CAD Forum

How many of you work in multi-cad situations?
How do you deal with it? Do you maintain the old software, translate everything, rebuild everything, hire out help when you have to use the other system... How do you do it?

I'm wondering how you maintain the additional tools, how you maintain the additional data. Do you translate, rebuild, contract out, etc....?

Plus, if you want to explain how you came to the situation with more than one CAD tool, I'd like to hear that story as well.

Where I'm at now it's essentially SW and Draftsight. I consider those to be different CAD systems.

We have to maintain everything the same way you would if we only used one system.

I've worked a couple of places in the past where multiple systems where used. This happens a lot for Tier1-3 automotive suppliers because they are expected to work in the native system of the customer. We typically maintained 3-4+ different systems.

In those cases the tools were all maintained in the same way. We had VAR's, licenses etc etc in the same manner you would for one system. All the settings, templates etc were maintained similarly as well.

For the most part we never translated back into native at the customer level. For instance if we were working on a GM seat track we would translate out but never back in. The customers native files were always maintained and any work done to them was done on those native files. We would often translate out into the other "In house systems" that were used for stamping, gaging, fixturing etc.

We would occasionally transfer into "In house" systems. So for instance most of the contractors working there or outside vendors used AutoCAD. Most of the in house employees used Unigraphics, which also happened to be what GM used. So once "Accepted", built and delivered the drawings that were done by contractors and vendors were translated into Unigraphics.

Typically the files naturally fell into separate categories that most of the time closely lined up with departments. So die drawings where drawn in some system but for the most part all the dies where drawn in or translated into that system. At the same time they were stored all in the same place and not typically with "Customer parts" or other departments so a relatively natural "Segregation of CAD systems" seemed to occur.

Just one here. We transitioned from AutoCAD about the time I started coming over from the construction department, in 2009. We kept some AutoCAD licenses for quite a while to handle old drawings, but let them go. I think one of two of the engineers might still have a personal license, but I haven't needed to open a .dwg in years.

We use SolidWorks, and have AutoCAD 2000 running on VMWares for our old drawings. One of the guy that works with sales also uses it on a regular basis simply to make quick approval drawings. I took care of the transition from AutoCAD 2000 to SolidWorks in 2012 a year after joining the company.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:56 pm How do you deal with it?

Not well. Usually with snarky sarcasm and frank remarks.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:56 pm Do you maintain the old software, translate everything, rebuild everything, hire out help when you have to use the other system... How do you do it?

We are continuously failing at all of it. In fact, it looks a lot like this:

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:56 pm I'm wondering how you maintain the additional tools,

Most of the additional tools is add-ins to save pdf or dxf.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:56 pm how you maintain the additional data. Do you translate, rebuild, contract out, etc....?

In PDM, and it's a bit of a mess. Getting all the SE files remodeled in SW, one bad example is users will let the new SW file be saved as a serial number instead of matching the filename to the existing SE files for that part.

We tried translation, 99% failure, in the process of remodeling them all, which is breaking mates in all of the where used.
Considering contracting out but it's costly and we are struggling to get a plan of how to keep their work integrated with all the other file relations in our PDM dataset.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:56 pm Plus, if you want to explain how you came to the situation with more than one CAD tool, I'd like to hear that story as well.

We were clueless how much it would cost and how long it would take to get our existing Solid Edge data set modeled in Solidworks so we can use Solidworks for new products. Eventually SE will be out, but it's going to be a while yet. Heck, for all I know DSS will drop SW Desktop in favor of the Platform and we'll go back to SE.

@bnemec, at least your day isn't going as badly as this guy's.

bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 3:33 pm Not well. Usually with snarky sarcasm and frank remarks.

In PDM, and it's a bit of a mess. Getting all the SE files remodeled in SW, one bad example is users will let the new SW file be saved as a serial number instead of matching the filename to the existing SE files for that part.

Sounds like you need some help. Geez. Stuff shouldn't go that badly for anyone.

...We were clueless how much it would cost and how long it would take to get our existing Solid Edge data set modeled in Solidworks so we can use Solidworks for new products. Eventually SE will be out, but it's going to be a while yet. Heck, for all I know DSS will drop SW Desktop in favor of the Platform and we'll go back to SE.

Dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but don't let go of the rope (listen to @mike miller 's song).

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:54 pm Sounds like you need some help. Geez. Stuff shouldn't go that badly for anyone.

We (I) did not understand what we were getting into. So it's been a learning process.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:54 pm Dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but don't let go of the rope (listen to @mike miller 's song).

Right!
I think meeting the barrel on my way down would be like switching back to Solid Edge now. Get it going one way then get it again going back the other.

We use two here on a regular basis, the primary being SW and the second is KeyCreator. Three if you count Mastercam but that's mainly the guys in the shop. We were all CadKey (now KeyCreator) when I started, then transitioned over to SW. We keep two seats of KeyCreator active, we have 6 or 7 seats of SW. No plans to ever switch the CadKey\KeyCreator legacy stuff to SW, those files go back to the mid 1990's.

bradb wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 7:20 am We use two here on a regular basis, the primary being SW and the second is KeyCreator. Three if you count Mastercam but that's mainly the guys in the shop. We were all CadKey (now KeyCreator) when I started, then transitioned over to SW. We keep two seats of KeyCreator active, we have 6 or 7 seats of SW. No plans to ever switch the CadKey\KeyCreator legacy stuff to SW, those files go back to the mid 1990's.

Currently our CAM is a bigger mess than our CAD. We program in CAMWorks, some bastardized program that we use on the Mazaks only, by hand in Text only and conversation/GCode at the machines in some cases. On top of that we verify some of our programs in Vericut.

