Why Gibbscam Is The Wrong Choice Page 1 of 4

Why Gibbscam Is The Wrong Choice

Monday, July 25, 2011 CADCAM Technology Leaders

What's Wrong With The

How Gibbscam Lost Marketshare Because Of How CADCAM Press
They Do Business
Why Mastercam Is The Wrong
I've started a new LinkedIn group called CADCAM Technology Leaders. It's already got over Choice
950 members and it's very active. If you wish to join the group and start a discussion or
comment you must be prepared to state in detail why you think what you wish to discuss is
leading edge CADCAM technology:
Blog Archive

http://tinyurl.com/7rhka97 2011 (1)

July (1)
Here are the rules I've established for CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn: How Gibbscam
Lost
Comments should explain in sufficient detail why the technology you are discussing is a Marketshare
leading edge technology. Comments like "xyz CADCAM is the best!!!" or "abc CADCAM Because Of
sucks!!!" will be deleted. Fact based comparisons between different products are acceptable How They ...
and welcome. Here is an example of what I consider to be an acceptable comparison:

"Solid Edge ST has direct modeling tools that allow me to work quickly and easily on non-
native solids. SolidWorks has no direct modeling tools and I find Solid Edge ST much better
because our shop mostly works with non-native solids."

No personal attacks of any kind will be permitted.

For many years Gibbscam has refused to make complete and well written documentation
available for their product. An example is how the SolidSurfacer history tree works and best
practices. I've met a fair amount of Gibbscam users in both the Phoenix, Arizona area where
I use to live as well as the San Diego, CA area where I now live and none of them had a
decent understanding of SolidSurfacer's history tree. Almost all of them, myself included, will
transfer a solid model that needs to be modified to a CAD product like SolidWorks or Inventor
and modify it there because they really don't understand how SolidSurfacer's history tree
works.

A couple of years ago Gibbscam started to do a video series documenting their product. This
video series is only available to Gibbscam customers on current maintenance. I've taken the
time to view all of these videos and they are at best very basic and even the basics still aren't
properly covered. For example, SolidSurfacer modeling isn't covered at all! To make matters
worse for years no independent has created a comprehensive video training series on
Gibbscam like has been done by Mike Mattera (Tips For Manufacturing) for Mastercam. I
own all of Mike Mattera's Mastercam X training CD's and they are just excellent and I highly
recommend them to any Mastercam user.

Gibbscam has been steadily losing market share for years and one of the reasons is
because they have almost no real educational support. In the Gibbscam spring 2009
newsletter Bill Gibbs claimed real educational support was on the way. This newsletter has
since been removed from the Gibbscam website because it's so embarrassing and because
I've pointed out that it shows how Bill Gibbs and Gibbscam don't follow through on their
promises.

As way of example of just how bad Gibbscam educational support is, in Gibbscam's own
backyard (California), the closest one can take affordable Gibbscam classes in San Diego for
the kind of reasonable rates that a Community College charges is 2 hours each way (without
traffic) at Cerritos Community College. This has resulted in a lack of knowledgeable
Gibbscam users in the San Diego, CA area and because of this several Gibbscam shops
switched to Mastercam because even though Mastercam is an inferior product in just about
every way compared to Gibbscam plenty of affordable training for Mastercam is available.

I've been asking for a Gibbscam student version since 1993 and been met with nothing but
lame excuse after lame excuse. Back in 1993 the excuse was that Gibbscam was so simple
no one needed training on it. Over the years Bill Gibbs switched his story to it's very

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expensive to create a student version. Bill Gibbs was right about that because not making a
student version available on top of bad marketing cost Bill Gibbs his independance as
Gibbscam was forced to sell out to Cimatron when sales volume dropped. Take a look at this
request to the official Gibbscam message board back in 2004. Notice the second post shows
this guy was "Banned". Over the years Gibbscam has banned and censored so many users
and posts to their message board that I've lost count.

Gibbscam is in many ways brilliantly designed. It's the most non-modal CAM software I've
ever used which means you don't have to constantly open and close dialog boxes to move
around the software. Gibbscam has a very cohesive feel to it and doesn't ever feel like it's a
cobbled together system.

