4.2 rant

[jjewell]

I just spent a few days doing some training with a client on Ver 4.2

Let me start by saying, I wasn't all that happy with the new "Toys".

The report, I guess thats ok, remember "Hyper reporting" and all its hype on ver 3.5 ?? Where is it now ? Hmmmm?

Who's idea was it to seperate the auto features with a seperate box for settings. Very cumbersome and a pain in the $ss. Easy to forget what your settings are.

I have never been, nor ever will be a fan of the "Newer and improved" window layout, but its here to stay. This version and its "toys" do not impress me.

It seems like Hexagon is trying to add more features to "simplify" the operation of Pc-dmis so that "Anyone" can run it.

ITS AN ENGINEERING BASED SOFTWARE, it will always take someone with brains to use it, stop trying to make it simpler !!!! In doing this, you have created a cumbersome, unstable software, what used to be great, is getting poor.

Anyone can push a button and make the CMM move and take points, its all the other stuff that is most important. Interpretation of data, alignment interpretation, I could go on and on forever. There is alot more ways to check something incorrectly, many less to do it right. You have to have someone with the knowledge to decipher the difference.

Ok, I am done.

[jmgreen]

Well said Jim. I use 3.7mr3 and I still get ticked at it. I really miss MM4 sometimes. There are features in PCDMIS, alignment and the graphical capability jump to mind, that have it all over MM4. but I really miss the stability. You are right, I believe they keep trying to make so simple a monkey can do it and as a result have taken a decent product and mucked it up.

[kass_b]

I use 3.7mr3 at least I know the bugs. staying with it. as far as making it so simple a monkey could run the monkey still needs the training otherwise results are useless and I must add a background eg experience before they begin!

[Peter Warcholyk]

Jim,

I also concurr. I agree with your comments. We will always need people with the understanding to program correctly, and interpret the data.

As you folks have aptly stated; "Any monkey can push a button".

Regards,
ZydecoPete

[John Riggins]

I just spent a few days doing some training with a client on Ver 4.2

Let me start by saying, I wasn't all that happy with the new "Toys".

The report, I guess thats ok, remember "Hyper reporting" and all its hype on ver 3.5 ?? Where is it now ? Hmmmm?

Who's idea was it to seperate the auto features with a seperate box for settings. Very cumbersome and a pain in the $ss. Easy to forget what your settings are.

I have never been, nor ever will be a fan of the "Newer and improved" window layout, but its here to stay. This version and its "toys" do not impress me.

It seems like Hexagon is trying to add more features to "simplify" the operation of Pc-dmis so that "Anyone" can run it.

ITS AN ENGINEERING BASED SOFTWARE, it will always take someone with brains to use it, stop trying to make it simpler !!!! In doing this, you have created a cumbersome, unstable software, what used to be great, is getting poor.

Anyone can push a button and make the CMM move and take points, its all the other stuff that is most important. Interpretation of data, alignment interpretation, I could go on and on forever. There is alot more ways to check something incorrectly, many less to do it right. You have to have someone with the knowledge to decipher the difference.

Ok, I am done.

I agree with everything you said here except "The report, I guess thats ok".
I want Full Report Mode back.
The report, its not OK.
It is muchly suckful.

[JaredHess]

I just spent a few days doing some training with a client on Ver 4.2....The report, I guess thats ok, remember "Hyper reporting" and all its hype on ver 3.5 ?? Where is it now ? Hmmmm?

Hyper reporting has essentially been replaced by the Forms editor. The functionality to create part setup / measurement instructions like you could do in Hyper Reports is now done via Forms.

Who's idea was it to seperate the auto features with a seperate box for settings. Very cumbersome and a pain in the $ss. Easy to forget what your settings are.

I don't know. I personally liked it all in one place before myself. But I know the AF dialog was taking up a lot of screen real estate and I would bet that this was an attempt to show more of the screen while working with AFs.

I have never been, nor ever will be a fan of the "Newer and improved" window layout, but its here to stay.

You can customize the interface, dragging and dropping menu items rearranging them to where it makes more sense for you.

Thanks for the feedback Jim.

[spazus_maximus]

Im with ya Jim. I recently upgraded all four of my machines to ver 4.2.... ya know to stay with the times. Well they are all back on 3.7mr3

I cant stand the new reporting.....YUCK!
I also cant stand the new DRF stuff!

Just give me what i need....I dont need a toy with my burger and fries!

[bw_bob]

I've been scared away from upgraging due to the reporting difficulties reported on this site. It seems like alot of trouble to make a report. Maybe one day.

