Way back when our company first purchased SolidWorks the 'office' versions didn't exist. I somehow convinced the owner that we at least needed PhotoWorks and FeatureWorks. The reason for PhotoWorks was obvious; I wanted to make some of those neat renderings like I had seen on the website and brochures. FeatureWorks was an easy sell to my boss when I told him that we would be able to load all our legacy SolidEdge and Mechanical DeskTop parts into SolidWorks. Yes it was an easy sell but the ideal fizzled after the first couple of conversions. It might be different with machined parts but with sheet metal in most cases it was easier just to redraw the parts. So FeatureWorks was placed on the back shelf so to speak.
Recently I've been contracted by a local engineering firm to import their customer's SolidEdge parts and assemblies into SolidWorks. They wanted more than just an imported solid; they wanted the features recognized and their sketches fully defined. So in the past month and some 400 files later I've used FeatureWorks more than all my previous years combined. From this experience I have a few observations.
1. FeatureWorks is not perfect. There are some things it just can't do anything with. Usually fillets or chamfers on a curved edge will give it problems. For example the 'chamfer' that goes around the head of a hex head bolt.
2. A combination of automatic and manual recognition seems to work best. An example would be a flat plate with holes in it. On automatic FeatureWorks will see a base extrude only with a rather complex sketch that contains the lines that make up the plate and the circles that make the holes. While not technically wrong it is not good modeling procedure (don't flame me).
3. As you use it more and more you pick up on techniques and the best sequence as how to implement FeatureWorks.
Overall opinion: FeatureWorks works and works well.
Anyone else have experience with it? Please comment.
Check out this fun SolidWorks link: SUPERCADGENIUS
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