Good Morning All,

This post may be a long so with respect to those that do not wish to read all the way through only to find out what I was on about was of no interest, the main theme is: I am curious about VC/Shark's user base. How many users, where located (generally) geographically, what industries/products is VC/Shark used for mostly and what is the future plan...continue as is or being groomed for acquisition?

I have been in the CAD business for over 30 years and still am a current Creo and SolidWorks user. Over that 30 year time-frame, I have worked in a number of industries relating to product design, product and industrial engineering and industrial design utilizing a number of software. The list of software I have worked on (from oldest to newest ((some used simultaneously)) are: Applicon Bravo, ACAD, Intergraph I/EMS, CADAM, PDGS, Catia V4 and V5, Creo(Pro/E), ICEM/Surf, SolidWorks and now I am learning VC/Shark. I do not list these to brag. I list these because, upon seeing VC/Shark's capability vs. price, I knew it was a wise purchase, no doubt. However, I am curious as to the long term wisdom of my learning Shark relative to future work opportunities. In other words, just how "marketable", known and/or in demand is VC/Shark? If I am going to use the remaining limited time of my life to learn a software, I would like to have some comfort of knowing it will pay off somewhat in the end.

What is a typical VC/Shark like? Single, independent designer/user or multiple user CAD group? Are there any companies standarized on VC/Shark that you know?

Where, globally, is VC/Shark utilized most? Is it used mostly in North America, EU or a diverse user base?

What are the industries that "know" of VC/Shark? Building Trades/Architecture, Ship building, etc???

Is VC/Shark (Tim, I guess?) building/maintaining/updating VC/Shark to make it attractive for sale, like SolidWorks did with Dassault? I mean if VC/Shark gets gobbled up (pun intended) by one of the bigger fish, it runs the risk of getting stagnated and allowed to die on the vine. BTW....a bit of history. When Mike Payne left PTC and started SolidWorks, the rumor on the street was he had always intended to "sell" big. He knew capitalizing on Windows based architecture instead of mainframe was the "hook" and played that brilliantly. $310 million brilliant ways in fact. That is off point... The point is when SW sold to Dassault, everyone up top intended to let SW languish in the back room (which it did somewhat from roughly 1997-2000) so as not to cobble sales from Catia. (Dassault did this with ICEM/Surf too somewhat). But because of SW's brilliant guerrilla marketing efforts early on (colleges, disgruntled Pro/E and Catia users) pure loud voices demanded SW stay relevant, and it has for a long time. To use some automotive parlance, Dassault has been in the uncomfortable position of making certain their Camaro SS (SolidWorks) cannot outrun its Corvette ZR1 (Catia) in a drag race. Although knowing both V5 and SW, I can attest that they are very close to one another. In other words, a CAD Rockstar, whether SolidWorks, V5 or Creo for that matter, will arrive at the finish line very close to one another. So, in your opinion, what is the future of VC/Shark? Will it stay somewhat where it is with updates to core functions or will it gain in functionality over time?

Was there ever a push for an Assembly mode in VC/Shark history? I find one of the difficulties in VC/Shark is "managing" everything by layers in the multi-body environment. Added to that, the fact that multiple selection (I.E. selecting more than one layer at a time with the Shift or CNTL key) is not possible in the layer tree, and that for some users the scroll wheel does not work all the time, makes for a VERY long day when the "model" gets to be over 7 "parts". I am curious as I see the addition of something like a functional Assembly Mode would add to the power/usability of VC/Shark. I fully concede there is much more I need to learn about VC/Shark. All software are usually much deeper and much more capable than a two month Noob like myself knows. Maybe some of what I say will be useful is already "in here". I look forward to learning it if that is the case.

In the end, I have enjoyed the learning curve of VC/Shark so far. Lots of capability and the user interface is decent with a lot of "niceties". BTW, Tim if you happen to be reading this, did you have any history with Intergraph I/EMS of the 1980's? VC/Shark reminds me of it very much from the way models are constructed (although this is common with explicit boolean CAD) to the data management, to flattening views on drawings, on and on. As I learn VC/Shark I find myself transported back a few decades asking very familiar questions! :o) I do not say this to be disparaging at all. I say it with respectful admiration that VC/Shark is a powerful as it is and has a following. Nicely done!

Have a great weekend all. And if you made to this point, thanks for reading it.

Dean

Hello there

At work, the only 3d-CADs I use is Solidworks. I bought Viacad just a few months ago, and I'm still learning getting used to it. I use it for 3 purposes: Little DIY projects, to broaden my CAD skills and to model stuff just for fun (cars or spaceships for example).
So far i really like this program. It's simple and intuitive, and does many things just as good as bigger proper CADs. Unfortunately there are quite a few features and things that don't work as expected, or leave room for improvment. But if a user knows the strengths and weaknesses of this program, it can be a very powerfull tool.

