What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

[Anonymous]

What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

Alibre was not designed from the ground up to be a seamless, unified, hybrid modeler and as such does not take advantage of much of what is in the ACIS kernel. This is not unique to Alibre. SolidWorks, Inventor, etc. also suffer from not having well integrated and easy to use surface tools. Additionally, when it comes to dealing with imported non-native geometry, a user needs to be able to work with non-native geometry at the lowest level so it can be edited ..... this means that direct wireframe editing must be allowed in part or assembly mode.

The time is very near where basic solid modeling will be no big deal in any CAD/CAM package. Very soon a CAD/CAM company won't be able to make any money offering just a solid modeler.

Alibre is headed in the wrong direction and has been for sometime now. Rhino integration with Alibre is not the answer. Making Alibre a hybrid modeler is the only way Alibre will survive. Free give aways are a quick fix for a CAD/CAM product that can't handle many real world modeling tasks.

Perhaps when users and CAD/CAM companies start focusing on the needed hybrid tools and a UI that makes doing complex surfacing as easy as basic solid modeling, as well as providing the needed low level direct editing tools for non-native geometry, then much of the current nonsense with free give aways will end as no one will care about yet another solid modeler like Alibre, SolidWorks, Inventor, etc. that can't handle many real world tasks because they have been designed improperly for their inception.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

 

[swertel]

So what is the question or concern with Alibre?

I'm not quite understanding the value of this post. Please bring it into the scope of these forums.

Regards,

 

[wfpelletier]

Troll Alert

This guy has been infesting the comp.cad.solidworks forum for some time. I hope the moderators of this forum deal with him promptly.

wfpelletier

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Troll Alert

This guy has been infesting the comp.cad.solidworks forum for some time. I hope the moderators of this forum deal with him promptly.

wfpelletier

I'm very active in many forums. Comp.cad.soldworks is one group I am active on and have been for probably ten years. I also like to contribute to upFronteZine, CADChat, the MMS Forums and CNCZone. Can you please point out what you have contributed in any of those forums ? In ten or so years on comp.cad.solidworks I seem to somehow have missed your contribution there. I also must have missed you contributions in upFronteZine, CADChat, The MMS Forums and CNCZone. Can you please refer me to posts you have made that offer CAD/CAM *content* in any of the above discussion forums as I must have missed it.

I fail to see where you have added *any content* here either. Begging to be shielded from the truth isn't going to work as my comments are polite and on topic while your comments are not relevant to CAD/CAM and are little more than a personal attack.

How about you try refuting that a hybrid modeler is needed, that direct editing of non-native imported geometry is important, etc. instead of playing the personal attack game that I'm going to refuse to engage you in.


jon

 

[Anonymous]

Re:

So what is the question or concern with Alibre?

I'm not quite understanding the value of this post. Please bring it into the scope of these forums.

Regards,

As a self described Alibre product loyalist your not going to be able to understand the value of my post. My post is designed for those who are not product loyalists but rather are focused on what tools are needed by a CAD/CAM product to handle the modeling tasks of what many of us face on a daily basis.


jon

 

[Mibe]

Re:

So what is the question or concern with Alibre?

I'm not quite understanding the value of this post. Please bring it into the scope of these forums.

Regards,

As a self described Alibre product loyalist your not going to be able to understand the value of my post. My post is designed for those who are not product loyalists but rather are focused on what tools are needed by a CAD/CAM product to handle the modeling tasks of what many of us face on a daily basis.


jon

Then I'm the right person for you...and your "thoughts" are quite amazing... The need for hybrid modeller is exactly where among 80% of the normal users? I have not heard a single complaint about the lack of surface modelling in Alibre Design. When I worked with a SW VAR there were extremely few users that had used surfaces out of thousands...

And your rant about "how many forums have you posted in"? What is that all about? This is an Alibre Forum, not a contest of how many angry cad users you can create...

 

[mtauer]

Wait a minute, I do not understand, isn't this the Alibre User Group Forum?

OK....I just looked at the top of the page. Yes, this is the Alibre "User"Group Forum and not a general CAD forum.

You do realize you are in a specific CAD software user forum and not in any of the other forums you seem to contribute to on a regular basis, right?

I believe this site was designed for users to discuss specific issues related to AD.

that I'm going to refuse to engage you in.

Too late, you already did.

 

[Mibe]

I forgot - this guy has been chanting about another cad software called VX for a couple of years now (in the SW forum). Soon he will start that kind of snick snack in this forum as well ... beware! 8)

 

[MikeHenry]

Jon,

For the work that I do (R&D prototypes, model IC engines, and home shop machining) Alibre has worked just fine. Just what will a "seamless, unified, hybrid modeler" do for me that Alibre can't?

