Autodesk Mechanical Desktop

[#1]

Mike,
There's no fire at Autodesk.
You need to keep in mind the powers of marketing.
As example: all subsciption users of MDT still get an updated version with
new features and interface, but now we get Inventor for free with it. That
allows Autodesk to up the claimed number of Inventor seats sold to some
unreal figure(Even if the Inventor disc never makes it out of the box).
Autodesk's main thrust is to refine and promote their latest child
(Inventor). Don't worry MDT isn't going to go away.

You need to make the descision to move or not based on how you use your CAD
department, what kind of products you work with, project lifecycle.
We made our decision based on the complexity of our products and the fact
that we work a model from design through manfacture in repeating cycles with
continuous revision. IV brought our system to it's knees trying to keep up.
MDT is much faster and less cumbersome for these types of processes.

IV and MDT user,

Chas

"MikeF" wrote in message
news:5226127@discussion.autodesk.com...
Now, you sound like a consultant, one of those that seem to know a
little about everything.

All, I was asking is why the urge to move up to Inventor, not a sermon
about my employment through retirement!!!

--MikeF


ncch wrote:
>> I feel you are sending a sermon, not wisdom!!!
>
> There's some wisdom there but there is no wisdom in asking the question.
> The
> only way you will figure it out is to use the program full time 3 to 6
> months,
> unless you are modeling and assembling Leggos, and then you will be
> minimally
> qualified to make a wisdom judgement and comparison in your environment,
> which
> of course you don't consider significant enough to minimally describe, or
> hire a
> competent analyst to come in and help you out. If you ain't gonna make
> either
> investment you shouldn't worry about it. 10 years of arguing about SW vs
> MDT
> and now it's degenerated to IV vs MDT. Sheesh.

[#2]

Chas,

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are saying. Memory and
disk space may be cheap today, but I've seen the case of very large and
unmanageable files.

--Mike


Chas wrote:
> Mike,
> There's no fire at Autodesk.
> You need to keep in mind the powers of marketing.
> As example: all subsciption users of MDT still get an updated version
with
> new features and interface, but now we get Inventor for free with it.
That
> allows Autodesk to up the claimed number of Inventor seats sold to some
> unreal figure(Even if the Inventor disc never makes it out of the box).
> Autodesk's main thrust is to refine and promote their latest child
> (Inventor). Don't worry MDT isn't going to go away.
>
> You need to make the descision to move or not based on how you use
your CAD
> department, what kind of products you work with, project lifecycle.
> We made our decision based on the complexity of our products and the
fact
> that we work a model from design through manfacture in repeating
cycles with
> continuous revision. IV brought our system to it's knees trying to
keep up.
> MDT is much faster and less cumbersome for these types of processes.

[#3]

It'd not only the disc space but day to day management of the files can be a
nightmare.
Move the files associated with a project to a folder and burn it off to
disc. Then try to open an existing project and find mapping to referenced
parts are missing. Then a year from now try to restore an old IV project and
spend time remapping the whole project. Better yet, contract with an
institution that requires dwg files for as-builts and try to do an export of
IV files to dwg. This is not suppose to be a big deal. When you review the
dwg files generated by IV and find the don't come close to the files sealed
by the A/E and you end up spending numerious hours cleaning up a junk IV
drawing to meet customer requirements (I've had to do this myself and it
really sucks).

IV has it's place and may yet mature into a fully vertical application but
for now it's a niche application.

Chas

"MikeF" wrote in message
news:5226731@discussion.autodesk.com...
Chas,

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are saying. Memory and
disk space may be cheap today, but I've seen the case of very large and
unmanageable files.

--Mike


Chas wrote:
> Mike,
> There's no fire at Autodesk.
> You need to keep in mind the powers of marketing.
> As example: all subsciption users of MDT still get an updated version
with
> new features and interface, but now we get Inventor for free with it.
That
> allows Autodesk to up the claimed number of Inventor seats sold to some
> unreal figure(Even if the Inventor disc never makes it out of the box).
> Autodesk's main thrust is to refine and promote their latest child
> (Inventor). Don't worry MDT isn't going to go away.
>
> You need to make the descision to move or not based on how you use
your CAD
> department, what kind of products you work with, project lifecycle.
> We made our decision based on the complexity of our products and the
fact
> that we work a model from design through manfacture in repeating
cycles with
> continuous revision. IV brought our system to it's knees trying to
keep up.
> MDT is much faster and less cumbersome for these types of processes.

