SpaceClaim review by an end user
This is what it’s all about. We can pontificate all we like without using the software, but give the software to a guy with a job to do and see what happens. This is a review on the Novedge blog of a fellow from SpaceClaiming forum… it’s a convoluted string of references, but the guy talks about his real experiences with the software in a real project.
To me, the main upshot is that he was not able to accomplish the entire task in a single software package. For some people that might be acceptable. I wouldn’t find it so. Anyway, follow this link and read it.
Matt I think it depends what you are attempting to do as to whether or not you stick to one package. Funnily enough I know Martin (the reviewer) as he is a long time Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt user (on a Mac as well), so I suspect the other system he mentioned was Cobalt, which although very competent in modelling terms is not so hot in areas like assembly control or drawings. In the same way that you might do front end conceptual surfacing in SolidThinking or Rhino even if you use SolidWorks.
Martin’s company does a lot of automotive prototyping work so having SpaceClaim’s data translation options keeps costs down and avoids having to kit the whole company out with CATIA (as this is what most automotive related businesses end up doing in Europe).
Hey Matt,
Thanks for the post. Martin’s example is a pretty common use case for SpaceClaim: an aggregation point for incorporating and editing diverse design data from disparate 2D and 3D systems.
We’re seeing more and more CAD users use SpaceClaim as one of the tools they use to get their job done. Many of them use SpaceClaim to nail down basic concepts so they can understand their modeling intent and hit the ground running when they go to feature-based CAD. (I don’t know if Martin is doing this, but a lot of our customers are.)
SpaceClaim does not replace excellent, feature-based tools like SolidWorks and Pro/E. Expert CAD users like you and me will always be perfectly comfortable in products like SolidWorks for most phases of design. That being said, SpaceClaim is getting a lot more people involved with 3D modeling and it is helping experts solve 3D problems that are not as easily solved in feature-based CAD. I think that’s pretty exciting.
-Blake (one of the founders of SpaceClaim)
Hi,
to stop speculation, Kevin is partly right. I am a long time Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt user, and I still use this piece of software as it has some very interesting features. I also did use it at times in the project I was referring to, besides being helped by an ICEMsurf/Catia user when preparing refrenece data from the series production.
It might also be good to know that what I do, after it is finished, is still on a conceptual level. It will in most cases still be a prototype, test sample or a singular piece, only few series production parts come my way. This puts feature based design in a different light for me.
With projects like this, the above mentioned Cobalt system cannot do the whole job, not even ‘collect’ the whole data after it was created elsewhere, as it has kind of a ‘monolithical’ file structure: It has the whole project with model, drawings, render data, hair, feet and fingernails in one ever growing heavy file. It cannot reference subassemblies. Is also cannot manage version history. It is a bit touchy when it comes to dealing with imported data. It also tends to get unstable and slow as models get ‘heavy’. The BOM feature is – well … better use an Excel sheet. It can do quite good renderings, once the user has fully understood the outdated render interface.
It sure CAN create from scratch, and it has always had a direct modeling approach, backed up by a feature tree. The tree is, other than with most systems, object based, not file based, and other than with SEwST, you do not have to choose between the two, just use what you want. Objects are created directly in 3D, not necessarily on a sketch plane, though a sketcher is an option available. That means it is a good tool to create individual parts.
Spaceclaim is almost the opposite. It has not so much advanced modeling tools, but it can still do all of the basic stuff, and it can do it fast. It can deal with assemblies and it does not care much for the source of the data. Also, it has some good work-in-progress-communication features, such as the very instructive section plane and fast drawing creation. I am not yet fully comfortable with the annotation environment, though.
Having said this, and having learned that even the Catia people next door cannot always do the whole job (and if it only was a quick concept!) in their system, I think having found two systems that kind of complement each other is not so bad after all. Many CAD systems out there cannot do the whole job, it is only that it’s commonly accepted in any one-system-only-environment that certain things are just impossible and better not attempted …
What surprised me was how much more than initially expected I used Spaceclaim. There is a large ‘overlap’ between the applications. This clearly raises the question: What else would it have to provide so I could quit using the other software? Am I part of the target group at all? I mean we could save big on license cost, and using an effordable, highly compatible system as the main system while not caring for keeping other formats updated sure has it’s advantages.
Bearing in mind how new Spaceclaim is, it is amazing what it already can do. Add a bit more on the spline and face creation side, fix some minor annoyances, and I would be pretty satisfied for the moment.
As it is only the sophisticated ‘freeform’ modeling that I miss, I could well imagine dropping Cobalt and using a combination of Spaceclaim for general purpose and something like Schott Systems (Tooling) for the difficult stuff, as the two are highly compatible and this would also open a door towards manufacturing.
I do not believe in using a single system for everything. There are just too many different jobs out there.
Martin