Powershape 2019 - Most disappointing software release ever!!!

[Anonymous]

I cannot believe we have waited a year for this:

This release is an insult to the users who spend thousands and thousands of dollars each year on maintenance.

I have personally listed almost 10 major bugs that dramatically impact daily use of this software repeatedly over the last 5 years only to have them completely ignored in place of this latest attempt to release an upgrade.

The rumours are obviously true - Autodesk has dropped the development of Powershape and are no longer putting any effort to fixing its bugs:

to name an urgent few-

- fillets that randomly change there path every time solid history is replayed - resulting in constant un-flagged failures

- colour bugs in components that are unchanged in 5 years

- clumsy interface with no effort to restore toolbar docking

- no support or corrections for 4K monitor bugs

- Power feature and Power trimming failures and bugs untouched

- Consistent crashing unchanged

- Major trimming and edge tolerance bugs in surface to parasolid conversions untouched for years

- incredible instability in fillets on complex geometry 

- consistent history replay failures

I do not want silly updates with useless bells and whistles whilst the core functionality of this software is so broken.

Please put some effort into just getting the basics to work reliably before you try to dazzle with interface changes and retraction of core functionality that did not need changing (tool bar docking - removal of views toolbar etc).

I have paid my maintenance loyally for over 20 years. This release has ended that relationship.

Autodesk - you let me down big time with this disappointing release. Why do you refuse to FIX YOUR BUGS and ignore your users feedback????

[jonathan.artiss]

Hi @Anonymous

I am sorry to hear that you are not happy with the new interface and that you have not seen any response to your reported broken features. 

Where and when did you report these issues? Are they through an Autodesk case or reported here on the forum? Did an Autodesk Employee create a development case to report these issues? 

It is always recommended to report these issues directly to out support staff in the form or a support case directly through your Autodesk Account. The Autodesk Forum is a peer to peer support hub that is not regularly monitored by our staff therefore broken features or major issues when reported here can be missed. 

Please provide more information on these internal cases so that I may look into them and their status.

Cheers,

[simon]

I have to agree with Elemental54. Having used PowerShape for going on 15 years now, the Powershape situation has become a lot worse since the Autodesk takeover of Delcam.

It would seem that PowerShape is being treated as a companion product to PowerMill rather than a product in its own right - hence only trivial new features. Probably stuff all bug fixes too.

It seems also that most of the experienced UK international staff have all been given the arse also, I refer to the whole suite of formerly Delcam products not just Powershape.

And discontinuing Artcam ... Just shows they had NFI.

Despite Autodesk's obvious cost - cutting measures, I somehow doubt I'm going to see any reduction in my maintenance bill this year.

My experience so far with Autodesk has been pretty disappointing. However it does explain how Inventor sits where it does in the marketplace compared to Solidworks.

At this rate, Autodesk are going to convert me to a Solidworks user. Probably the opposite of the outcome they had planned for the user base they acquired!

[Anonymous]

The issues have been reported repeatedly over the last 5 years via local support agent(s) and also directly to Jon Hunwick over previous years. The good thing about Jon was that he always acknowledged the bugs, identified the cause and passed it on to development. The bad thing is that development has done very little developing in recent years. 

10 years ago, Yes - things happened. Now, nothing happens.

I even went to Delcam Birmingham and spent an entire day demonstrating these issues to several staff members who gave assurances they cared and wanted to fix these WELL KNOWN bugs. 5 years later, no action.

Regarding the fillet problems specifically, there were instances that were corrected with band aid fixes but the underlying faults are still present consistently in every release. 100% repeatable and obvious. One of the developers even admitted "the underlying backbone of Powershape was crippled with fixes layered upon fixes over many years and that it really need to be re coded and fixed from the ground up, but the powers that be were not prepared to put the resources into it given the financial return is not there in comparison to Powermill".

The 4 K monitor bugs have been reported every year by several users, even the local distributor has the same issue on his laptop. This is 5 times in 5 years. The problem is not the reporting but the failure to implement the fixes or even acknowledge the issues. Its funny how Powermill displays perfectly on 4K screens?????

I am only venting on the forum because the system has failed to achieve anything despite years of asking and wishing and offering my time to supply the information to you guys only to have you do nothing with it.

This is a viscous circle that always relies on the user to put in all the effort of bug finding, documenting, uploading, making videos etc only to have zero response and zero improvements and zero action. Then every 5 years or so we get to do it all again when someone makes the statement that they know nothing of any bugs???

Why not add all the bugs to an active list that all users can see on the forum so we can watch them get ticked off as corrected? At least this way you guys wont keep losing them and we can see that we are actually making progress and getting some small scrap of value for our maintenance.

What are the thoughts of other users? Am i over reacting here or is anybody else having a different experience? I would love to see some more comments here from others.

