[Billme]

What is the latest with this software? Is it good for someone starting out?

[patriqq]

I ended up renting Cobalt (Ashlar Vellum), but I spent a fair amount of time with the Space Claim demo and had 3 1-hour sessions with their tech.

It is very impressive. I thought the 2D sketch features were somewhat weak, and there were a lot of tools/processes that I didn't care for, but these issues are subjective.

For example, SC has a simplified user interface (UI), with only 4 basic tools. However, each tool has a multitude of ways that it can be implemented; each implementation is analogous to a tool/function of a more traditional modelling program. So, the only thing that is really simplified is the appearance of the UI. In Cobalt, there is one tool for offsetting curves (2D geometry), and one tool for offsetting solid features (you select whether you are offsetting/moving an edge or a face once in the tool). In SC, these are all lumped into the 'Press/Pull' tool. I find it easier to select the tool that does exactly what I want (Cobalt) rather than select a tool that requires a lot of mouse-motion and clicking to do what I want.

Modelling can be history-based or history-free in Cobalt, which to me is the best of both worlds.

On the other hand, I do plan to acquire SC in the future for the assembly, mechanism, and drawing-generation features. Cobalt's assembly tools are glitchy.

SC has the least in common with other modelling programs as far as I can tell. Learning it may be easiest with no modelling experience (because you won't have any preconceived notions about your modelling strategy), however, if you switch to another modelling program in the future, the new program may seem foreign.

[martinkopplow]

Hi Patriqq,

I kinda went the same way: I used Cobalt from 1998 to 2008 when I learned about Spaceclaim during a trade show visit. I've been using SC as my main tool ever since, only fired up Cobalt now and then to use some specialty tools.

Cobalt and SC do in fact have a lot in common regarding modeling approach, though in comparison, Cobalt is by far the more outdated UI and it is awfully buggy.
SC has sped up the design workflow considerably, and has reduced the need to do things over due to crashes or data loss to about zero.

Best,
Martin

[patriqq]

Martin, thanks for posting. Your thorough, genuine, critical, and yet positive comments about SpaceClaim (on other forums) were a huge part of my final decision to purchase it.

I started off loving Cobalt, but grew to hate it. There are some very basic things that I like about Cobalt, for example, the easy 3D sketching and the ability to easily work with absolute/relative XYZ coordinates. Renting made the 'goodbye' painless, and now I'm 2 weeks into a SpaceClaim license. So far I'm liking it. Once one gets used to the UI and the tool nuances, it's great.

I agree, Cobalt and Spaceclaim have a lot in common. In fact, since my initial 3D experience was with Cobalt, I couldn't understand or appreciate the "solutions" that SpaceClaim offers to the traditional modelling problems. It wasn't until I played around in NX that I got it, despite the fact that NX has 'synchronous modelling'. For my needs, Spaceclaim is (tentatively) perfect.

[patriqq]

Quote from Post # 13 ???

[martinkopplow]

Quote from Post # 13 ???

I don't understand what you are telling me here ... ?

Martin

[patriqq]

Disregard my comments. They were in response to a post that was here last night, but has apparently been deleted. The post was a word-for-word quote from post # 13:


Dear patriqq,

millkito03 has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - New spaceclaim forum - in the SpaceClaim forum of CNCzone.com-The Largest Machinist Community on the net!.

This thread is located at:
New spaceclaim forum - Page 3 - CNCzone.com-The Largest Machinist Community on the net!

Here is the message that has just been posted:
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I am a long time Solidworks user, and can model really well in SW. As powerful as SW is, I have been frustrated by SW in the past, and have lost tons of work when I had changes that gave me the old "rebuild error" and I had to go backward 25 steps. When I didn't think through my model 100% before building it.
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