Users will have access to metal bending and other features that Rhino cant do so well at or do at all, and SpaceClaim users have access to all that Rhino is good at that other progs are not so good at or cant do at all.
Users are now in solitary unable to see beyond the narrow telephone line or email system to their paid for support, which has time and amount of calls limits. A world without forums, we all know how vital forums are for bug fixing, ideas, problem solving, learning from others and so on. Ansys seem to think one is best off without a CAD forum.
I am gutted to think the vital forum is ended for folk before having even started out on this new venture.
Just imagine Rhino forumles…so please…
I ask. who would like to see the forum for users survive and be here,
could there be an additional section here for SpaceClaim seeing of its affiliation to Rhino. users need a forum. the fact that one pays £700 year for support from the reseller, and speaking to three I had varying home made rules such as 3 calls in a week limit, so if one hit some hurdles on a job, best delay the job and spread it out over a few weeks, to £1000 day 1:1, to have an unknown buffer revealing itself only when you hit it, …
I think Spaceclaim is useful. It instantly fixed a simple Rhino boolean fail and split fail due to the classic fail reasons known to users.
It goes well with Rhino so lets see a forum in the same arena to asist this marriage as there is no forum now.
No, I think you can assume that the likelihood of us taking over the tech support forum for another company is not very. Naturally people can ask about Rhino/SC workflow etc anyway, but that is not, I think, what you are suggesting.
Hi, not tech support, as I said users get that for their £700/year, but just a forum where the use of SC and Rhino can be explored, and SC users can self help, they have the paid solitary confinement for the tech support so that is not what I was suggesting, but that method is not all that CAD users need.
I was thinking of fellow users and the Rhino overlap with SC made it I thought strong enough to hopefully see the terrible loss of the forum overcome for the user to user use of forums.
To quote from a post:-
I come from a SolidWorks backround, and I recently bought a copy of
Rhino3D which definitely has the biggest learning curve in my opinion.
I’m still learning and ocationally punching the wall. I’m seein that I
can use Rhino 3D to create the 3D forms quickly and then I just import
them with the click of a button into SC. In SC I can create real
parametric assemblies, add fillets and fix the geometry. It’s so easy
that you say to yourself, why can’t all software be this easy? What’s
really cool is that it allows to create really loose 3D models in rhino
and then make them airtight in SC with the click of a button. This
process would normally takes hours of hair pulling time in Rhino.
I’ve recently bought SC and am really enjoying it. I find it works beautifully with Rhino. I’ve spoken to support at SC and am pushing for them to re-open the forum. I gave them a lengthy list of reasons /examples as to why they need one. If you purchase it, keep pushing them for it. If enough paying customers request it I imagine they will open it again.
As much as this forum kicks ass and I would like to see SC have something (anything) similar, I don’t think this is McNeel’s responsibility. Even if they have partnered up. SC should look to this forum as a great model to create there own.
Yeah, that’s pretty much bs… With the proper log-in procedures, spam can be kept to a minimum (witness this forum) and while there is a definitely a certain cost to manage a forum, that’s also gotta be minimal compared to the cost of the software… How many posts a day were they getting (not including spam)?
I agree with you 100%. This is why I’m continuing to push for this. If more people would also apply pressure then I bet we could make something happen.
When I gave them my lengthy list of reasons why they should have one, I informed them that I almost didn’t buy the software because of this. To me it’s a major flag. It took longer to make the decision to buy and more work on the resellers end to make the sale as this unease was something to overcome. I’m sure they have lost other sales due to this.
Solidtooldesigns, I fully agree and before seeing your post sent them an email saying I was about to go with SC but now I am very worried, previously it was Inventor then they decided to rent 3yrs for the perpetual licence fee $5900, that killed that idea.
I hope its not monetary gain ensuring we pay the annual support fee of £700 year. Those we buy the prog from give support for that fee but each are making up their own rules on how it would be. Some have a 3 or 4 question weekly limit. There is bound to be a limit as more buy from the same reseller and the support guys in the company appear to be employees with other work to do.
I stressed all the advantages of a forum and that a CAD prog given its complexity compared to other programs has to have one, crucial.
reasons such as:-
learning from fellow users,
having your problems pointed out by fellow users as bugs when the makers dont see it as such.
Seeing others suggestions, methods, problems and solutions
Feeling part of a community, compared to the solitary confinement world of paid support and training videos.