[#4]

Thought I would bring the discusion back to basics.
As a drafter/modeler working solo and in large orginisations the principle consideration for the shareholders is to make money.
Currently drafting costs can be estimated pretty accuratly when using Mechanical desktop.
When costs need to be estimated for using Inventor it becomes dangerous.
I have worked on to large defence contracts using Inventor and the cost blowouts have been in the order of 5 times greater than estimated.
This is unsustainable if your work in a small design office competing for work.
I never quote drafting times if I have to use Inventor.
This has frustrated the cost account managers.
There was never any dissension about this fact amongst the drafters using Inventor.
You can argue till the cows come home, the simple fact is Mechanical desktop is a mature product that is capable of
just about anything with guaranteed results in a timley fashion.

Cheers Tim

[#5]

Sounds like you were / are trying to use adaptively. Worlds greatest time
waster. You either spend 10 times as long setting it up so it will work
right or 10 times as long fixing the problems it creates when used wrong.
Ray

wrote in message news:5227926@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thought I would bring the discusion back to basics.
As a drafter/modeler working solo and in large orginisations the principle
consideration for the shareholders is to make money.
Currently drafting costs can be estimated pretty accuratly when using
Mechanical desktop.
When costs need to be estimated for using Inventor it becomes dangerous.
I have worked on to large defence contracts using Inventor and the cost
blowouts have been in the order of 5 times greater than estimated.
This is unsustainable if your work in a small design office competing for
work.
I never quote drafting times if I have to use Inventor.
This has frustrated the cost account managers.
There was never any dissension about this fact amongst the drafters using
Inventor.
You can argue till the cows come home, the simple fact is Mechanical desktop
is a mature product that is capable of
just about anything with guaranteed results in a timley fashion.

Cheers Tim

[#6]

Yep,
Adaptivity we turned off
Didnt use Vault / Too many hassles.
All modelling done locally
Large assemblies took 120 MInutes to load then you couldnt
do anything with them. (Computors fastest available)
Created our own table driven parts. (iparts too slow)
All parts held locally.

The list goes on

Cheers Tim

[#7]

I forgot.
we used constraints initially and then locked parts
and removed the constraints close to model completion.
Constraints & adaptivity was suicide

Cheers Tim

[#8]

What he said, what he said.

Chas
wrote in message news:5227926@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thought I would bring the discusion back to basics.
As a drafter/modeler working solo and in large orginisations the principle
consideration for the shareholders is to make money.
Currently drafting costs can be estimated pretty accuratly when using
Mechanical desktop.
When costs need to be estimated for using Inventor it becomes dangerous.
I have worked on to large defence contracts using Inventor and the cost
blowouts have been in the order of 5 times greater than estimated.
This is unsustainable if your work in a small design office competing for
work.
I never quote drafting times if I have to use Inventor.
This has frustrated the cost account managers.
There was never any dissension about this fact amongst the drafters using
Inventor.
You can argue till the cows come home, the simple fact is Mechanical desktop
is a mature product that is capable of
just about anything with guaranteed results in a timley fashion.

Cheers Tim

[#9]

The nature of our work requires that we build our tooling off of customer supplied surface files. They are generally provided in native format, and sometimes in IGES format. Surfaces imported into Mechanical Desktop work seamlessly, whereas IV uses them as reference, with little ability to manipulate them. At least that was the case last time I looked at IV. I've been told that Inventor V12 will provide surfacing capabilities that are better than Rhino ( I seriously doubt that claim).

It has been suggested by Autodesk to use STEP format instead of IGES. That may be possible if supplied STEP files, but when our data comes as Catia, UG or I-deas, we do not have this option. A STEP translator for Catia, for example, is over $8000! It's not easy to explain to the bosses why we need to spend thousands of dollars for translators so that we can use a product that will get us right back where we were as far as surface functionality goes.

Dan

[#10]

I absolutely agree!!! I'm in the same situation. IV can not seem to import
and manipulate existing surface files even half a well as MDT, and that only
IF you can import them at all!

JD - since your the IV surfacing guru - Have you ever tried this scenario?
Importing a complex IGES surface file into an IV file, then offsetting,
untrimming, extending, re-trimming, and using the altered surfaces to cut
new solids? We have to do these type of manipulations on a daily basis. Any
insights you might have into doing this reliably and quickly in IV would be
greatly appreciated.

--
--------------------------------------
Phil Kenewell
Gage Designer
North American Lighting, Inc.