Creo Reactions: The Unanswered Questions Answered

By Geoff Hedges | Published: June 7, 2011

 

L. Stephen Wolfe, P.E. (contributing analyst with Jon Peddie Research), recently posted some great questions regarding Creo. Here’s his 8 questions with our answers, and where possible, we’ve also included video answers from Mike Campbell, DVP of Creo product development at PTC, offering a more in-depth explanation. I’ve summarized his answers in words (for you skimmers), but you’ll want to view the complete videos for full details.

1. What will be the upgrade paths from the Creo Elements (a.k.a. Wildfire 5 M080) packages to Creo application suites?

Every Creo Elements product, package, and extension has an upgrade path to Creo, for example, a customer with Creo Elements/Pro on maintenance has the option to upgrade to Creo Parametric, a customer with the Creo Elements/Pro Foundation will have an upgrade path to a package of the corresponding Creo Parametric capabilities, and so on.  At a minimum, the upgrade to Creo offers the same product capabilities as the customer has today, and in many cases, adds new capabilities. 

As part of the release of Creo 1.0, we’ll publish a ‘product mapper’ to detail every product, package, and extension and how it maps to Creo. Mike discusses the approach to protecting a customer’s existing investment in the second part of this video FAQ.




2. How much will it cost (in both initial charges and annual maintenance fees) to upgrade each Pro/Engineer or CoCreate user?

There is a no cost upgrade for existing maintenance customers to each target Creo app, extension, or package. There are no increases in annual maintenance fees when the customer selects the no cost upgrade.

3. When will the Creo apps have all the equivalent capabilities of Pro/Engineer Wildfire 5?

PTC is committed to protecting the investment customers have already  made, and all data, working methods, and capabilities in Creo Parametric are equivalent to or deliver more than the capabilities found in Creo Elements/Pro 5 (Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5) today.




4. How consistent are the user interfaces across all the Creo apps?

While the Creo apps are standalone programs, they have a common look and feel for key areas. The Ribbon presentation is common across all Creo apps, and when commands are common (like File Open, and Close, for example) they are presented in the same way and in the same place.

5. Will all changes made using direct-modeling techniques be represented as dimension-driven features in Creo Parametric? Or will changes made with direct modeling have to be recreated in the parametric program?

Changes made in the direct modeling approach do not have to recreated in the parametric approach;  all changes made in the Direct Modeling app are simply represented as additional changes (features) in the model when it is viewed in the parametric modelling app.  The user of the parametric app can choose to either  accept, and incorporate these changes permanently in the model (by persisting the new features in the model), or review them and reject them entirely. 

6. Are there direct edits that will cause parametric features previously created to fail?

No. All changes made via a direct modeling approach can be captured within the parametric model without a failure.

7. What changes to the company’s Windchill PDM or Intralink software will be required to support Creo?

Creo 1.0 apps are compatible with Windchill 9.1 M062 and 10.0.

8. How much retraining will be required to use Creo?

For existing users of Creo Elements/Pro (formerly Pro/ENGINEER), they should think of this upgrade as they would have a significant release of Pro/ENGINEER in the past.  Many companies are planning ½ to 1 day training.

Improving Concept Design with Direct Modeling Software – Try it for FREE

By Geoff Hedges | Published: August 10, 2011

 

 

 

 

We always say that direct modeling software is easy to use. But it’s even easier to get. Extraordinarily easy. Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express–the same software used by manufacturers all over the world to design new products–is free. The Express version of the software works for assemblies up to 60 parts and is available for download now.

If you’re new to this blog or CAD design, we’ve talked at length about the differences between parametric and direct modeling software  here and here.  But if you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick list of good reasons to download Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express, the free direct modeling software today:

1. This is NOT a trial version. Start using our direct modeling software, keep using our direct modeling software. It’s really free!
2. It’s full-blown CAD software. Explore some of these links to see what American Wave, WAGIC, Sports Court, Fritsch, and NASA have done with the commercial version.
3. It’s easier to learn than parametric CAD systems, because you work by dragging and shaping the geometry directly. That means you can start designing today.
4. Creo Elements/ Direct Modeling Express, because it’s so much easier to use, is a great tool for anyone interested in product development. Whether you’re a home hobbyist, garage entrepreneur, or on a large corporate team, you can participate in the design process from concept design to tooling without being a CAD specialist.
5. Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express is a standalone app; it may be all you ever need to craft your next great design. But just in case, it also plays well with all of Creo’s other apps

Click here to register and download: www.icc-group.es

TEC Review: Summarizing PTC’s Decades of Fervent In-House Innovation – Part 3

By Admin | Published: June 1, 2011

“Leveraging technology assets unique to PTC, i.e., Pro/Engineer, CoCreate, and ProductView (and Windchill in future Creo releases), Creo is being designed as a scalable suite of interoperable and easy-to-use product design applications that will provide the right-size solution for each participant in the design process. As mentioned earlier, PTC expects to release Creo 1.0 in the summer of 2011”.