I've read many Gibbscam users complain that Gibbscam doesn't fix what's broken with the
product. That's bullshit. What is true is that there are plenty of items left to fix that should
have been fixed a long time ago. The reason they haven't been fixed by now is that if you
don't market properly you are always looking for the next big thing... MTM, etc. This is
especially true if you don't have enough capital and enough profits. There is a reason
Gibbcam had to sell out to Cimatron. Sadly many lessons still haven't been learned from the
past and they just keep making the same kind of mistakes that got them in trouble in the first
place. How the Gibbscam Message Board is run is a perfect example of how poorly
Gibbscam is run. So is their use of Twitter. There is no concept of how to properly work with
independent non fanboi users of their product who are realistic and know the CADCAM
market. The Gibbscam attitude can be described as: This is what we give you and if you
don't like it that's just too damn bad. Compare this to HSMWorks and their user forum and
you will see a huge reason why Gibbscam will have to be dragged kicking and screaming like
a spoiled little child into the new world of fully integrated CADCAM. New fully integrated
CADCAM companies don't have the legacy code problems and they also have a much better
understanding of how to deal with smarter CADCAM users who aren't satisfied with the lame
excuses they have gotten in the past from legacy CADCAM companies and as a result are
now demanding more than traditional CAM companies are willing to provide.

Gibbscam has started to fix long standing problems with their product like turn the Machining
Operation Manager, which was really just a Machining Operation Viewer, into an actual
Machining Operation Manager where you can use its spreadsheet like qualities to do quick
and easy mass edits. This is a brilliant way to expand the Gibbscam obsolete tile user
interface. I also personally believe that a spreadsheet user interface is the best way to do
mass editing on machining operations.

It use to be that Gibbscam had no undo... that's fixed.

It use to be that Gibbscam had very poor and limited use of color... I haven't used the latest
version but that problem seems to have been addressed as well.

It use to be that you had no way to dynamically move wireframe or solid geometry... all you
could do is enter numbers for coordinates which sucks and wastes time when you want to
visually place things like clamps... that's now fixed as well.

Problems that remain are no Tool Library. There is a very expensive Add-In that can do this
that should be a base part of Gibbscam. There are numerous workarounds for this and in my
view none of them are great choices.

Update 8-5-2011: This was posted today to the Gibbscam official message board by "jkefm"
and shows that more and more Gibbscam uses are getting sick and tired of the lame
excuses given by Bill Gibbs in regards to no Tool Library in Gibbscam:

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Update 8-28-2011:

Yet another long time Gibbscam user finally has had enough of no Tool Library and being
ignored:

How long has Gibbscam ignored this request? The dates and comments in the following
screenshot should give you an idea of how long Gibbs has ignored this popular request and
refused to add a Tool Library to Gibbscam.. These comments from five years ago also show
how Gibbscam users felt five years ago. Imagine how they feel five years later!

This post from Gibbscam's official message board from years ago shows how Gibbscam
users felt even back then about how they were treated by Gibbscam. The treatment
Gibbscam customers get has actually gotten much worse since Cimatron purchased
Gibbscam because the same horrible management at Gibbscam still exists and they now
have Cimatron's money behind them.

Here is a recent post to the Gibbscam Message Board that documents the long standing
problem of Gibbscam not remembering where you left pallets when you restart Gibbscam.
This problem should have been fixed many years ago and continues to be completely
ignored by Gibbscam management. I personally complained to Bill Gibbs about this problem
over ten years ago at a trade show. I really don't think this problem should be very hard to fix,
yet it's ignored year after year and never gets fixed:

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Gibbscam uses a very unique point based geometry system. People who start with
Gibbscam seem to love it. I didn't start with Gibbscam. I started with Cadkey. I don't love it.
Point based geometry seems to be unique to Gibbscam and I think a choice should be
offered so those that are more comfortable with element based geometry can use that.

Unlike many other CAM companies Gibbscam is far removed from understanding you need
very powerful CAD to create toolpaths in the most efficient manner possible. Gibbscam offers
no solution for those who want fully integrated CADCAM. Contrast this to the many offerings
that are now available that run inside of SolidWorks. Sadly, Gibbscam parent company
Cimatron totally understands that fully integrated CADCAM is the only way to go! Gibbscam
has no announced plans for a fully integrated CADCAM system whether it means running
inside of SolidWorks, porting to the Cimatron user interface, using Cimatron CAD or doing
something really brilliant like licensing the source code for SpaceClaim and running inside of
a direct modeler.

Even just creating some better trimming and extending tools like SolidWorks has would make
a huge difference and this is long overdue. Mention it on the Gibbs Message Board and you
are given the lame excuse from moderator "Fisher" that's it's a CAM program. Sorry "Fisher"
that bullshit doesn't cut it anymore. Speaking of the Gibbscam Message Board I was banned
yesterday once again for writing exactly the kind of things I've written here.

Posted by Jon Banquer at 9:47 AM 6 comments:

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