personally have Autodesk but have been a supporter of Alibre at work as we started using it in 08.

 

[JST]

I'm still OK with them. So far, my total maintenance has not been as much as the purchase price of what I am using due to being upgraded last year, so I'm still comfortably "above water" on the deal.

So I'm going to go for it again, per the current plan.

More interesting to me would be how many users who were behind on maintenance did they get to re-up in the end of the year super-deal? That's very likely what 3DS will use as a gauge to the user support. I would.

Other than that, it's a good program, with quirks. Solidworks has quirks. Autocad has always had quirks. Pro-E has quirks. It's inevitable with a huge program this complex.