Here is my position on CAD within ERPS. I would love us to have it. Lots of it. SDRC IDEAS, Pro/E, SolidEdge, AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop, and/or any other CAD we can get. I also want lots analysis software - CAE that can do mechanical stresses, computational fluid dynamics, thermal stresses, vibrational analysis. It all exists.
Solid Modeling has a lot of great things about it. From testing fits, to transfering a model straight to analysis software. There is even some combinations of analysis software and design software where you tell the analysis tool what to optimize for, give it a base design and it will calculate the best solution, and update the design accordingly. Then you export the model to the CAM software and it generates the appropriate G-code*. Now here are the problems: Of those who are actually doing design work, we have linux, windows, and macintosh platforms in use. We cannot expect people to either re-install their systems or buy new systems to use. Also as I previously mentioned - in order to truly understand how to best use solid modeling a good number of hours needs to be spent working on it. Last I worked with it, Pro/E's parametric modeler had to be fully constrained to generate the solid model. SDRC and SolidWorks did not need to be fully constrained but would often make faulty assumptions while generating the solid if it was not fully constrained. Several other CAD systems cannot do parametric or variational geometry, requiring tedious input (my main problem with the <$1000 CAD systems). Assembly of solid parts is still painful on all the systems I have worked with. To this day, there are *NO* truly useful bidirectional file formats that are good for transferring designs between different CAD systems. And lastly - It still takes a lot of dollars to get any decent CAD system. If someone wants to donate CAD systems (or knows someone who does), let us know. I'll find a way to get people trained. If a sponsorship with decals on our vehicles would help to get us CAD systems,I am open to that as well. Dave *G-code is the "language" used to tell Numerical Control (NC) mills, lathes and other machines how to cut the part. _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
