Hi zulu, I have been using IDEAS linear static stress solver for the past 1.5 years now. Unfortunately thats the only capability I have right now. So far, I did find IDEAS meshing pretty competitive, like Irwin said. But they do not have a capability to combine constraint sets, hence a combination of brick and tet elements is going to be a huge pain, if done in the context of a linear static contact analysis. It has some very good CAD capabilities as it is a complete CAE software, including drafting and assembly modules. As far as part analyses go, it does a decent job, but i have been quite unsatisfied as far as contact analyses go,thats because I'm using linear static solver. But still, the contact element formulation of IDEAS is not like those available in ABAQUS, where all the normals point in one direction, thats a major flaw. I have mostly been doing structural analyses, and not a lot of thermal or modal analyses, but we are definitely looking to replace IDEAS with ABAQUS. Hope that helps, Sunny.