Them's fightin' wurds Was: Re: Cam only? Was: re: BobCAD/CAM...

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "thosmurray" <thomasm923@a...> wrote:

> >...Even Rhino is barely
> > capable of being called a modeler, as it doesn't really support
> > solids, but is surface based.
>
> Fred, what would you call Rhino, then? What are the things that I
> make with Rhino called? All this time I have been calling
> them "models". How embarassing!
>

Don't be embarassed, be concerned that the difference in price
between Pro-E, Catia, Vellum Solids, even Pro-D ( not the lite
version, the supported one, about $3500 last I heard), and Rhino is
not because Rhino was developed by a charity. (if that were the case,
they would not be in business for long) And one would hope that
Rhino and others will continue to chip away at the high end feature
pricing by continuing to provide a useful and evolving subset, always
maintaining an economical price.

> > Even Rhino can save quite satisfactory stl files for use with
> >StlWork.
>
> You make Rhino sound like a 95 lb weakling! It can even save quite
> satisfactory Pro-E IGES files!
>

Rhino is a 70 lb weakling compared to some systems. It does a great
job for a lot of things, particularly NURBS surfaces. If that is
what modeling means to you, then its a modeler.

However, it is very poor at modeling assemblies and the interaction
of mechanisms with kinematic properties or evaluation of tolerancing
effects on interrelationships between discrete components in a
simulated electronic representation of the real world. That is more
what heavy duty modeling is about. It means you can change the
length of part "A" and all the related components are also
automatically updated so that the change can be immediately evaluated
and changed again if design criteria are not met by the model.
Updated detail component specifications, either a CAD drawing
equivalent or a solid model are automatically updated, re-dimensioned
and toleranced. (Remember when Rhino didn't have dimensioning? not
that long ago.) It means that you have a complete history and
documentation of all the relationships of every component throughout
the life of a complex product design. I don't believe that the
current version of Rhino has notable animation capabilities(if any).
(I'm sure someone will correct me on that on if I'm wrong. ;-)

I was surprised to find that the free Pro-D had an amazing set of
kinematic simulation tools. I have dreamed of being set free of the
days way back when that I had to manually evaluate(draw and
calculate) ropes(you can't push these), gears, pulleys, wheels, ramps
and all those other moving gadgets that somehow end up with 2 ft-lbs
on the output side, this modeling capability is not Rhino's strong
suit, Yes?

Maybe it's just a difference between what is meant by the term
modeler. There are some guys close to me here in Detroit, that still
have clay under their fingernails. They are modelers too, but
clearly don't fall into the scope of what we're talking about.

Hopefully my statements are a little better understood now. Always
glad to stir up controversy ;-)

Best Regards,

Fred Smith
IMService