[iamcdn79]

---

@Anonymouswrote:

Why not add all the bugs to an active list that all users can see on the forum so we can watch them get ticked off as corrected? At least this way you guys wont keep losing them and we can see that we are actually making progress and getting some small scrap of value for our maintenance.

---

I second this idea. 

[jonathan.artiss]

Hi @Anonymous

I can understand your frustration and reason for venting but the reason for my request and suggestion to create these reports through your account is for traceability.

As a software specialist manning the front line of support is an extremely busy task. There are a lot of things that I would miss or forget when moving onto other projects or cases. These reports need to be sent into us directly in the form of a case, in the least it allows myself or a colleague to look into the case in the future to us or pressure for an update. 

I agree with the suggestion to make a public link for the fixes to be posted and updated when fixed, but lets work on getting these issues reported first. 

If you are unsure of how to submit these technical support cases, have a look here. 

Cheers,

[a1moldmaker]

i think the point he is making is the reports HAVE been submitted and still no action to resolve them,

and i know many times its a matter of getting enough complaints to justify fixing something, but when its been shown and submitted it gets very frustrating to not see anything done

[jonathan.artiss]

@a1moldmaker

They very well could be reported but I can't find them under his user account. 

I would like to get these reported or updated for you guys. 

I will do what I can to track down the internal development cases but it's difficult without the initial report.

@Anonymous if there is any more information you can give me on these reports to help me find them, please list them here. 

Cheers,

[stdpattern]

Just installed PowerSHAPE 2019, and ..Meh.

The view buttons are back on the View toolbar, but only one, you have to use the flyout to then choose which view you want.  There is A LOT of room on that toolbar, not sure who thought they needed to fix that in the jump to 2018, and the fix into 2019 didn't make it as good as it was in 2017.  I've stopped using it anyway, using the QAT instead, but I was hoping it might be back to the way it was in 2017.

Still no toolbar management / docking.  Never have heard a reason for this.  I thought there was plenty of discussion about this, and it was added to the wishlist last year...

Viewing the "What's new" page, there doesn't seem to be much of use to me at all.    I really don't like to complain, but in my opinion, and for the work I do, I really don't see any great improvement.  Maybe it's in tweaks and fixes behind the scenes, but from the start of this thread, I don't think that is the case either.

Steve

[Anonymous]

Ok,

First of all, the bugs were reported in the correct manner via our local support agent (Delcam Australia). Please keep in mind i have been both using Powershape and reporting bugs since version 1, and previous to this i used Duct for many years so please ditch the patronising  and the education on bug reporting, this only make you look more evasive around the real issue which is that the bugs were reported correctly and nothing has happened. What happens to them once reported, i cannot control so please don't insinuate i am responsible for the fact that you cannot find them. I know this has not happened on your watch and i appreciate you are trying to help now. As stated previously i have stopped bothering to submit them recently because of years and years of neglect. This is extremely disappointing for me, as i normally come across several per week, now i just work around them and ignore, and i know this is not the best way, but this position is a natural one i have been forced into after so many years of trying in vane. Hopefully you can changed my mind here.

In relation to your request:

Lets start with just a couple. These were reported back in 2015 and had validation and acceptance by Delcam support and Jon Hunwick with promises to fix. 

Case 2408 - Powershape fails to display correctly on 4K monitors - If you look back in this forum you will also find recent discussions about this with several members and Jon Hunwick all concurring this needs to be fixed. I have followed this up annually only to be ignored. No replies, no explanations - nothing. Over 3 years and still waiting.

Please let me know what has been done about this bug, keeping in mind Powermill and all other software installed on the laptop displays perfectly and it has been 100% acknowledged by Delcam that this is a Powershape software  issue. Why are the Powermill developers able to achieve this and not Powershape? Dont these teams cooperate and share?

Case 1899 - this was an ongoing case which had a list of issues, too many to go into here - most of which are still the same - not wishes but pure bugs in the filleting engine and consistent software crashes on simple operations. Whilst some crash instances have improved (mildly), the fillet problems are all still there. I have hundreds of examples of fillets failing, this is a daily problem for me. 

Please tell me honestly if the 4K issue is being deliberately ignored.

[jonathan.artiss]

Hi @Anonymous

I am not trying to evade your questions or request for updates, if this is how my previous comments have been interpreted, I do apologize for my wording.

I can see there have been some internal development requests from you, reporting the 4K issues. I have reviewed them and requested updates on the cases still pending. 

There is one that is completed and another that has just been updated as of today which has been sent to testing. There are two more related to this initial report that are being worked on but have not been updated since my request this morning. 

As for the filleting issues, I can see a total of 11 reports by you over the years. These issues have all been set to complete. 

If these reported issues are not fixed I will gladly request a reassessment on the case and gather any information to send over and have these issues fixed. 

