inventor vs. solidworks 9

[romanp]

I have been reading quite a few messages on here and everyone seems to be quite defensive about solidworks. I need to make a decision on which system to go with. I have been an autocad user for 15 years and would like to go 3-d. I have heard all of the rhetoric from both of the sales sides. But I would like your opinion from those of you who know both systems. I have used solidworks before but not really inventor. Everything I output will be in the form of detailed drawings for my plant. We design and build machinery. It seems solidworks is not stable, or as stable as inventor? Your insight and knowledge would be helpful. Thanks alot in advance.

 

[Heckler]

I have been an autocad user for 15 years and would like to go 3-d.

my condolence's.

It seems solidworks is not stable, or as stable as inventor?

Not true. Any high powered MCAD or CAE application requires appropriate level computer hardware to function at its best. I've used Pro/E, SWx, Inventor, & SDRC IDEAS at different levels of production work and they all have their pros/cons. I did a Black Hawk simulator design with Inventor and it took me twice as long as I could have done in Pro/E or SWx.

I would have to suggest you do a 30 day trial of SWx, Inventor, & Solid Edge. Do head to head comparisions and don't pay any attention to the sales rep....that's their job to bash the competition. Trust me I know about aggressive sales tatics....from my days as a Pro/e applications engineer.



Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 3.0 & Pro/E 2001
XP Pro SP2.0 P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he's all right." -- George Best

 

[rfus]

Solidworks is very stable, and I'm not being defensive. There are just some who don't configure their hardware and software correctly.

A solidworks forum is really the wrong place to ask which is better. Those who use both and like SW better are the ones on this forum. I suggest you evaluate both. Get yourself a VAR who reps SW and a VAR who reps Inventor. Use them both doing the same machinery design jobs that you would do on a day to day basis and try to make prints of all these parts with both systems. Then come tell us what you found.

I think you will find Solidworks will win.

 

[ctopher]

Any CAD software is as stable as you make it.
Both Inventor and SolidWorks are good. I am a SW user, but only played with Inv.
I know there are changes coming from Autodesk for ACAD and Inv.
Anything that is mech design, I would stick with SW.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 04-08-07)

 

[fcsuper]

My guess when I see postings like this is that they are fake, either a SolidWorks competitor looking to post bogus information, or seeking to find arguments they will need to address with prospective customers who are inclined to buy SolidWorks instead of their software. I would ignore this after the basic refutation already posted.

Matt
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA

http://sw.fcsuper.com/index.php

 

[matherjd]

They are essentially the same program.

Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional

 

[Heckler]

I have to admit my usage of Inventor was back on rev 5.3 but I putting it up against the current version of SWx at the time. I'm sure the current version of Inventor 11 has improved some.

Autodesk Inventor is the best choice for AutoCAD users moving to 3D.

As the creators of AutoCAD software, Autodesk understands your design process and created Inventor to make the process of adding 3D as easy as possible. No company is more focused than Autodesk on helping designers create and bring better products to market faster at less cost. Inventor gives designers the freedom to integrate existing 2D designs into their 3D design environment, making it easy to reuse and share both AutoCAD DWG™ files and 3D design data with other Autodesk manufacturing applications and their users. With different product configurations that offer specific levels of functionality, Inventor is the best choice for AutoCAD users in the manufacturing space.

Marketing at its best.

MatherJD - Do you teach both SWx & Inventor in your 3D solid modeling classes? So students can deside which one they want to use?



Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 3.0 & Pro/E 2001
XP Pro SP2.0 P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he's all right." -- George Best

 

[pdybeck]

They are only the same depending on what you do... If you are making blocks, then yes they are essentially the same. I would imagine for most users they could productively use either, but there are some users that would really want one program over the other for some valid reasons. If I was doing some more intensive surfacing in the industrial design world, I think I would choose SolidWorks. I have yet to see some of the more advanced surfacing features that SolidWorks has (2007 version) be advertised or demonstrated in Inventor. I could be wrong... That doesn't mean that it won't have it in a future release, or that something like Alias (AutoDesk owned) could produce it more efficiently. Like I said, essentially the same depending on what you do.

Pete

 

[J-C]

Lack of configurations in Inventor would be hard to live without. On the flip side, Inventor users would probably miss more robust equations when coming to Solidworks.

