Backwards compatible

I'm probably opening a can of worms, but here I go anyways.

This thing about not being 'Backwards compatible', I agree that it would be
great but I have two questions:

a) What would your suggestion be for handling new functions(features) that
are in the newer file and not the older file. example: Deform or Sketch
driven patterns. How should the software handle either of these features in
SolidWorks version 2001?

b) Do you know of any parametric solid modeler that has feature based
backward compatibility?

 

I personally haven't used any parametric feature based modelers with
backward compatibility. At least not that I know of. But to do a "Save As
version XX" doesn't seem out of reach. Parts and Assy's can still be
considered the same, behind how they were created. In other words, it's not
like the basic mass has been redefined. Seems to me like you could lose
"how a hole was created" but it would still be a hole. If you can save as
different versions of a parasolid, why not different versions of a SLDPRT?

FWIW, Acad can save as an older version very far back. Same idea, the
vectors didn't really change but how they got in the drawing did. And new
stuff, like editable hatching, etc. gets dumbed down to a more primitive
state.

To not have the functionality certainly must be more by choice. Just my 2c.

- Eddy

 

I would easily trade this capability for speed and improvement of numerous
barely functional existing features.
bill

 

It wouldn't. This has never been the issue. The issue is parts that
*don't* contain new features.

Jim S.

 

I would suggest another "option" for saving in prior versions.

First, one of the major headaches is if you opened one of your
precious models in a newer version (for beta testing or out of
curiousity) and hit the save button WITHOUT editing any feature
or adding new ones. There could be a flag in the document saying
"only converted to newer version" and then it should be easy to
save it in that prior version.

Second, if SolidWorks can add a "feature version" index to any
feature in a model or drawing then it should be possible to
determine the "lowest" possible version which the document could
be saved without loss.

With this two enhancement I think most of the documents could
be saved in a previous version; for me, it would be okay that I
can't save deform feature as SW2001 format, it wouldn't be possible
at all.

Just my 2 cent ;-)

Stefan

--

unofficial german SolidWorks helpsite
http://solidworks.cad.de
tools and programs for SolidWorks
http://swtools.cad.de

 

My 2 cent's worth.

Can it just be saved as a type of file that can be read by any version?
Just don't use the new features ;-{
Autocad has .dwg for example.
An easy way round this problem is to have two hard disk caddys, with 2003 on
one and 2004 on the other.
Thats what I do