Lack of Alias UNDO functionality. What is happening?

[danielcUPK8E]

Can Autodesk please look into this as a matter of urgency. Anyone who is a regular user of Alias will understand the limitations of UNDO in Alias. I've worked in many CAD/CAID systems and Alias is by far the least equipped at handling UNDOs. It would be great to understand from Autodesk why this is such a major flaw in the software. I submitted a support item, but was then asked to provide examples of when the UNDO does not work - that list is endless, just try using the software for a few hours. Surely, the Alias users at Autodesk MUST face this on a daily basis, as do other Alias users out there ...? 

Thanks Autodesk for looking into this, a resolution would make ALL Alias users much happier 🙂 If you are an Alias user and you agree then please comment or like to get some support for this.

[nakhaev.semion]

I fully agree with you on this huge flaw. I love this program(Alias) very much, but part of the team was transferred to CATIA for this reason.

[systembolaget]

The lack of a proper CTRL + Z of everything is a big turn-off particularly for novices. When I train people, they beg studio managers to rather use Rhino. It is really perplexing why after almost 30 years there is no proper undo.

The same can be said for the lack of simply typing in a command to use a tool, as Rhino offers.

[lestervidalgutierrez]

I can’t understand either why this software fails in this basic staff. Any software in nowadays have this functionality. It feels like it is stuck in the XX century.
When you combine two surfaces there is no way to undo that. It is very frustrating and annoying behavior.

[c3systems]

Some points to ponder.

1, Alias is probably the only software in the world where the file format is both forward and backward compatible... v 10 to Alias 2021. There is also a reason behind it. The code base is really old. Most of the old functionality provides "keep original" function, so that the original data is not destroyed. Of'course the new functionality always comes with history. One could always revert to the original state. Moreover, the History Visualizer in 2021, is a very new way redoing/modifying existing history based approach.

2, Instead of saying "where should I start" please do post the functions where you feel that the it is a deal breaker.. maybe the development team can look into it.

3, ICEM Surf, has a one step undo called "Freeze" and "unfreeze".. Which software are you referring to that is in the same market position.

4, To use Alias and software like ICEM effectively, there is no substitute for proper training.

please do take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYV2emKTzwo

[nakhaev.semion]

This is different. I think it's time to go back to my favorite program. I think "Alias" is the best program for modeling class a surfaces.

[danielcUPK8E]

Thanks c3sytems,

I have pondered all of those points for many years and I think you've outlined the main issue in your answer - 'The code base is really old.' Yes, there are some benefits from this but at some point Alias might be left behind (as do all things that do not evolve).  I've added some comments below to your points:

1.  Alias is probably the only software in the world where the file format is both forward and backward compatible... v 10 to Alias 2021 ...

Not sure there are many people who would need to go back to a version of the software that is over 30 years old. Two or three versions backward compatibility is probably fine.

...Most of the old functionality provides "keep original" function, so that the original data is not destroyed. Of'course the new functionality always comes with history.

One could always revert to the original state. Moreover, the History Visualizer in 2021, is a very new way redoing/modifying existing history based approach.

Yes, the new Visualiser is great but it still masks the underlying basic undo errors in the code. I'm also not really talking about geometry 'history' when it comes to 'undo'; I'm more referring to basic undo functions that exist in almost ALL CAD/CAID/CAM software e.g. undo delete!

2, Instead of saying "where should I start" please do post the functions where you feel that the it is a deal breaker.. maybe the development team can look into it.

I've been in touch with support and provided some examples and the answer that came back referred to your original point about the legacy code. Alias was always coded with a single 'undo stack' which is hard to break.

3, ICEM Surf, has a one step undo called "Freeze" and "unfreeze".. Which software are you referring to that is in the same market position.

As mentioned, all CAD software deals with simple undo functions e.g. undo a delete.

4, To use Alias and software like ICEM effectively, there is no substitute for proper training.

Could not agree more and I have trained users in Alias for years and the lack of 'Undo' is one of their first complaints.

Thanks again for your input, much appreciated.

[c3systems]

Hi, Thank you for your interest. I beg to differ on some of the points. Alias file format broke the file format at v10 .. and have maintained the format for the last 20 years. A typical product development cycle for a top hat program ( Automotive ) used to be around 6 - 8 years! The fastest I have seen is around 3 years. Probably big companies would have petabytes of data stored and archived. In that respect 20 years is not a long period. Moreover, many companies do not upgrade the CAD softare whether be it CATIA or NX according when they are released... at most companies they are at least 6-7 years old. Excatly for the same reason as to not to break the development process. And in an OEM scenario, there are multiple layers of software solutions, all talking to one another.

Undo, from a programing perspective may be easy for trivial steps. But for more complex scenarios, where the data sizes are extremly large, or where there is a rebuild process of a complex feature tree, undo might not work as expected and is not feasible.