Not being totally dependent on the open/close time of paid support.
Removes fear of thinking one is near the annual quota of questions, and unable to progress as such.
Not in fear of some frequency of problems weekly limit, problems dont conveniently occur evenly distributed per month.
Forums allow a wider chance of help forthcoming than just from the support staff and at any time of the day.
Not having to work times to suit support times.
If forums are not needed by CAD users then why do they exist ?
Have Ansys done this to any other progs do we know ?
I just wish to find a home for the homeless Spaceclaim users somehow, to retain the benefits above of a forum. Loss of forum is a deterrent to uptake of SC, simply nuts. SC coupled with Rhino shows great promise, or did until the forum was nuked.
I had the same no forum case with another prog, it made for a real struggle and they barred me saying too much use of their support, I counted the emails sent and it was three for the year. They never rescinded that.
That’s awesome that you are sharing your concerns with them as I did. This will get them thinking. If they are losing potential sales due to this issue then you would think they would do something.
This strikes me as a slightly strange discussion to be having on a Rhino forum, which has no formal connection with SC(?). What I can say, from my recollection of the last visit I made to the SC forum before it got canned, is that you’re not missing much. At a rough estimate, I’d say that its total output for all the years that it was running amounted to less than a months-worth from this place.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to set up an independent SC forum?
I also have spaceclaim (version 2012+) as a perpetual license. I stopped ugrading after a few years when nothing significant for me was being added. But still I use it quite often to repair imported step files, removing fillets and other features from rhino objects. Like @MattE mentioned, I never found a lot of useful info on the forum, so I’m wondering if a new forum will suddenly change that. Maybe it is because SC is rather easy and straightforward to use?
I see that SpaceClaim page in the very first link is using a quote of mine from 2008. So I guess I’m obligated to speak up.
Here is a little background information. I was approached by SpaceClaim back in 2008 to help them beta test the Rhino to SpaceClaim plug-in. I did that, and in return I was allowed to purchase the more advanced version for the price of the “light” version. Back then you had a choice between a full feature version or a simplified one.
I found the program to have a lot of features that were missing in Rhino. But remember, this was Rhino 4 at that time. I had a project come across my plate at the time that was truly unique for us. To make a long story short, it was a tool to simulate a satellite for receiving inspection telemetry. It involved a carbon fibre exterior with stainless steel interior parts. There was a lot of “trial and error”. Rhino (at the time) lacked shelling capabilities, lacked the abilities we now take for granted with sub-object selection, and the Gumball. So I was going back and forth between SpaceClaim and Rhino to get the job completed. SpaceClaim saved me a lot of time, and when they were asking for an endorsement, that is where that quote came from.
However…
That was 2008. Rhino 5 added so much functionality that I no longer needed to use SpaceClaim on a regular basis. Almost all of the functionality that I looked to SpaceClaim for were added to Rhino 5. I found the only time I used SpaceClaim was to manipulate fillets, and to “heal” naked edges. But I also found that if the Rhino model was more “organic” in nature, SpaceClaim would fail to succeed at editing the fillet. I would put the current failure rate probably close to 75% of my attempts. Even models that were “healed” and returned to Rhino often came “unglued” after the round trip. I almost always ended up back in Rhino to get the results I needed. I stopped paying maintenance after the 2012+ version as well. Would the current version have a higher success rate at editing Rhino fillets? Perhaps, but the ROI on the annual maintenance for a software that might or might not be helpful was something that I couldn’t justify.
I still have it installed, but I can’t remember the last time it came to the rescue. These days, if I want to go outside Rhino to manipulate fillets, I usually will make OnShape my first choice. I get mixed results there too, but it’s free, so no harm done.
Now with regard to the forum, I found it pretty dead. It might have been helpful once or twice over the years, but it was nothing like what we are used to here. If I was interested in “buying” SpaceClaim again, I wouldn’t let the lack of that former forum as a reason not too.
I too stopped at 2012+ and I only upgraded to that because they had an amnesty offer that allowed my to jump from 2009 at the same cost as a normal annual upgrade. I had several display problems (GPU related) at the time and didn’t get support from SC worthy of the name, either directly, via reseller or through the forum. Dans’ experiences pretty much reflect mine. I very rarely use SC now.
If SC’s support for an official forum left much to be desired, I can’t see what other pool of expertise an independent forum would tap into. We are truly spoiled for abundant riches here. That is the reason it prospers.
