Deelip

Part 1. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions , Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 Siemens PLM has finally released Solid Edge ST3 today. The big news in this release, as Siemens PLM puts it, is the fulfillment of the vision of Synchronous Technology. And I agree with that. When they released Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology in 2008 the company claimed that they were offering users the best of both worlds – history based parametric modeling and direct modeling.

They even went ahead and claimed 100x increase in productivity or something to that effect. To be fair, yes they did offer both methodologies of modeling. In this series I will attempt to explain the concepts behind Synchronous Technology as best as I can. The purpose of this series is to explain the concepts behind Synchronous Technology.

Part 2 >> Part 2. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 1 In this part I will explain the concept of ordered features and synchronous features. Siemens PLM calls the features created by the traditional method of history based parametric modeling as ordered features, simply because the order in which they appear matters. For example, consider this very simple model created by extruding a square to a Base protrusion, then protruding a circle on its top face and cutting a square also on its top face, cutting both protrusions. This is what the feature tree looks like Now let’s see what happens if I change the order of the features in the tree.

Say I move the circular protrusion after the square cutout, the feature tree looks like this. And the model becomes this. As you can see the result is now very different. Now suppose I had modelled the same part creating the same features but without history, that is, using Synchronous Technology. Part 3 >> Part 3. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 2 In this part I will explain the concept of having synchronous and ordered features in the same tree. This concept can be a bit tricky to grasp as first. So I am going to try and explain this in a rather unique way. I will start by creating the main stem of the tree as a synchronous feature. The feature tree looks like this. As you can see there are two synchronous features called “Stem” and “Sync Branch” in the feature tree.

There is a third mode called “Simplify” which I will not talk about because it is beyond the scope of this discussion. Note that the two synchronous features are still in the synchronous part of the feature tree. As you can see, the feature tree is now split up into two parts – synchronous and ordered with respective features on both sides. I then add a couple of synchronous features to the green branch called “Synch Sub-Branch 1” and “Sync Sub-Branch 2”.

Part 4 >> Part 4. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 3 In the previous part of this series I explained how you could divide your model into two parts and work with it using direct modeling as well as history based parametric modeling. In this part I will explain the concept of moving features from the ordered side of the tree to the synchronous side of the tree. The reverse is not possible. Moving features from ordered to synchronous is easy. Simply right click on the feature and click “Move to Synchronous”. But there is a catch. As you can see it has now been moved to the synchronous side and the only features left on the ordered side are the two ordered sub-branches. Let’s stop here for a minute a try and understand what’s happening. But the current implementation of Synchronous Technology comes with a limitation, which I will explain in the next part. Part 5 >>

Part 5. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 4 In the previous part of this series I explained how I could move an ordered feature to the synchronous side of the feature tree. Let’s back up a little, undo the operation and get it back to the ordered side. Now suppose I add a third branch to the front side of the stem on the ordered side of the feature tree and then add two more sub branches. The feature tree looks like this. Now for some reason, suppose I want to move both ordered branches to the synchronous side but leave all four ordered sub-branches on the ordered side.

As you can see, the first two ordered sub-branches also get moved. To solve this problem, I need to rearrange the ordered features manually. And now I move “Ordered Branch 2” towards the synchronous side. So now we have all four ordered sub-branches on the ordered side and the two ordered branches moved to the synchronous side. Part 6 >> Part 6. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 5 When starting to model the tree I chose to start modeling in the synchronous mode and not the ordered model. There was a reason for that. Suppose I had created the stem of the tree in ordered mode and then switched to synchronous mode to create the branches, I would not be able to grow the branches out of the stem because the stem itself would be missing from the model. If you remember, when you switch to synchronous mode, the ordered features disappear.

One way to look at this is to consider the synchronous features in the feature tree as one big mammoth feature in an otherwise traditional history based feature tree. If you have a history based parametric model and want to modify it using direct modeling in Solid Edge ST3, you need to decide up to which ordered feature you wish to convert to synchronous. Which begs the question. Part 7 >> Part 7. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 6 In the previous part of this series I suggested that you could consider all the synchronous features as one big mammoth feature at the start of a traditional history based feature tree. If that were indeed the case then it should follow that you should be able to build ordered features on the ordered side of the feature tree by referencing synchronous features on the synchronous side of the tree. In this post I will explain whether that is indeed possible and what are the issues surrounding this concept.

I believe it is important to understand this concept in order to make full use of Synchronous Technology in Solid Edge ST3. I will also address the issue of design intent. Say I create a simple part in synchronous mode. Note that the slab is a synchronous feature and the cylinder is an ordered feature. Next I open the variable table and set the height of the cylinder to be twice the thickness of the slab.

Part 8. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 7 In the previous part of this series we saw how ordered features could be driven by synchronous features, that too in real time. In the next couple of parts we will investigate how well ordered and synchronous features coexist in the same feature tree. This time instead of starting in synchronous mode I will start with ordered mode and create a compound feature, basically a pattern feature that used other features. I will create all these features on the ordered side of the feature tree and then move them one by one over to the synchronous side and see where the software breaks.