Mike

 

[swertel]

Before this gets out of hand, I'd like to remind everyone of the forum rules that can be read in the announcements area.

Generally these rules are guidelines intended to make the use of this group as productive and pleasant as possible. The rules will be amended over time as circumstances dictate.

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[Anonymous]

Re:

Jon,

For the work that I do (R&D prototypes, model IC engines, and home shop machining) Alibre has worked just fine. Just what will a "seamless, unified, hybrid modeler" do for me that Alibre can't?

Mike

Mike, I would be happy to outline some of what a seamless, unified, hybrid moder can do:

Most machining job shops have to work with imported non-native geometry that is created by other CAD/CAM systems. Very, very often the original design needs to be modified in order to make it manufacturable / manufactruable at a reasonable cost. Without the needed tools to work at the lowest level (wireframe) and modify the design your S.O.L. Alibre does not have these low level tools. Neither does SolidWorks, Inventor, IronCAD, etc.

For someone who designs products that have consumer type astheticly pleasing lines:

Solids are often the wrong tool and are very limiting and frustrating to work with. Needless to say it's not what a CAD/CAM company who offers a solid only approach wants their customers and prospective customers to know and understand:


"Almost all Modelers today use a boundary representation to represent solids. In a nutshell, this means that the object is represented by the surfaces that define the outer boundary of the volume.Thus, the axiomatic principle that is key to an understanding of solid versus surface modeling is that given enough time and the proper set of tools, any object that can be modeled with solids can be also modeled with surfaces. The converse however is not true. In order to provide a reasonable set of operations, solid Modelers typically restrict the user to a finite set of shapes (i.e. spheres, boxes, etc.) and/or procedures (i.e. extrude, revolve, sweep, fillet etc.) that can be used to define the geometry of the object. This inherently limits the range of objects that can be described. In addition, they do not allow the representation of zero thickness partitions, such as the parting surface of a Mold. Because solid Modelers require that a true bounded volume be described at all times, manipulation and "fine-tuning" of the individual bounding faces is generally restricted. Why then, with these limitations, has the use of solid modeling grown so dramatically? The primary reason is productivity. Since solid Modelers can perform in a single step what would generally take numerous operations with surfaces, most objects can be described much more efficiently. Also, these solid operations can generally be accompanied by describing dimensions and constraints in a fashion that allow them to be modified quickly and easily. So we see that there are advantages to both methodologies that can be summarized as speed (solids) versus flexibility (surfaces). It would seem then that the ideal modeler would provide both techniques, in an environment that allows the user to easily switch back and forth between them. This is known as hybrid solid/surface modeling. In practice, the synergy of this combination has proven to exceed the sum of its parts. A well-designed hybrid modeling system allows the user to leverage the power and efficiency of solids whenever possible, yet never force a design to be compromised for lack of an appropriate tool to achieve the desired geometry.

What applications is hybrid solid/surface modeling best suited for? The ability to have a single CAD/CAM system that can be fast enough to design a gearbox on Monday and flexible enough to design a body panel on Tuesday is perhaps a compelling enough reason to have integrated solid and surface design. However, to truly realize the benefits of integrated solid/surface modeling one must look beyond this either/or paradigm. Consider, for example, the design of a camera or cellular phone. A true hybrid modeling system provides the functionality to design a beautiful, ergonomic body for the appliance with surface modeling tools and in the same environment apply a powerful and intelligent set of solid modeling tools to convert it into a thin shelled case, split it in half and add

 

[Anonymous]

continued:

all the required bosses, ribs and flanges. If requirements dictate a geometric feature that cannot be achieved with one of the standard solid feature tools, in a hybrid modeling system surfaces can be used to "knife and fork" the desired shape. Beyond the design of products that don't easily fit the standard feature-modeling paradigm, there are several other applications where the integration of solids and surfaces yields great benefits. One of these is for the repair or modification of models that have geometry problems, most often as a result of data translation or modelers that allow geometry inaccuracies to accumulate. Another is for the design of Molds & Dies, tools or fixtures where a shape needs to be partitioned into pieces along irregular boundaries, or faces of an object need to be extended or manipulated. Quite often supplemental geometry needs to be created for the purposes of NC tool path creation."

Does this explanation help you to understand why a seamless, unified, hybrid modeling approach is the only approach that can deal with many real world modeling tasks ?

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

 

[Mibe]

Just out of curiosity...

How come that a majority of all products are modelled with "normal" cad programs?

