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export to IGES


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I have used VW since MiniCad 5 or so for mechanical design. I now use VW 10.5.1. Lately, I have the need to send VW dwgs to machine shops that use ProE or SolidWorks for CAD/CAM. I wrote to Nemetschek asking about file compatibility, but never received a reply.

In order to test the readability of files exported to IGES, I saved two VW files in that format. One file exported fine and was readable by the other party, but the other file would not export. I get either no message or an error message saying VW could not convert the file.

If I can't reliably get VW to do what it is supposed to, I will have to buy a PC and SolidWorks.

[Confused]

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

It is difficult to say what's going on without looking at the file. Are you exporting solids and if so have you tried tuening on "Export Solids as Surfaces" flag? You may want to send the file to the following e-mail address:

biplab@nemetschek.net

Thanks.

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I received an email message from an NNA representative saying

"This is a bug in this version of the program - which has been fixed in 12.

Thanks for reporting this."

My question is What did I pay for when I bought the program? IGES compatibility was guaranteed. I think I am due a big discount on an upgrade or a bug fix upgrade at this version.

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IGES compatibility is not guaranteed. As a matter of fact, when your read the documents that come with VW, you will see that its functionning is not guaranteed - period. This is true for all software products (or at least for the ones that are sold on the broader market - it's different for software for, let's say, airplanes - CLASS 1 type of thing).

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Sorry, when the advertising states the features of a product as an enticement to buy, and you spend money in good faith to purchase the product (or a right to use the product), the functionality must be there.

Granted, some features work poorly and require work- arounds, or are flakey, or are fixed in bug upgrades. I think this falls within the promise above. But when the feature does not work and is not corrected in a work-around or bug fix, I think the judge will rule in favor of the plaintiff.

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When I tried to export to IGES fairly recently as a result of some contract work, I found that I could export one file to IGES and read it in again, but I could not export a second file.

After going round and round with this file, I contacted NNA, sent them the file and was told that they could not export the file either, that the problem was a bug (that would never be fixed in 10.5) and that it was fixed in 12 (ie. spend more money to fix).

I do only mechanical and optical instrument design and don't use all the fancy architectural features. In all my years of using VW products, they have not fixed the fundamentals, but keep adding gloss.

For example, I can never trust the dimensions to snap to a corner of a rectangle (or center of a circle, etc.). It may and it may not. I have to inspect 50% of my dimension snaps to see if they are right. When I try to add or subtract 2D surfaces it may work and it may not. I have spent hour deconstructing things to do workarounds.

When I use fillets to round a sharp corners, it may work and it may not. Sometimes three corners will do a fillet and one won't. I have had to make concave circle pieces to clip a corner because of this. The list goes on and on. Simple functionality is lousy with these products.

BTW, after telling me there was an unfixable bug in my 10.5 version, they offered me a 12.5% discount off the upgrade to 12. Big deal. So much for customer service.

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I am all for honesty. If IGES translation is flakey, then don't misrepresent it. I know NNA nor anyone else will tell the truth - "might export into IGES on a good day", "maybe 1 file out of 3"- "good luck".

Try that promise with a car, or a TV, or a home furnace, or a wrist watch. To say "everybody is doing it" is not an excuse for misrepresentation.

My problem is not about compatibility. VW wouldn't even go through the export/translation procedure on its own file!

Am I wasting my money to buy VW12, which the tech support said had "fixed" the problem. Am I going to get the same results after spending hundreds more?

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Recalling that these same complaints were made of the DXF export/import ... and they were NOT unique to VW or to AutoDesk..

its just that the standards were evolving rapidly and a different version was issued every other month ... same thing was happening with HTML, Java, SHTML, XHTML,SAMBA, Windows, MacOS ... who can keep up ... fortunately the DXF/DWG standards are now settled and developers can focus on other areas like GIS and the venerable IGES. But even here there are potential problems as the capablities of CAD/CAM improve to include sophisticated laser-optics & multi-directional milling.

The truth is an expensive, dedicated and integrated software/hardware package is the only proven reliable solutions to these complex problems.

Nevertheless, not being able to export and then re-import it's own file types is unforgiveable for all software.

Sometimes the only option is to 'upgrade' and hope for the best... we've all got boxes of floppies, MO, CD, DVD & harddrives full of older programs we will never use again.

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quote:

Originally posted by SciMan:

Am I wasting my money to buy VW12, which the tech support said had "fixed" the problem. Am I going to get the same results after spending hundreds more?

I think sales offers a 90 day money back guarantee - you can contact them and see if that's the case. If nothing else, you could test it and see for yourself if it is fixed.

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quote:

Originally posted by SciMan:

Sorry, when the advertising states the features of a product as an enticement to buy, and you spend money in good faith to purchase the product (or a right to use the product), the functionality must be there.

It's not uncommon for IGES translations to have problems in any software. Here's a quote from someone on an Engineering tips board:

quote:

I'm having some real problems with my CATIA IGES translator.

Basically, my geometry, no matter how I specify it, is coming out as GARBAGE! I can read it fine back into Catia, but not into anything else.

"Save as" is the worst. Doing a Utilities Batch save, I can get better, but nothing perfectly yet. We're not talking about hard parts, either. I seem to be able to screw up just about anything with Catia to some other system.

I know it's not native read problems, either. The same problems occur in SolidWorks, AutoCad, UG, and Pro/E.

(I believe CATIA costs about ten times what VectorWorks costs.)

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