Matterport headquartered in Sunnyvale develops immersive 3D technology. They offer a platform for prosumers and professionals to capture, edit and share 3D models of physical spaces. These navigable virtual tours are presented in Matterport's proprietary photo-realistic digital media format.
$9.99
per month
Solid Edge
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Solid Edge is a software solutions for product development — 3D design, simulation, manufacturing, data management, and cloud collaboration. Solid Edge aims to combine the speed and simplicity of direct modeling with the flexibility and control of parametric design.
Matterport is very well suited for showing what a space looks like without having to have contractors, designers, or clients on-site multiple times. We have used Matterport to send out existing and current information to help with bidding, design, and construction documentation. The Matterport app does not do as well on the outside of a building where there are not a lot of differences in-between scans. Matterport does work very well for interior spaces, homes, and businesses.
It has very good user interface in classic or ordered environment.
In 2D or drafting, you can give any Geometric tolerancing and symbols to any dimension. There is a wide range of options available.
You can convert any files in step file (.stp) and can open it in other designing applications easily.
After converting 3D drawings in 2D you can make changes in 2D drawing by converting it in the draft. You can also add details like cross-sections and detailed view.
You can directly make threads without creating holes.
The Matterport Capture app has some bugs and issues where some scans don't align well and additional time is needed re-scan in the same location multiple times.
Being used to 2-key and 3-key commands from the keyboard, it would be nice if this was more robust in Solid Edge. The capability of programming keystroke commands exists in Solid Edge, but it would be more user friendly in that regard.
Editing hatches can be a challenge.
I'm not a fan of the ribbon bar, but that seems to be a feature across software platforms in Windows.
As mentioned previously, Siemens Solid Edge is not the most user-friendly of products at all. It requires intense training to make sure that the basics are understood, and after that, there are numerous other training interventions needed to be able to perform expert-level CAD functions. The GUI is not intuitive, as many other packages are, and the features built-in are not well defined. The process to use many of these features is counter-intuitive and requires a mind-shift.
I have been involved with support and training of Solid Edge for 24 years. Given that I based my business model on support, and have been successful for all these years, I know excellent support. Siemens support for Solid Edge, "GTAC", is the definition of support for a product in every aspect.
We have looked at other, "Matterport like" products. One of the greatest advantages Matterport has over the other products we have reviewed is the ability to automatically create 3d walkthroughs and host the walkthroughs where we need them. Many of the "Matterport like" apps focus on Showing existing homes and spaces. We have used Matterport for this purpose but our primary use is to show the process of a construction project from the beginning, throughout, and to the finished product.
FreeCAD is often better than Solid Edge 2021 when converting files, but I hope this changes with 2023 NX is overall more powerful, but that is to be expected (and you cant add it above because it is too short for whatever reason).
It took about 20 hours of use to get the basics of Synchronous Technology, and with just a basic competency I was able to make useful changes to the design. One of those changes was impossible to do our other CAD program.
My use lately has mostly been on personal time and self-driven, so learning other aspects and features of Solid Edge has been slower. Creating a drawing for a part required a few hours to learn and do the first time, but luckily there were YouTube videos for examples. With practice, I would expect the time to reflect what it takes in SolidWorks (about 30 minutes).
