OT....Solidworks vs. Inventor

[AARONIS]

 

This is somewhat off topic...

 

I know this is probably an age old battle of good against evil but I need some solid pros and cons. I've used INV in the past but never used SWK so right now I'm swaying to the side of INV. I recently saw the new version INV 10 and it looks great lots of new features, bells and whistles I know. Where do you sit and why? Which is better at importing into MCAM?

 

[Jack Mitchell]

Autodesk got caught sleeping at the helm (as bad as Bill Gates did considering the internet) when Solidworks and Solidedge were released.

 

Today I totally dismiss Solidedge as a serious contender but I acknowledge that Inventor and Solidworks are both equally excellent products that constantly improve as they fight out market share - I favor each for their strong points but cannot really draw fair conclusion.

 

Regards, Jack

[Tom Szelag]

Solidworks and Inventor both have very similar functionality. I use SW2005 at work and we have SW2004 in the design computer labs. Haven't played with Inventor since v9 beta.

 

SolidEdge, from what I've heard, is crappy.

 

What I liked about Inventor more than Solidworks is the Inventor interface is slightly more streamlined, and is hotkeyed nicely for high productivity without having to manually set a key for everything. Things are grouped a bit better IMO, for example there's only one extrude command and from there you can specify boss or cut, same with revolve, etc. Whereas Solidworks has a separate button/command for each. Less crap in your toolbars.

 

In addition, the SW releases seem to get more cartoony and maybe a bit too user friendly. '06 ships in June I believe, we'll see how that turns out.

 

With regard to importing, we do all our work as DXF or translate to parasolid first before bringing it into Mastercam. Can't really think of why.

 

In any case, having worked a fair amount with Iv8 and Iv9 on some NASA payload stuff, and having TA'd a Solidworks class, I lean towards Inventor.

[pip]

I personaly prefer the ease of use with INV.

We used the INV direct, from Mastercam, without any problems in my last firm.

[Brendan P]

One of our guys uses inventor 10 and for the price,about 5k,I cant believe what you can do with it!

[gcode]

I've owned SolidWorks for 4 years and am very happy with it. I've never even seen Inventor.

Going by Brendan's last post, the prices are about the same going in. SolidWorks maintenance is very high (30% per year).

It makes MC maintenance look like a bargain.

I think SW has the edge on number of seats.

(350K ++)

[jimp]

I have been using Solidworks for the last 8 years and find it very user friendly with Mastercam have been trained with Inventor and agree both have very similar functionality.

I use SW2005

Beta testing 2006

 

Jim

[jimspac]

I had a college course with Inventor 7 last year. After having previous courses in MDT and Pro E I was impressed with it's slickness in modeling and detailing. Having to learn to model in Cadkey afterward was and still is a bummer after learning parametric.

[Gary]

My design instructor that I had for mdt also used inventor for a year before they switched to solid works. He likes solid works better. Also autodesk wanted a ton for annual fees from the school. I no that about 8 good size businesses also updated to 3-d because the school went to solidworks.