It is up for the trainers to educate fresh students on the complexities of software solutions like Alias or ICEMSurf, and the way they are integrated to the rest of the ecosystem in a big OEM. All the major CAD programs are driven by the requirements of these companies. I rarely find individual users of such software. Its a small community and most of them as employed at various OEMS.

Oh and btw.. instead of delete, use "cut".. its a work around ofcourse.

[systembolaget]

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It is up for the trainers to educate fresh students on the complexities of software solutions like Alias

Is this really what it has come to? Blame us "stroppy" educators? What happened to the civil discourse, or is that also a "last Millennium thing"?

The critique for the most bewildering lack of an undo is fully legitimate, in which I fully agree with @danielcUPK8E. Please be reasonable and considerate.

Thanks.

[danielcUPK8E]

Hi, thanks for your reply. In your response, you mentioned  that 'Undo, from a programing perspective may be easy for trivial steps'. Well, that is precisely my point - it should be easy but often Alias falls over in this regard.

I've worked in the auto industry for almost 20 years so I understand the complexities you mention of large OEM programs - but they are not the only users of Alias and that landscape is rapidly changing. After having the pleasure of working with OEMs like Tesla, it is clear to me that we (and software developers) should be thinking about the new emerging generation of CAID users and OEMs that are becoming 'established' very quickly! Even the lower end of the CAID market will breed potential Alias users who will move into the larger OEMs space at some point!

Anyway, I think this is heading a bit off-topic and becoming a discussion more about software lifecycles :). 

[Intuos5]

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@systembolaget wrote:

The lack of a proper CTRL + Z of everything is a big turn-off particularly for novices. When I train people, they beg studio managers to rather use Rhino. It is really perplexing why after almost 30 years there is no proper undo.

The same can be said for the lack of simply typing in a command to use a tool, as Rhino offers.

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With regards to typing in commands, the tool locator has been improved with dynamically displaying results, but it's not quite there yet. In case this is something you'd like to see please upvote this idea:
[Tool locator] - Search result improvement & fuzzy search 
I've also posted some ideas in this forum thread regarding aliases for commands like in Rhino. Perhaps someone should create a separate idea post on this...?

As for training, in my opinion, it is always required regardless of the specific software in discussion, however, the software should also be created in an intuitive way, that is, if a user has had sufficient training, the user should intuitively be able to make out how the software works. Training shouldn't be about learning workarounds for the bugs/ flaws specifically as these should eventually be ironed out by the developpers. Workarounds should only be there for the time being to do things for which there are no viable alternative solutions at that moment!

[lestervidalgutierrez]

A week ago I was testing the software “Atair Inspire Studio” and it was like a fresh air in my face. I don’t saying it is a best software but it is more enjoyable to work with it because it has a renovated interface an you don’t need to do a thousands of clicks to achieve a single thing. And it has subDiv like Alias and others class A tools.

What I’m saying is that Alias should renovate their software and stop to being stuck in the 20’s century. Otherwise maybe loose terrain compared with others softwares that are more comfortable.

[1609955808]

What's really weird is, for transform of objects, you can undo if you're using transform tools, but if you transform from the information window, you can't undo. 
Hope somebody can at least fix this.

[KaiTi.L]

Thanks for pointing this out. I created an improvement request. I talked to a developer and we shared the same opinion.
Our PM will decide if we implement this feature.
ALS-28567

[mat_caschetto]

I've been trying to transition from CATIA Freestyle / Icem Shape Design and I am BAFFLED by not being able to undo a mishap. Ex: Align command, wrong selection, surface goes bonkers... CTRL+Z = Nope! Have to rebuild from scratch? What is this ? Seriously Autodesk ?

[Fausto_Brevi]

Use QueryEdit and select the aligned curve/surface. You will be back into the align tool where you could undo the previous alignment. 

Hope this helps.

[mat_caschetto]

Thank you!

[zhuluyao2011]

Yes, I agree. Also I am trying understand why sometimes I can undo for about 10 steps at most, sometimes I cannot at all. 

[zhuluyao2011]

It's also very random on which tools can undo and which ones cannot.

[Fausto_Brevi]

Alias has undo/redo (ctrl+z/ctrl+y) functions that work differently than we are used to:

• You can undo/redo any transformation or rearrangement operations (e.g.: rotate, move, scale, move pivot, center pivot, delete active, assign layer, group/ungroup)
• Construction history gives you the opportunity to update or to undo almost any entities after their creation (use ObjectEdit>QueryEdit tool)
• You cannot undo/redo any operation that involves creating a new entity, but you can immediately use delete active to undo what you have done, because at the time of its creation, that entity will be the only one selected
• Any operation that creates something interrupts the undo/redo process, and you might feel that undo/redo tools are not working properly, but they are not.

Hope this summary could help