I guess most Viadcad users are hobbyists. Sharkcad probably atracts mostly very small businesses, as bigger companies with engineering departements usually rely on the "professional" stuff (SW, Creo, Inventor,...)

Will Viacad get bought by Dassault or whoever? I don't think so. Viacad's ACIS-kernel has already been bought by Dassault, and there are a lot of other ACIS CADs out there, which are just as good, if not better than Viacad/Sharkcad.

Unfortunately the forum is very quiet. I wish there were more people engaged, posting pictures tutorials, problems,...

Have a nice day
David

I do now. Thanks for that.

P.S. Your screen name just hit me. UG(I.E. old NX)MENTALCASE. I realized that after you said you were an NX user earlier today.

It appears you simply repeat the steps but instead of picking on your geometry, click somewhere in the work space. It seems to reset, or unset the rotation center.

Ha! UG Tourettes. Brilliant! I have a buddy who was a UG instructor at GM Tech Center for years in Detroit. Some years back, he was laid off and looking for a new job. I offered to teach him Pro/E and within four weeks he had gained enough skill to get hired on to an aviation engine manufacturing firm. He called me soon after and said, he never wanted to go back to UG because Pro/E was, in his words, DaBomb. I hope NX has surpassed the old days?

It's ok now, they have moved to a horrible ribbon format, thought going from Version 6 to 7.5 was bad when they moved everything and you couldn't find it!

Forgot to say I'm in the UK, and work from home. Live in the middle of nowhere :-) There's a little engineering factory just round the corner and they have solidworks. I suspect they can probably get away with an education license though, as when I went in there they do a lot of research based work and so on. I would love to move to Shark, as more people on here seem to have it, but that maybe in the future.

Yeah I should've hung on, and maybe took advantage of the offers. This is half of my battle, a lot of subscription based software kills off small businesses. There's no way I'd be able to afford it unless I knew I had the likes of 50 hours work each week, then maybe I could rent a Catia License for a few months, but it's a tight rope!
That's when I looked for out right purhase type software.

I don't like the ribbon in NX so found the settings and knocked it back to classic and full screen mode which is much nicer to worm with, NX has a lot of 'stuff' on the screen, which is a feature I like with ViaCAD where you can collapse the menus to give you more space, I have a 17inch laptop and 22 inch monitor and they soon fill up!

NeuTechFLA wrote:
<<<< As I learn VC/Shark I find myself transported back a few decades asking very familiar questions! :o) I do not say this to be disparaging at all. I say it with respectful admiration that VC/Shark is a powerful as it is and has a following. Nicely done!>>>>

Hi,
It’s not commonly known, but the origin of Shark and ViaCad go back almost 30 years, hopefully my memory is correct.
It started with Ashlar. I started with AutoCad in the ’80, s, and Ashlar’s Vellum 3D 2.7 in’95. Ashlar had Vellum Solids, like Shark, and to this day share some of the same code.
There was some type of legal issue in 2005, but a settlement was reached. Ashlar did their thing, and Tim started Concepts Unlimited, the beginnings of Shark and ViaCad. I have used all of Tim’s products for the last 13 plus years, had have been completely satisfied.

This link shows how similar they are:
https://vimeo.com/189498689

Isn't that a bit like saying ... 'you can't write something valid without Microsoft Word'

I work with various different parties - they always wish I worked with SW etc on initial discussions - but thereafter don't seem to care

If you send or receive a model, invariably history is turfed anyway. You don't need history to make adjustments - as a third party it's often easier without it

Naturally the more specialist you get - the more the need for proprietary CAD

Jol

Ha! Yes, somewhat the same as that. I see digitalphaser's meaning behind the question. Show examples of "real work videos" was what I was capitalizing on. For example, I have done 20 plus years of John Deere work, all of which was on Pro/E-Creo. So I could show "real world" work videos of that using actual parts and the techniques from Creo that were used. But searching Youtube I find no "real" products that have been completed in VC/Shark. I understand it's in the nuance of the language and question. It will become a matter of someone on the Forum, taking their time to reproduce something (non proprietary) in VC/Shark to demonstrate the techniques and work flow. Otherwise, it will be "invented" real work. :o)

It is true that being an independent/third party has a bit freedom, but as you stated, many times clients typically require work to be delivered in their native language. That is a pain and can be costly too.

Constraints would be amazing! I did notice, whilst editing some of the .ini files ( to bring in toolbars which seem to be hidden, or simply won't stay on the screen)there is one that brings up 'auto constraints' and I thought, eh? I don't see any options for constraints anywhere?

That would be great, although you can get used to moving lines and snapping end points etc, it doesn't always hold things together. Especially if you've made a shape from separate lines, and then try and mod that shape after a load of holes and fillets have been put in. The join curve I've had issues with to keep the shape together, more often than not the joint, say a perpendicular one, ends up all wobbly and weird, so I tend to stick to separate lines now.