Are the issues mainly fillets failing, or is it crashing?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response Jonathon,

Regarding the fillets, I can see that particular instances in the past are closed due to each instance being locally corrected. The fundamental flaws still consistently remain. Without exaggeration i will encounter at least 2 or 3 fillets failure issues each day. By failure i mean, PS will create the fillet with no issue but upon any translation command or any command that causes a history replay the fillet then fails or (even worse) changes without being flagged as failed.

When it is a failure with the yellow exclamation mark, it is frustrating and time consuming, but at least i can go back and manually correct them one at a time. It is when they fail or change without being flagged that it becomes catastrophic as it can be extremely difficult to see the changes unless viewed very closely. In a model with hundreds of fillets this can easily slip by and not be noticed until it has be manufactured. This has happened several times as a result of this, with dire consequences. Thus my passion and contempt on this subject.

Is it fillets or crashes? They are both connected.

Faulty fillets often end up in an internal time loop that never ends, and changing a failed fillet often causes a full crash. Having said that, the majority of the time the failed fillets just slip by.

This refers back to my previous point that it is the instability of the software that consistently causes the issue. Once you apply a band aid fix to a particular instance, a different set of mathematical circumstance will cause the same issue n a different area. I want to see the underlying fragility of the filleting fixed rather than band aid solutions.

I requested years ago to have either:

1. The ability to perform translations to a solid without the need to replay the history tree.

2. The ability to create a dumb solid copy without replaying the history tree. Currently you need to copy/paste, which does not work because copy requires a replay or export/import which is an absolute pain.

3. The ability to lock a solid so it cannot replay until unlocked. Then you can translate and re-orient without replay.

These requests do not solve the software issues but make living with them a lot easier. Again, these requests were never responded to.

If i am to document every instance it would be an enormous amount of time at a moment when the failure is causing the frustrations and delay in finishing the job. This is the main reason why you do not see most of them.

I have offered in the past to spend a day with a software representative to sit with me and go through a multitude of examples in real world jobs in context. Then you could take them away and work with a multitude of examples for development, this was rejected by Delcam recently. In the past when i did this with a Delcam representative, (Jason Hogan) it proved to be a great catalyst for many new software improvements and it gave Delcam an insight into the real world instances that they would rarely see. This kind of pro active research and customer interaction is what i expect to see for the high value maintenence dollars i spend.

I will offer a day of time to aid your cause, are you prepared to match that for your own, and all users benefit?

I think this is a good question.

John.

[jonathan.artiss]

Hi @Anonymous

I can understand that reporting these issues can be time consuming especially if you are made to work around them to begin with. Coming from a shop myself many years ago, these are also problems that I have faced while trying to meet my deadlines.

I will be reaching out to some other to see what can be done to gather the information needed from you to get these issues looked at. 

I did hear back from the development team on several cases for the 4K resolution issues, these if not fixed are still being worked on. However, there is a possibly fix that if you are willing to test and report back, it would be helpful for us in fixing these pending problems. 

Download the attached "powershape.exe.manifest " and copy it to the folder <install directory>\sys\exec64

Reboot PowerShape, this should solve the reported display issues. 

Cheers,

[jonathan.artiss]

It seems that the attachment didn't go through. 

Attaching here. Extract and copy to the previously mentioned folder. 

[Cromo4130]

Oh Dear........

Just fired up 2019 for the first time.....

Got to agree.............dog dirt.........

First function; to edit a parameter in a solid.........doesn't work! 

Does anyone test this anymore.......? Penny drops.... US the users, we've got nothing better to do! 

Totally understand the conclusion of elemental54.

[PLAS1991]

I do not see anything new in 2019 .The Pm Development Team is the best Always new ideas .

[encap]

For me PowerSHAPE 2020 has just beaten PS2019 as the most disappointing release ever!

 

Usability improvements
1) Selecting surfaces: Select all the surfaces of a model that have the same colour, representing the same material, using the Ctrl+Shift+Alt shortcut. 
2) Spun profiles: The number of spans generated when creating a spun profile is reduced, giving a more aesthetically pleasing result.
3) Displaying selection information: When using the Selection Information dialog, you can now display the total area of multiple selected objects. Previously, area was displayed only for individual selected objects.

Additional improvements
1) Newer Parasolid version: PowerShape now uses Parasolid version 31.0.228.
2) Access help content: Several options on the Help menu are combined to make it easier to access the information you need.

What does everyone else think?

[simon]

Agreed. I don't know how they can call this a major release. Looks like AD have chosen a slow death for Pshape.

The 'new functionality' is trivial compared to what we used to get for a major update pre-Autodesk.

It certainly doesn't justify the cost of maintenance, obviously why they are so keen to push us onto a subscription where we would have no choice but to keep paying.