Depends on what you use and need.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1 on WinXP SP2

 

[Diggles1972]

Having used both Inventor and Solidworks as they have grown across the years I would suggest that Inventor is a lot more intuitive to use and allows simpler part creation than Solidworks. Also, setting constraints and driving them allows quick and easy simple system analysis. However, Solidworks does seem to excel better at some of the more advanced functions such as using their CosmosWorks.

Hope this helps.


Best wishes and have fun,

Diggles1972.

 

[SBaugh]

To respond to matherjd

They are essentially the same program.

Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional

The only reason Inventor looks like SW is because they copied the interface off SW... it took AutoCAD 5+ years top remotely catch up to SW.

But to also comment on the above quote: They are not the same program by far, they look the same and they have the same function of parts. assemblies and drawings... but they are far different to use. The kernels i believe are also different. Inventor uses ACIS and SW as well as Solidedge uses Parasolid...

Back to the topic at hand:

So IMO you need to get a test drive to see what best works for you and your company and not go on what is said here. Heckler is right though... you need to have the correct Hardware setup to run SW efficiently and stable.

Good luck with your search... just because people are defensive here just means we love to use SW and recommend it over AutoCAD and any of its cousins, by FAR!

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[romanp]

Thanks for all of your inputs. From the looks of it, there are alot of you who are paasionate about the software, so i will be checking out softwares and let you guys know. Thanks again.

 

[matherjd]

>it took AutoCAD 5+ years top remotely catch up to SW.

I doubt that AutoCAD will ever catch up to SW. (You might do some research into the diffence of the two CAD programs AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor).

>...they look the same and they have the same function of parts. assemblies and drawings...
Sounds like the definition of the same to me...

>but they are far different to use.
Huh? I haven't had that experience. You might look into getting some training.

>Inventor uses ACIS ...
Again you haven't done your research. Autodesk abandoned ACIS years ago.

>So IMO you need to get a test drive to see what best works for you and your company and not go on what is said here.
Good advice.

> just because people are defensive here just means we love to use SW and recommend it over AutoCAD... by FAR!
Agree!


Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional

 

[josephv]

Hi Romanp,

Good luck on your decision.

A few things you may want to consider:

1) If you are hiring, how easily will it be to find designers that have SolidWorks experience in you area? And of course how easily will it be to find designers that have Inventor experience in your area?

2) If you outsource, are there design services firms that are using SolidWorks in your area? Using Inventor in your area?

3) Do your customers/ clients use either SolidWorks or Inventor or do they use something else (SolidEdge)?

Best regards,

Joseph

 

[ctopher]

"just because people are defensive here just means we love to use SW and recommend it over AutoCAD... by FAR!"

Not the same animals. You mean Inventor, not AutoCAD.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 04-08-07)

 

[pdybeck]

Scott is partly/mostly correct. Here's the real story...

AutoDesk based its ShapeManager Kernel on the ACIS kernel. So, they are probably largely using the ACIS kernel with some modifications on it that they now call ShapeManager. Spatial Systems (Developer of the ACIS kernel) was purchased by Dassault (parent company of SolidWorks). AutoDesk sat and watched, and then bought the rights to ACIS kernel a little while later. That enabled them to change the ACIS kernel to thier liking and name it whatever they wanted... I highly doubt its a whole new kernel, just mostly ACIS with some changes to suit.

http://investors.autodesk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=117861&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=230562&highlight=

http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/adsk_inventor/select/day_shapemanager.htm

Pete

 

[Heckler]

The only reason Inventor looks like SW is because they copied the interface off SW... it took AutoCAD 5+ years top remotely catch up to SW.

PTC did this and released Wildfire. It seems SWx's GUI what some MCAD companies are trying to mimic. It looks like SWx, kind of Tastes like SWx therefore it must be as good as SWx

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 3.0 & Pro/E 2001
XP Pro SP2.0 P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he's all right." -- George Best

 

[J-C]

Yeah...you should UG NX5....the dialogue boxes have moved over to the feature tree now....wonder where that idea came from.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1 on WinXP SP2

 

[SBaugh]

Thanks pdybeck!

I was reading that article before I posted that so I had done my research... as for training, what training do you expect to take?

If they are the same then why are they so different when I get calls from customers saying that's not how Inventor does it... if they are the same, then I would not get any calls about why one does it this away and why SW does it that away.

Just test drive the software yourself... all this posts do is cause harm to the product and the people repling to them...

Regards,



Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[Heckler]

I would have to suggest you do a 30 day trial of SWx, Inventor, & Solid Edge. Do head to head comparisions and don't pay any attention to the sales rep....that's their job to bash the competition.