To make matters worse there is absolutely ZERO organization to where the programs are, how they are controlled etc. We have the same program that is different on different machines, some programs are on individuals desktops and we have programs in probably 3-4 different network locations.

The whole situation is a cluster of epic proportions and a daily disaster in the making.

Our lead designer uses Rhino
Electrical uses 2D AutoCad
There are still some other parts in AutoCad
Rest is SolidWorks

The plan was to move everything over to SolidWorks by 2017 - but some priorities just left some AutoCad drawings. We are moving closer to the point where we don't use AutoCad anymore. Electrical was supposed to move to 3D with SolidWorks 2017 but some very important features were only implemented 2020 and 2021. So the plan is to get rid of AutoCad when we switch to 2021 and get everything done in 3D.

Rhino is only used by our lead designer to rapidly do some mock ups - we convert them to SolidWorks later.

A bit different for us (Surfaceink), as we are a service firm with many different clients with different platforms. Must of us are adept at more than one.

Mostly NX, SW, and Creo. We haven't had to consider Inventor or OnShape at this point.

One engineer here uses Catia (an old version), some "engineers", and I use the term very loosely, use SWX 2013, and I, I like to think of myself as a real engineer, use SWX 2021.

I don't understand the connection between being a "real" engineer and SolidWorks, let alone any specific version. If you're defining your level of professional achievement by CAD platform usership, you're basically a technician.

A "real" engineer would use a real tool, like:

HerrTick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:57 am I don't understand the connection between being a "real" engineer and SolidWorks, let alone any specific version. If you're defining your level of professional achievement by CAD platform usership, you're basically a technician.

Well, if you saw what passes for an 'engineer' here in this place you would understand what I meant. The question was what s/w is used, it is not the means to being an engineer.

Our mechanical dept standard set is Draftsight and Solidworks but I think there is couple of AutoCAD licenses too. Automation and analysis departments use other software.

Company policy is that everything new is done in SolidWorks. We have two licenses of Creo to be able to view and "simple tweak" old legace Pro-E files. We also have a few DXF files that we converted from an even older 2D system (ExpertCAD).

We normally do not manipulate the old data. If anything major needs to change on it, we convert it to SolidWorks at that time.

This seems to work well for us.

One place I worked at back in the 90s had 9 different CAD software in the design office!

You may be thinking then 'Oh there must of been a lot of people working in that office'. Only 10 people.............

CADDS
Catia
Delcam
Unigraphics
I-DEAS
Vero (first year release)
Another 3D software - can't remember it's name
AutoCad
Cheap 2D can't remember it's name

bnemec wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 3:33 pm
In PDM, and it's a bit of a mess. Getting all the SE files remodeled in SW, one bad example is users will let the new SW file be saved as a serial number instead of matching the filename to the existing SE files for that part.

We tried translation, 99% failure, in the process of remodeling them all, which is breaking mates in all of the where used.
Considering contracting out but it's costly and we are struggling to get a plan of how to keep their work integrated with all the other file relations in our PDM dataset.


We were clueless how much it would cost and how long it would take to get our existing Solid Edge data set modeled in Solidworks so we can use Solidworks for new products. Eventually SE will be out, but it's going to be a while yet. Heck, for all I know DSS will drop SW Desktop in favor of the Platform and we'll go back to SE.

This should really be a huge red flag that you are going in the wrong direction from SE to SW! And to be honest this appears, on the surface, to be a process issue to some degree.

But if you haven't heard SW and SE are both Parasolid software. So export the solid in Parasolid...then you really don't have a translation. You are just opening a source file. As for drawings well, that has never worked- at least in this direction SW to SE...now if you want to go from SW to SE that is a totally different animal..did you know that SE will open and read the SW drawing file and totally recreate the drawing file in SE? Yep! So now you can open the SW solid in SE, apply parametrics if you want and have the drawing...and about those assy contraints...yep those get pulled into SE as well! See you are just going in the wrong direction.
The funny part is that SE is actually using the SW API tools to do all the work for the drawing and assy constraint "translations"!!

Ry-guy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:44 pm This should really be a huge red flag that you are going in the wrong direction from SE to SW! And to be honest this appears, on the surface, to be a process issue to some degree.

But if you haven't heard SW and SE are both Parasolid software. So export the solid in Parasolid...then you really don't have a translation. You are just opening a source file. As for drawings well, that has never worked- at least in this direction SW to SE...now if you want to go from SW to SE that is a totally different animal..did you know that SE will open and read the SW drawing file and totally recreate the drawing file in SE? Yep! So now you can open the SW solid in SE, apply parametrics if you want and have the drawing...and about those assy contraints...yep those get pulled into SE as well! See you are just going in the wrong direction.
The funny part is that SE is actually using the SW API tools to do all the work for the drawing and assy constraint "translations"!!

Makes sense considering Seimens owns the kernel and Dassault licenses it. That's probably one of the reasons that SE has synchronous and SW doesn't, too.

Ry-guy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:44 pm This should really be a huge red flag that you are going in the wrong direction from SE to SW! And to be honest this appears, on the surface, to be a process issue to some degree.

Yeah, hind sight 20/20. The hook was pretty well set by the time things became obvious. There's definitely process issues, main two are we didn't know what process to use in the new system and users were/are so change saturated that they didn't get all the new processes that we tried to lay out.

Over the past 3 years I have been slowly transitioning from Solidworks for everything to AutoCad for all submittals and Solidworks for piece details & fabrication drawings.