Boston Engineering Presents, Pro/ENGINEER vs. SolidWorks: Which CAD System is faster? PTC

As an engineering services company our engineers use both Pro/ENGINEER and Solidworks depending on the customer's needs. We conducted a study to find out once and for all which major CAD platform is faster, Pro/ENGINEER or SolidWorks? Watch and see what we found out!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Pro/ENGINEEINR
• SolidWorks
• Wildfire
• PTC
• CAD
• CAD Systems
• design software

[6069mkob]

SW: Try driving a pattern with more than X-Y. How about X, Y, and theta? How about X, Y, Q, theta and L? How about letting me, the user, determine the orientation of a sketch? how about allowing me to use negative numbers in a sketch?

Pro/e Wildfire (Creo): how about full screen usage? How about bundling your software with a decent graphics library? how about bundling with a decent materials library?

PTC, how about listening to your customers instead of dreaming up new lame names?

[kimc53]

Having learned Pro-E and Solidworks simultaneously and side by side, I hands down prefer Solidworks, it is user friendly, Pro-E is user hostile. People only prefer Pro-E because it's all they know, they have no idea how powerful Solidworks is because they simply don't use it enough, or they don't know how to use it period. It doesn't matter anyway because Solidworks is growing SO fast and most companies and young engineers prefer it over Pro-E, that I would bet PTC goes out of business.

[markyboy1704]

@jkhuskies09 Having used & still use both packages I use Pro to do work for companies like Mclaren Racing, VW/Audi & BMW & can assure you that Solidworks is simply not powerful enough to cope with the tasks that were involved in those jobs. A customer had to do some shock analysis on an assembly 2 weeks ago they quickly learned after speaking to Solidworks that Cosmos could not handle the data hence they sent the work to a supplier using Mechanica

The video speaks volumes about both

[jkhuskies09]

@shinynewlincoln ever heard of rebuild and scale back on the left tree. I almost never have to scrap a part beocuse i screwed up on the model. you can allways go back and edit it. the good thing about sw is that it gives codes and hints at what is wrong with the model.

[jkhuskies09]

@markyboy1704 there is your problem you have used pro e for so long that you have know clue how to use solidworks at all. I have talked and learned from many instructors that have taught both software's and 6 of 7 instructors have said solidworks is easier to learn (avg 6 months vs 9 months) I have used both for about the same time and find that Pro E is actully harder to learn and is slower on my machine. It is more powerful but I have yet to try their newest version of CREO.

[nightowl8936]

I don't think this test reall pushes either software package to the breaking point at all.

I would like to see a comparison of expressing complex geometry. Try doing your own mockup of a fictional fighter plane airframe with both of them and use surfacing if you need to and lets see which one holds up best.

Are there any insights available about the underlying data structures used to represent or hold the geometry, and then how powerful is the kernel or solver that recurses through these?

[markyboy1704]

As a 14 year user & owner of Pro E & Now also own Solidworks for 3 years now, Pro E is a more flexible & powerful package. It is in fact easier to use than solidworks in my mind.

The only part of Solidworks i find overall that is better than Pro E is the drawing package of Solidworks.

needless to say, though solidworks drawing package does have it's poor qualities.

The biggest downfall of Pro E in the UK is PTC & it's resellers..both are awful

Pro E or Solidworks....for me Pro E everytime.

[shinynewlincoln]

Hey thanks for the info. I am only starting out and I have tried using Solid Works, but found that If I had to change anything in the design, I had to shut the program down, and redesign the part from the very beginning. I created one part seven times in SolidWorks, and each time I thought I had created it to spec. Even so, after saving the part I would have to go back and recreate the part from the very beginning all over again. Thanks - I really am glad I saw your video!

[gavatron06]

Agree, I feel Pro-E is the better package, but harder to use, it really depends on what your drawing. Couple of points;

1: Auto dimension, Im using PROE WF3, great if you have a simple rectangle part, 2-3 dimensions are shown but If I have a complex part say a sheet metal part the auto dimension could throw up 20+ dims, time consuming to clean them up and sort them out.

2: Pro E doesnt really explain why so features fail or wont create.

3: The family tables in Pro-e are fantastic

[tedknaz]

Going a little further down the comments I came across this; if he only commented that he liked ProE a little more, you must have shaped this strongly in the edit room.