Why is a majority of all modellers not the kind you mention if that's the best way to deal with "real world" models? I my mind there is a rare occasion where a solid modeller won't cut it. A bigger problem is to work with all parts - but that's another issue

The problems you mention is avoided if the tools are rigid and solid modellers are working in most cases except for very advanced surface modelling...and If that's the case - why not use two tools? Most major solid modellers have not problems working with surfaces from surface modellers like Rhino. Some even have plug-ins for parametric modelling inside Rhino (Alibre

Real world models are solid so let's keep it that way in the digital world if possible

 

[mtauer]

Alibre never claimed to be a hybrid modeler.

Very, very often the original design needs to be modified in order to make it manufacturable /

Please elaborate on the above quote

I dont quite understand, I, as a design engineer am responsible for driving projects from "art to part" which includes file management, DFM,etc, and I make absolutely sure that no changes are made to any file by anybody except the master file, which I control. The designer is not doing his job if he has to rely on a machinist/tooling engineer etc. to make changes to his/her file to make something manufacturable.

For someone who designs products that have consumer type astheticly pleasing lines:

Solids are often the wrong tool and are very limiting and frustrating to work with. Needless to say it's not what a CAD/CAM company who offers a solid only approach wants their customers and prospective customers to know and understand:

When I was considering purchasing AD, I was never led to believe that this is the proper tool for stylized consumer product design. I was told up front that there surfacing capabilites were limited their plug-in with Rhino.

I am not sure why you would not consider SW as a hybrid modeler as I have been developing consumer products with SW since 1997 and have used this "hybrid modeling" you speak of on a regular basis.

It wasn't until recently the term "Hybrid Modeling" has shown up as a catch phrase, designers have using this technique for quite some time now.

As a matter of fact, John's post reminded me of something I read last week. (very similiar)

http://www.deskeng.com/Articles/Applica ... 30501.html

I did take a look at the VX website and I couldnt help but see this term everywhere. Along with "seamless cad/cam intergration"

 

[jwknecht]

Re: What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

Alibre was not designed from the ground up to be a seamless, unified, hybrid modeler and as such does not take advantage of much of what is in the ACIS kernel. This is not unique to Alibre. SolidWorks, Inventor, etc. also suffer from not having well integrated and easy to use surface tools. Additionally, when it comes to dealing with imported non-native geometry, a user needs to be able to work with non-native geometry at the lowest level so it can be edited ..... this means that direct wireframe editing must be allowed in part or assembly mode.

We work with IDEAS, UG and CATIA at work. For 95+% of the parts that we design, we use solids. Wireframe... I learned that with CV. Have never touched it since, and am not looking back.

With that said, who is to say Alibre is heading in the wrong direction? I don't even know which direction they will take. They may very well add more surfacing functionality. But, most of us won't like it if it also comes at a steep price increase. Alibre is very good at listening to its customer base, and adding functionality that its customers want while still providing good value (unheard of value).

 

[Anonymous]

Re: What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

Alibre was not designed from the ground up to be a seamless, unified, hybrid modeler and as such does not take advantage of much of what is in the ACIS kernel. This is not unique to Alibre. SolidWorks, Inventor, etc. also suffer from not having well integrated and easy to use surface tools. Additionally, when it comes to dealing with imported non-native geometry, a user needs to be able to work with non-native geometry at the lowest level so it can be edited ..... this means that direct wireframe editing must be allowed in part or assembly mode.

We work with IDEAS, UG and CATIA at work. For 95+% of the parts that we design, we use solids. Wireframe... I learned that with CV. Have never touched it since, and am not looking back.

With that said, who is to say Alibre is heading in the wrong direction? I don't even know which direction they will take. They may very well add more surfacing functionality. But, most of us won't like it if it also comes at a steep price increase. Alibre is very good at listening to its customer base, and adding functionality that its customers want while still providing good value (unheard of value).

"We work with IDEAS, UG and CATIA at work. For 95+% of the parts that we design, we use solids. Wireframe... I learned that with CV. Have never touched it since, and am not looking back. "

If you have to work with non-native imported geometry and modify it to make it manufacturable you often have no choice but to work with it at the wireframe level. Further, many times one needs to extract the wireframe data for toolpath processing. Many CAD/CAM systems don't understand faces or solids.

Wireframe is also a great tool for assemblies where you don't need to have everything as a solid... lets say to get an idea how a part with fit but don't wish to spend the time creating solid models of all the parts. Solid Edge has just added this functionality because of how much time it can save. You can't discard wireframe from the process of modeling as you wish to do. 2D is always going to be a part of the process.

"With that said, who is to say Alibre is heading in the wrong direction?"

I did. :lol:


Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

 

[jwknecht]

Re: What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

Many CAD/CAM systems don't understand faces or solids.

