Is IronCAD a direct-modeling system?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roberto Ciarloni on September 20, 2008 at 12:12am

Franco , it seems a bit too hard to say that IronCad is riding the buzz created by others. From what I have seen using it and discussing with them , IronCAD has been one of the first providers of the direct modling technology together with HP soliddesigner , now Cocreate. Also their exploitation of direct modeling has been smart in the sense that IronCad is not based just on that , but rather it exploits also history when needed. In my opinion their strategy is the correct one but until now , noone has been able to provide the right mix. Let's see what siemens has done. I will comment only after having used it.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Hamilton on October 22, 2008 at 6:44pm

Actually I remember when IronCAD first came out. I think it was a makeover of Trispectives. I was able to use it for a bit and while they called it dynamic (history-free) it clearly maintained a parent-child relationship in a tree. Which means that it is history-based. What is unique about it is in it's ability to dynamically manipulate the size and shape of features, and also dynamically manipulate the placement and positioning of features. But the features are still ordered.
In my opinion, if features are ordered in a tree, it is history based, so IronCAD is history-based.
The problem resides in the definition of terms. Marketing departments thrive on the confussion.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Roberto Ciarloni on October 24, 2008 at 12:16am

Paul, I guess you did not use Ironcad recently. I had the occasion to do so last year and I can tell you that its
tree is automatically and continously reordered while you are adding features. Also when you do direct editing
operations like move face , no item is inserted in the tree.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Hamilton on October 24, 2008 at 8:26am

Now that you mention it I do remember the tree being reordered. I also remember still getting into situations where a manual reorder was required to get what I wanted.
You are right about the feature edits. I think it is changing the orginal feature rather than adding an edit to it. SW is starting to do some similar things.

But I still think the answer to Franco's question is - no. There is still a tree that somehow has to be managed.

How do they do with imported geometry? I never tried that.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Al Dean on October 29, 2008 at 3:17pm

IronCAD is a funny one. If you work with imported geometry, there's nothing stored in a feature tree and there's very little reliance on it with natively constructed models.. The tool is of course similar to CoCreate as the team behind it also formed the team behind soliddesigner

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Erik Bedding on October 30, 2008 at 8:30am

I have been designing with IronCad for about 10 years. The Tri-BalI is the best feature I have found out there. It is used for all manipulation of Parts, assemblies ect. The Drag & Drop Catalogs for parts assemblies ect are also way ahead of the other guys. Constraints can be added but are not needed but I do not use them for conceptual design work. I tried Space Claim but it has a long way to go to have some of the power of IronCad such as the Tri-Ball and detailing tools. The basic items one needs to understand in the IronCad Scene Browser (Tree):
1. Assembly
2. Part
3. Intellishape

An Assembly is made up of parts and parts are made up from Intellishapes. There can be multiple assemblies and sub-assemblies contained with assemblies. Intellishapes can be a positive shape (adds material) or negative shape (removes material). Intellishapes have handles that snap to edges ect. Intellishapes can be rectangular, circular, threads ect. If you drag a negaitve shape below (after) the positive shape in the tree it will remove material from the positive shape if it is above (before) it will not. The shape can always be "combined" into a dumb shape which can still be worked with using face editing tools and intellishapes. Imported geometry comes in as a dumb shape and can be readily worked with with no problems. Ironcad imports & exports native Pro-E as well as ACIS, Step, Parasolid ect. The system uses a dual kernal both ACIS & Parasolid and plays well with both. No complaints here...

Cheers,

Erik

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tom Lehn on June 30, 2010 at 6:38am

Hello All,
I'm new to this site and came across this post. First I would like to say that I am a certified IronCAD reseller for over 15 years and it still surprises me that IronCAD has the tendency to get pidgeon holed as a direct modeler by industry analyists mostly.
If I may, I would like to set the record straight as to what IronCAD really is. OK here we go...its a feature-orientated parametric history-based modeler. There I said it. It has been ever since its inception pre-1995 (Tri-Spectives). Now that being said, the reason there has always been confusion about what it actually is, is because its Direct-Modeling (DFM) was so advanced ( and still is) that many have simply started using it based on that purpose. It's like today if you use Solid-Edge only for its ST technology and nothing else.

Another reason is IronCAD;s ability to automatically reorder the history structure which even still today no one else can achieve. This gave the illusion that it was not a history-based modeler and that combined with the advanced DFM seems to constantly shoved IronCAD in the DM catagory. You would think that the industry would have figured this out by now, oh well. All you needed to do is turn off the "Reorder " option and wallah IronCAD is a history-based modeler. The beauty is you can turn on/off at will.

Now recently with the release of IronCAD XG (2009) IC decided to create 2 modeling options in a single environment: Innovative Mode (which is the approach they have tken all along) and Structured Mode (which is now a structured history-based modeling approach, which some added tools beyond what was always available). Now you have a multitude of modeling approaches to choose from in IronCAD that allows the user to "choose his weapon" to tackle a project.

To Sum up. IronCAD was just like any other 3D parametric cad system of its time, the only difference is it included such advanced technology way beyond the industrys comprehension that it could NEVER and still cant be put in any single catagory, so I guess they chose DFM.

Have any other questions, feel free to contact me or go to www.magnacad.com
Cheers
Tom

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anssi Mustonen on July 2, 2010 at 3:10pm

The UI is what I dont like in Ironcad, keep it simple like in Spaceclaim.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anssi Mustonen on July 13, 2010 at 1:25pm

Ok, it need perhaps more training to use Ironcad than Spaceclaim. I think both softwares are usefull.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tom Lehn on July 13, 2010 at 1:50pm

Hi Anssi,
SpaceClaim acts much like Sketchup from google, it has a push/pull tool that is very nice, I agree and it performs in a very "free" form. However, you really cannot pitch SpaceClaim against IronCAD because they are in different leagues so that being said IronCAD has tools setup a certain way that actually becomes easier when you get to more advanced designs. For instance IronCAD provides the TriBall which is a tool that allows you to a myriad of complex operations with simplicity and can be used throught the entire system. Whereas other applications require you learn several tools for several operations in several modes. IronCAD only has one. If you "master" the TriBall, you basically can funtion productivily in IronCAD. Of course there are other functionalities, but for the most part the TriBall is what pays your bills.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anssi Mustonen on July 14, 2010 at 7:27am

Hi Tom,

my meaning wasn`t not dump the Ironcad, I`m sure that it is very good choice. I`ve used 3d cad`s since 1997 (ProE, Inventor, SolidEdge). There are lot of cads which are very powerfull with several options. My aim was to say that I`m getting "tired" for cad`s where are too many options and paths to choose. In most cases my needs are to get easy and fast some consepts out for review ex. using 3d printers and honestly SpaceClaim is one of the first cad where I feel good mood when I use it, one other is MOI3D it is also easy to use and very cheap. Perhaps I`m getting too old for new things?
Thanks.

▶ Reply to This