Time to get my head round a parametric modeller - gone for Pro Engineer cause of the ISDX freeform. Now I’m looking for a text book, the Toogood books look good but only seem to cover the basics - I need a book that covers surface modelling.
Any one tried this one - ProE4D (www.proe4d.co.uk) - any good?
I haven’t checked out any textbooks as I took classes here in Chicago (proetools.com) that had their own curriculum. But I wanted to say good luck and enjoy learning Pro/E. Its an incredible program. ISDX is amazing. I’ve been using Pro/E every day for several years and it still surprises me.
It looks better than the ProE book on surfacing I had found about 6 years ago…
The examples have that really dry look in your book just like the one I had, it makes ProE look so boring! There is definitely an opportunity for a good ProE book for designers
I took the PTC classes and they have pretty good books, but I think you have to take the classes
Very true. There’s so much cool stuff Pro/E can do that benefits a designer. I don’t think PTC does a very good job promoting their software in this way. I think often the assumption is that its primarily for engineering, which I suppose is true, but its great as a design tool, especially when size tolerances are tight. You get great flexibility for proving form anchored down by parametric dimensions.
Maybe they should cater a version to IDer’s and call it Pro/Designer. Keep all the modeling aspects, cut some of the engineering tools that aren’t as vital to designers, and really pump up the rendering functionality. I would be loving life if I had the modeling power of Pro/E combined with the rendering power equivalent of Maya. (without paying for both)
The thought of it makes my geek tingle. 
I don’t know how long you’ve been using Pro but back in the early 2000’s they did have a “ID” version of Pro E (I believe I’m remembering this correctly)… it was before they came out with Wildfire.
There’s totally an opportunity. I know ProE isn’t the most popular software for designers, but I know many many who use it… and many interested in learning it. ALL the books and online resources make it look so terrible compared to other ID software. There are a couple of videos on YouTube which are better than the books, but if someone packaged a book or DVD series in an attractive way, they could have a good seller on their hands
Sounds like we should get started on it. I could use some extra money 
I started right when Wildfire came out, but I remember the different UI of the older versions that used a lot of drop down boxes for the commands. I didn’t know about the ID version. That’s a long time ago in computer years!
Pro 2001 was so unbelievably ridiculous from a user interface standpoint… it was nothing like I had ever seen before when I started. It’s come a long way…
that would be an interesting project
The version that I learned on (took a class for one semester back in 97), I believe was v. 17? There were no icons, completely text based with drop down menus, horrible blue background with yellow text on sgi machines. Those were the days!
I have started creating a video guide to learn surfacing in Pro/ENGINEER but no date slated for that initial release. I should say that nothing beats the passion and learning experience of taking a class from someone who actually knows what an industrial designer is. Most of the places that teach proe are selling Pro/E. We teach product design and choose to use Pro/ENGINEER. Big difference.
Books are drab and boring but that is how most people got thru college.
So are there any good ProE surfacing/ISDX books out there? I am learning this on my own using WF3 Personal Edition. No way work would pay for classes - we don’t do surfacing there. I do metalshaping and want to use ISDX to model cars and build buck/forms. I thought ProE was a steep learning curve but ISDX and the work flow is steeper. I am slowly coming up with my own workflow by trail and error. A good book would help a lot.
John C.
I for one am looking forward to this, not everybody can afford a trip to Chicago, especially from outside the US.
If you are still looking for a way to learn Pro/E independently: PTC are selling their e-Learning library, a LMS with several hundred hours of online instruction on Pro/E, to individuals over their web store. You basically get all of their eLearning materials for the whole product suite, so you could use it to get started (like one might use the Toogood books) and then later learning something more specific (the Expert Framework extension or some other add-on module.
If you have a student ID the US price is 85 dollars - similar to a good textbook that covers a fraction of the content. Check their website. I don’t know how long this promotion has been going on but no one seems to know about it.