Read the full article

TEC Review: Summarizing PTC’s Decades of Fervent In-House Innovation – Part 2

By Admin | Published: May 11, 2011

“PTC’s PLM solutions suite addresses common challenges that product companies, in particular discrete manufacturing companies, face in their product development processes, including PDM (often involving multiple CAD file formats), communication and collaboration with the extended enterprise, product/project/program and portfolio management (PPM), engineering change management (ECM), requirements management, regulatory compliance, technical and marketing documentation, product quality and reliability, and product parts, service, and maintenance requirements.”

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Creo 1.0 and ‘CAE and FEA workflow’

By Geoff Hedges | Published: May 19, 2011

At PTC, we think modeling paradigms that don’t work well together cause most CAD challenges. Creo, however, works across all the paradigms so users can move seamlessly from a parametric modeler to a direct modeler to 2D, etc. And that benefits everyone. In a recent article, for example, I showed how an organization using parametric modeling might use direct modeling to effectively handle last-minute design changes.  Here’s another example: The CAE and FEA workflow.

The workflow

Manufacturers typically use these steps to prepare, validate, and optimize a design:

Import components from multiple sources into one digital prototype – leverage data from multiple tools, locations, and formats into one master digital prototype.

Clean-up data from systems that don’t produce watertight solids, so that the master model is precise, and test results are reliable.

De-feature and simplify models for analysis.

Analyze and optimize the digital prototype for interference, clash, structure analysis, etc.

Capture issues and send the revised model back to its various sources.

With a parametric-based design process, those steps are complicated. CAE experts often find themselves overwhelmed by the complexity of the design software and turn to a 3D CAD expert to help with preparation and optimization of models from multiple sources.

How direct modeling impacts the workflow

Creo, with its direct modeling app, however, can make many of the steps more manageable.

Import: Creo uniquely offers import capabilities independent of the source and format, so you can easily and quickly pass models backward and forward from multiple sources and tools. CAE and FEA experts don’t have to worry about problems with data interoperability. And once they’ve imported data from outside sources, they can easily optimize the data as if it had been created natively.

Clean up. With imported data, direct modeling automatically recognizes key attributes of the imported data, making it easier to work with.  Assemblies and assembly structures, shared parts, surfaces, blends, and dozens of other features are all intelligently recognized.

Direct modeling software can also often assess the manufacturability of the imported models. While most 3D CAD systems produce watertight solids, in some cases only surfaces, sets of surfaces, or surface parts load into the system. Plus, anyone can accidentally create non-manufacturable solid models. With direct modeling, anyone can quickly find non-solids and clean up surfaces and create solids, so the design can be the basis of a precise and reliable digital prototype.

De-featuring. Often, the digital prototype is simplified and de-featured for analysis. With direct modeling, anyone on the team can remove blends, small holes, faces, features ,and other irrelevant geometry. You can even chop off geometry unrelated to your simulation or split models according to symmetry. Then, use Creo to automate simplification and de-featuring work. That saves time and repetition during the analysis cycle so teams can freely and frequently update and validate designs with no redundant effort.

Analyze. With the precise digital prototype ready, CAE and FEA experts choose from a broad range of studies available:

• Clash and interference analysis across the whole digital prototype . Clash and interference checking helps teams identify parts that may be in conflict with each other in the context of the master digital model.
• Simulation of moving mechanisms. Simulate motion, including assembly, disassembly, and mechanism studies for the digital prototype
• Standard analysis, including linear static, deformation, and stationary thermal analysis.
• Advanced analysis, including nonlinear deformation, transient thermal, vibration, and failure analysis

Optimize. With direct modeling, you can easily make changes to the model geometry to optimize it based on the results, and share the revised models with the design team as reference models.

Once the study is defined, your team can easily reapply it to a revised model, ensuring the optimized model works. CAE and FEA are just a sample of the processes done easier when your team can switch between parametric and direct modeling. I’ll tell you about several more in the weeks ahead.

Machine Design: CAD Technology Guide, Breaking barriers to product development

By Admin | Published: May 18, 2011

 

“Many users indicate they are still leery of learning and implementing 3D CAD because it is too difficult to learn. But CAD should be as easy to use as other productivity tools such as PowerPoint or Excel so everyone on the product team can contribute. In developing Creo, PTC broke down the main barriers keeping many stakeholders from feeling comfortable about jumping on the 3D CAD bandwagon”.

 

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