Please elaborate. Which CAM programs don't understand faces or solids? I can understand some 2D type programs (but those are pretty easy to program at the machine using a 2D print).

 

[Anonymous]

Re: What The Major Problem With Alibre Really Is :

Many CAD/CAM systems don't understand faces or solids.

Please elaborate. Which CAM programs don't understand faces or solids? I can understand some 2D type programs (but those are pretty easy to program at the machine using a 2D print).

Plenty of the older ones. Many that do wire EDM, laser, etc.

jon

 

[scarr]

re: What the major problem with Alibre is

I work with Alibre, Pro-E, Catia V4, and V5. Pro-E is basically a solid modeling application (although recently they formed an aliance with another company to provide surfacing capabilities (as an add-on at extra expense), Catia V4 on the otherhand is basically a surfacing application (surfaces, faces, volumes). With V5, Catia has taken a quantum leap into the solid modeling arena (yes V4 had solids capabilities but they were clumsy things with a history tree that was a nightmare to edit), Even with the surfacing capabilities in V5, most users that I've talked to are much more impressed with the solids package, knowing that it will make them more efficient (something the company likes), their work less tedious (surfacing is fraught with pitfalls -edges not matching, warpped surfaces, etc., that often Do require massaging by CAD/CAM shops in oreder to produce a tool or machine path.), and last but not least, a breeze to edit in the future, provided the modelling guidelines have been observed.
As Mibe said the real world is based on solids, there is in essence, no such thing as a surface (at least not a zero thickness surface), and from experience the only reason we use surfaces (we're a large automotive firm) is for modelling specific surface types (we call them A class surfaces - nurb surfaces, that duplicate but do not always match precisely the design surfaces produced in Maya-Alias) that must be pleasing to the eye . These constitute a relatively small percentage of the total model data we do produce, but as pointed out earlier, we pay a heavy price for this capability, both in software (prices range upwards from $8,000.00 a seat for basic packages), and part production costs.
We also pay a heavy price in conversion activities, as all the tools we use incorporate proprietary file formats, making it next to impossible to move data from one system to another with any degree of accuracy, let alone an editable history tree, which if I may call attention to, most surfacing applications don't have to begin with - another problem when it comes to editing surface models.
Another point that must be made is that surface models carry no embedded part property information, i.e. mass. volume, CG, etc. so (unless they are stiched together and converted into a solid are quite useless for determining how the model you just designed will affect the overall assembly (do you really want to wait until it gets back from the vendor to figure out you've missed your weight target by 30%?), or how it might act in the real world (kinematic studies).
Wireframe??? If you're going through the trouble to make a wireframe model (CV was mentioned - a dinosaur of an application) why not just take the extra second or two to extrude the entities into a solid, or better yet use a nice 2D drafting package and forget 3D altogether. We used to do all our design work in 2D if you're old enough to remember that far back . The evolution of 3D CAD has been Wireframe to Surfaces to Solids. This evolution has gone hand in hand with the evolution of the hardware necessary to run it - a workstation in the not to distant past, that ran a wirefram application (CV4) might cost $30,000, now one cost less than $3,000 and will run almost any CAD package you can name. Too bad the software prices haven't mimiced the hardware prices, oh what was I thinking, Alibre has. :shock:
Solid modeling applications have been undergoing cycles of refinement for many years, and I can only imagine that that trend will continue, with the probability that they will embrace some if not all of the design capabilities you find in surfacing applications.
Contrary to what you think, I believe Alibre is headed in the right direction, offering a very powerful tool at a price that every designer can afford.
You can, by the way duplicate pleasing consumer product surfaces in a solid modeling application if you understand the math behind them and design accordingly - it's what we used to do not so many years ago when everything was 2D. And yes there is a difference between designers and mouse pilots - one understands the underlying principals behind their work, the other just clicks icons or buttons until they achieve a passable result.
Alibre offers me everything I need in a CAD tool, at a price that should make the other CAD suppliers blush and so far, I haven't come across a part I could model in Pro-E or Catia V5 that I couldn't model in Alibre. It's not that I'm not open to new tools, but I've used the best the market has to offer, and still consider Alibre to be the greatest value on the market today. Alibre has no major problem. Perhaps the problem really lies with a few people intent on grinding their axes on someone elses wheel.

 

[MikeHenry]

Jon,

Does this explanation help you to understand why a seamless, unified, hybrid modeling approach is the only approach that can deal with many real world modeling tasks ?

Thanks - that gives me a better idea of the concept. None of my work so far as required any of that functionality, though, so I guess Alibre is still good enough for me.

Mike