I create a slab and three protrusions on its top face by extruding a circle, triangle and a rectangle. Next I create a rectangular 3×1 pattern from these three protrusion features. The feature tree contains only ordered features and looks like this. Click image for larger view No, this is not a regeneration error. Part 9 >> Part 9. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 8 In the previous part of the series I moved the circular, triangular and rectangular protrusions to the synchronous side which resulted in the pattern on the ordered side failing to regenerate.

Instead of moving all three protrusion features to the synchronous side, what if I moved two of them and left one behind on the ordered side? Sounds crazy, right? Of course, it does. Anyways, I proceed to move the circular and triangular protrusions to the synchronous side. But the model looks like this. The software didn’t break. Frankly, I cannot complain that my pattern looks different now because firstly I was told that it was “highly recommended” to move the entire pattern across to the synchronous side. Part 10 >> Part 10. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 9 In this part I would like to call attention to an issue in Solid Edge ST3 that worries me.

A lot. Like many, I have the habit of saving my work as I proceed with my modeling. The thing with Solid Edge ST3 (and maybe previous versions as well) is that when you save a model to disk the undo information is flushed out and the undo command is not available anymore. This is unlike any other CAD system that I have worked with. This turns out to be a huge problem in Solid Edge ST3 because the process of movement of ordered features to the synchronous side is irreversible. I messed up quite a few models this way while playing with Solid Edge ST3. So my advice is to have a backup of your model somewhere else on your computer just in case. Normally undo information is maintained for the entire session of a document, or some fixed amount of undo operations. Part 11 >> Part 11. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions, Reviews Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 << Part 10 In a previous post titled “Direct Modeling Is Changing Everything” I wrote: “Each history based parametric modeling MCAD vendor has taken a different approach to Direct Modeling which has ended up in changing the way their software works.”

Just by looking at the way Solid Edge ST3 works today I can see how different it is from the other MCAD systems out there. Of course, if you wish to stick to your old way of history based parametric modeling, you can still do that with Solid Edge ST3. The software is quite intuitive as well. Although synchronous features form the foundation of the model, you can bolt on ordered features as you please. Although this series has turned out to be eleven parts long, I believe I have simply scratched the surface of Solid Edge ST3.

Solid Edge ST3 has a host of other new features. I believe ST3 will be remembered as an important release that changed the direction of Solid Edge. Solid Edge ST3 SAT Export Problem. Posted by Deelip Menezes Opinions Friday, November 5th, 2010 I am getting a weird error when I try and export an ACIS SAT file from Solid Edge ST3. This happens on all the Solid Edge ST3 installations in my office. The export begins and then the progress bar freezes at about 10%. This happens for any model in Solid Edge. As you can see the progress dialog does not have a Cancel button. But in the meanwhile, if any of you are facing the same problem you may be tempted to go to Task Manager and kill Edge.exe, the Solid Edge application executable. You will get a message saying that the translation failed and Solid Edge along with your work will stay intact.

Data translation can sometimes be quite unpredictable due to a host of unknown factors what may become involved in the process. Doing this will replace the progress dialog box shown above with a more useful one which logs events as they happen. Update (8-Nov-2010) Update (17-Dec-2010) Solid Edge ST3 SAT Export Problem Fixed. 3D File Format For Long Term Storage. Posted by Deelip Menezes Featured, Opinions Thursday, December 16th, 2010 When Adobe added 3D to PDF they hoped that CAD users would start using 3D PDF as a data exchange and storage format, instead of IGES and STEP or some CAD vendors proprietary format like Parasolid, JT, etc.

To aid the adoption of 3D PDF Adobe decided to make it a truly open standard by making it an ISO standard. In a post titled “PDF To Wear The ISO Hat” that I published here back in December 2007 I wrote: “Adobe is supposed to have converted the PDF 1.7 Reference into an ISO Draft by removing all Adobe and Acrobat specific information. Once PDF becomes an ISO standard, Adobe will be just one of many implementers of that standard.” I have been talking to Visual Technology Services, a UK based company which is another implementer of the PDF standard besides Adobe. I often get asked this question, “What 3D file format should I use to for long term storage of my 3D CAD data?” Proprietary Standards. Data Exchange Between Solid Edge ST3 And NX 7.5. Posted by Deelip Menezes Featured, Opinions Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 Siemens PLM took note of my bitching about NX 7.5 not being able to read Solid Edge ST3 native files and sent me an updated DLL which fixed that problem.

You can download it from the GTAC FTP server from There is no ReadMe file yet, but installation is quite simple. The DLL file name is plmxmlAdapterSE70.dll and you need to simply overwrite the one in the UGII folder. A word of caution is in order here. The real problem is that NX 7.5 does not give me an option to import these constructions surfaces and solids in a Solid Edge ST3 file. I guess this is not a problem when you create geometry in Solid Edge because the construction surfaces and solids, if any, will be for construction purposes only and will not be required to be sent across. Another point worth noting. Just for comparison sake I would love to see how CATIA handles data from SolidWorks.