Leatherman wrote:By the way, is SolidEdge something you would recommend?
Well, I'm compelled to say that I abhor the commercial software industry's practices of
- forcing customers on an upgrade path
- forcing use of costly maintenance to get updates for software they paid in full
- the travesty of selling the right to use their software - right, you paid $15,000+ for it but you do not own it, and they can revoke your license at any time as they see fit!!!
- offering no backward compatibility of files...
Siemens PLM Software is no better than the others. I won't write what I think of the whole industry as it would not be polite.
Witnessing this absurd situation at work made me want to explore the open source movement. I used to install Solid Edge from the company's DVD on my home PC for use on my personal projects. You can use some kind of floating license. I stopped doing so: if I ever was to change jobs and work on a different CAD program, I would lose the ability to open and edit my files. At some point I switched to Linux and it became a moot point.
Anyway
That being said, for those who are stuck with commercial software, yes, I would recommend Solid Edge in the mid-range market. It's really the underdog behind SolidWorks and Inventor, and it deserves better recognition. A few years ago they took a different route from traditional parametric design with what they call Synchronous Technology. It's a type of advanced direct editing mode. You can still lock your geometry with what they call "Rules" but are basically dimensions applied to the 3D model. The advantage of direct editing is that you don't have to manage a full feature tree, it's easier and makes for more robust models. Ans SE still allows to work in traditional parametric feature mode.
But, at work we've been stuck with a 10-year old version of Solid Edge that predates Syncrhonous Tech, so what I know of it I've seen from demos.
One thing though: for product design I think SE's surfacing tools are still lacking compared to SW.
