yang686526

new backward-compatibility preprocessor for sw?
hello again,
one of my points of madness related the sw is its backward incompatibility. i want to know, is it worthy to start a separate project on coding the specified preprocessor that would save a feature tree and sketches with design tables to a neutral format then re-imported to an earlier version of sw? is here anybody willing to support this activity? what other cad systems can also be included as supported? finally, what should the reasonable price for such product be? any comments, ideas?
basil
"and when you loose control,
you'll reap the harvest you have sown..." (c) pink floyd
solidworks 2008 x64 sp5.0 (production)
solidworks 2009 x64 sp2.0 (testing)
windows xp x64 sp2
core2quad 6600, 4gb ram, 500gb sata, ati firegl v7700 1024mb (softmodded from hd3850), 19" tft
i think you have a huge market there, just with sw. i guess the other supported cad's depends pretty much how good their api is for this kind of stuff.
regards
markku
cswp, swug admin

that would be a tremendous product. i would buy it as long as it functions well.
matt lorono
solidworks 2007 sp3.1
cad engineer/ecn analyst
you will have massive issues there. firstly it would require either both versions of sw on the same machine, or to create a huge preprocesser (alone the upkeep of such would require a full time job) that can process sw2008 files completely independantly of sw, then call sw2007 api calls to re-model the components or directly reformat them at binary level.
i cannot think of any feasible way of doing this and making it worth while. the reason sw don't offer backward compatibility like many others is the fact that the internal structure of the file undergoes alteration for improvement, performance and enhancements, and so the old versions have no idea how to read such new structures.
the closest thing i can think of is to have an open macro, that runs in previous versions, reads in the binary structure data of the file and then parses the information and converts it to instructions previous versions would understand.
in my opinion, unless you want to make that program your actual career (which isn't a bad idea if you are willing) then its a no-no.
luke,
thanks for opinion, but for me such incompatibility is a kind of a deal i want to solve. and about a macro it is a pretty good idea, but is that not the same as standalone program? more, add-ins sometimes work better than macros, you know that.
regards, basil
"and when you loose control,
you'll reap the harvest you have sown..." (c) pink floyd
solidworks 2008 x64 sp5.0 (production)
solidworks 2009 x64 sp2.0 (testing)
windows xp x64 sp2
core2quad 6600, 4gb ram, 500gb sata, ati firegl v7700 1024mb (softmodded from hd3850), 19" tft
i'm thinking along the lines of stand-alone programs (running in seperate memory space) do not have access to solidworks datastreams, so it would be impossible, for example, for bp to get an "integrated" datastream as sw is reading it, it would have to read it in its own memory space, meaning you cannot call sw api functions on it (well, not all) so it may become limited say 5 weeks into the project, and need completely re-writting
luke,
that's why i an speaking about an add-in, like formatworks, that would intercept the sw streams and recognize and rate them to the location i specify.
regards, basil
"and when you loose control,
you'll reap the harvest you have sown..." (c) pink floyd
solidworks 2008 x64 sp5.0 (production)
solidworks 2009 x64 sp2.0 (testing)
windows xp x64 sp2
core2quad 6600, 4gb ram, 500gb sata, ati firegl v7700 1024mb (softmodded from hd3850), 19" tft
baren-boym started on this a few years ago (2005?), and even released a public beta, iirc. i can't find it now on their unnavigable web site, and i don't think it ever got anywhere.
dale dunn
.jamestool.com
07 sp 5.0 - it's the customer's fault
dale,
i know about barenboyme and i tried their incredible betas, but i realized all that was just a good will, no more. also i tried capvidia and other converters, but no luck...
regards,basil
"and when you loose control,
you'll reap the harvest you have sown..." (c) pink floyd
solidworks 2008 x64 sp5.0 (production)
solidworks 2009 x64 sp2.0 (testing)
windows xp x64 sp2
core2quad 6600, 4gb ram, 500gb sata, ati firegl v7700 1024mb (softmodded from hd3850), 19" tft
i can't offer any technical advice, but i know my company which has almost 30 seats would pay big money for a program that would convert files to earlier versions.
quick