Thanks for responding Jared & trying to clear some of this up...Can I have my hat

I like toys with my burgers & fries...

[Bill **********]

I doubt I'll ever "upgrade" past 3.7 MR3 for several reasons. Our customers ALL still require all programs to be converted to 3.5, the past history of buggy releases has convinced my supervisor that HE will be the one to decide when to upgrade and what to upgrade to. Since maintenace releases aren't ever released globally, he'll never receive a release that I would consider loading and using. I'll still be at 3.7 MR3 when 15.1 MR47 hits.

Bill

[nkayWAI]

Who's idea was it to seperate the auto features with a seperate box for settings. Very cumbersome and a pain in the $ss. Easy to forget what your settings are.

The reason for this becomes apparent when you use PC-DMIS on a variety of devices. The information defining the feature is the same, and goes in the auto feature dialog. The information regarding how to measure the feature (which is different for contact, vision, laser, etc) is in the Probe Toolbox.

4.2 is an intermediate step in this direction. V4.3 will allow the Probe Toolbox and the Auto Feature dialog to be docked together - for those that want something more like the older style method.

[rangerboat72]

I can't agree more with all of you! I was in a similar situation with 4.1. I ran it for a few months and finally gave up on it. I regret ever having done it because on occassion I get the dreaded serialization error and can never recover my previously used cad files no matter what version I try to open them in. I refused to install 4.2 based upon a poll done months ago. I'm fairly new to DMIS myself (Spring 04') and I was never really introduced to the powers of hyper-reporting so I'm not a big fan of all the template reporting and crap that is in the 4.1 and higher versions.

At any rate, good luck with the DEMON . . .

[kmcmm]

Try writing a program in 3.2 and installing it on a 4.2 machine. Had alot of fun with that yesterday...

[jjewell]

KMCMM,

I would hope that writing a program in 3.2 (Which I STILL use 3.25 MR3) and migrating it to ver 4.2 should work seemlessly !! I haven't experienced that , just yet.

I really appreciate Jared and Nkay's input and feedback. Its nice that we can use the board as a sounding board. Its not gonna change anything, but it makes ME feel better...LOL

Thats where I think Pc-dmis went somewhat wrong, trying to change the entire interface and menu to suit different devices. I gonna guess that the percentage of licenses on CMM's makes up for about 85%, and the others makes up the 15%. Why p_i_ss off 85% to satisfy the 15% ? Think how great Pc-dmis worked before this idea came along, nobody could touch this software, now, not so much.

I am sure there are scads of marketing ideas and many other issues behind doing this on Hexagons part, but it may have worked out for their pocket book, for now, but disgruntled clients doesn't pay dividends in the long term....

Just more of my 2 cents....

[Wes Cisco]

The reason for this becomes apparent when you use PC-DMIS on a variety of devices. The information defining the feature is the same, and goes in the auto feature dialog. The information regarding how to measure the feature (which is different for contact, vision, laser, etc) is in the Probe Toolbox.

4.2 is an intermediate step in this direction. V4.3 will allow the Probe Toolbox and the Auto Feature dialog to be docked together - for those that want something more like the older style method.

nkayWAI, I appreciate you stepping in here. It is reassuring to see that at least some of you guys are paying attention to us and care what we have to say. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Now. . .

My turn to rant. We don't want intermediate steps! We don't want to see every revision of the software "released" as viable product. Create a new version, test it, debugg it, fix it, test it some more, when you know it is reasonably stable, then and only then release it as beta, WAIT 3 months minimum for the rest of the flaws to emerge, fix them, THEN release it officially. STOP RELEASING JUNK.

We want stable software that works correctly. NOTE: I did not say we want a new version every year! I did not say we want intermediate steps. We would rather have one good upgrade every 3-5 years than 3-5 junk versions per year.

I am done with the soapbox now.

[Wingman]

nkayWAI, I appreciate you stepping in here. It is reassuring to see that at least some of you guys are paying attention to us and care what we have to say. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Now. . .

My turn to rant. We don't want intermediate steps! We don't want to see every revision of the software "released" as viable product. Create a new version, test it, debugg it, fix it, test it some more, when you know it is reasonably stable, then and only then release it as beta, WAIT 3 months minimum for the rest of the flaws to emerge, fix them, THEN release it officially. STOP RELEASING JUNK.

We want stable software that works correctly. NOTE: I did not say we want a new version every year! I did not say we want intermediate steps. We would rather have one good upgrade every 3-5 years than 3-5 junk versions per year.

I am done with the soapbox now.

Well said!!!