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Inventor or Mechanical

14 REPLIES 14
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Message 1 of 15
Oakcutter1
784 Views, 14 Replies

Inventor or Mechanical

I have been a user of AutoCad 2d for several years doing everything in "model" space. Recently upgraded to Design Suite including Inventor. My design layouts have always been 2d. Question is, should I continue as I have or should I venture into the unknown, ie, Inventor?

 

Thanks,

14 REPLIES 14
Message 2 of 15
JDMather
in reply to: Oakcutter1

What kind of work do you do?

Why have you not already ventured into the 3D world in AutoCAD?

Inventor is a 3D modeler from which your generate the 2D drawings.

Kinematic motion analysis is a big plus to using Inventor over AutoCAD.


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Message 3 of 15
Oakcutter1
in reply to: JDMather

So JD, does that mean you use Inventor for everything?

Message 4 of 15
JDMather
in reply to: Oakcutter1

No.


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Message 5 of 15
m.granata
in reply to: Oakcutter1

I was an AutoCAD only user for 12 years.  For the reasons my previous employer couldn't justify the cost for IV, and we exchanged alot of drawings back and forth with clients, Architects, and Civil Engineers and they always requested native AutoCAD files.  They would add data to our drawings and visa versa.  Now that I use IV 99% of the time I only go back to AutoCAD for plant shematic type plan view layouts.  There is a long learning curve, which I am still on. But you can learn it on your own as I have had to do because training seminars are too expensive.  But with IV I find I can create more professional looking drawings with greater ease, reduce mistakes, and always provide 3D views to clarify geometries.  IV is not as labor intensive to use as AutoCAD.  Out of the box there is not much Auto in AutoCAD.

 

Good luck with your decision.  

Message 6 of 15
PhilSaw
in reply to: Oakcutter1

Autocad is still useful where I work for building layouts and quick sketches.

Inventor is fast becoming our preferred software as it automatically updates drawings when you modify parts or assemblies. Naturally you still need to tinker with the drawings to ensure that the changes haven't affected anything, but it is a darn sight quicker to generate 2D drawings than with CAD.

Inventor is also good for generating glossy rendered images which impress clients, alongside movie captures of processes or moving equipment.

 

AutoCAD offers a 2D FEA environment, whereas Inventor (thanks to tie ups with ANSYS) offers a 3D FEA integral package as well as easy interface with ANSYS.

 

3D modelling in any package gives the viewer/user a greater persepctive of what they are trying to achieve in a visual sense, whereas some tend to struggle with 2D ortho views.

 

Ultimately where I am based, it depends on what our client wants as an output as in some cases they take on the completed files for their records as part of contracts. This means that both packages are still actively required.

 

Without knowing a brief description (not wishing to know too much sensitive info of course) of your situation, there's not a great deal to add.

Please click "Accept as Solution" if this response answers your question.
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Autodesk Inventor Professional 2012
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Intel(R) Core(TM i7-2600 CPU, Quadro 2000 graphics card, 8G RAM
Message 7 of 15
Mike686
in reply to: Oakcutter1

 It really depend on what you need to draw..but i would say both

 

i'm in the curtain wall buisness and in the process of switching completly to inventor...

in the workflow i'm working on, i still use autocad but for the manage drawing part

 i like using the sheetset in autocad to manage drawing, it efficient

 

if you need to draw a front, top and side view plus some section..it way easy with inventor since you dont have to draw each view.. you juste create the 3d model and show anything you need...

 

the part you dont need to see in 3d, can be add with 2d block or something

since to me what's important is having my frame in 3d so i cant extract part list..

i can do my 3d model, do my drawing views for it

then if i need to detail the connection to surrounding wall and structure, i can import the view of my frame as block in autocad (using design center) then do the detail in 2d cuz it easier and faster that way to add thing like isolation, walldetail ect...

 

i hope this help....

Product Design Suite 2017
Message 8 of 15
Oakcutter1
in reply to: Oakcutter1

Thanks to all who have commented. I'm the proverbial old dog and new tricks guy. However, the more I use IV the more I like it. I may end up as some have suggested here using both packages however the expected outcome has already changed in that I new see most things being done in 3d and what's left in 2d as I've done for years.

Message 9 of 15
Oakcutter1
in reply to: JDMather

I work in the design of down-hole rotary oil field equipment. I've used ACAD for many years to produce 2d layouts from which came 2d detailed machine drawings. We have literally thousands of drawings in dwg format created by earlier version of Autocad. This is not our first venture into 3d as we purchased Solidworks a few years ago and used it primarily for development of castings in 3d then converted them to 2d dwg's. Now that we have the complete package of AutoCad I want to make sure we are utilizing all that it has to offer. I read somewhere that it is possible to do anything done in Mechanical 2d can be done with Inventor. So my question is this, can I do assembly layouts in Inventor during conceptual design or do I still use the Mechanical module and do it in 2d? Hope this makes sense. B.L. Oats Mingo Mfg. Inc. Phone: 918-272-1151 Direct Line: 918-212-1214 Fax: 918-212-1214 boats@mingomfg.com
Message 10 of 15
Inv_kaos
in reply to: Oakcutter1

Oil field equipment is perfect for 3D modelling. I have even used it for down hole tools and coil tube feeders but most of my work is more process related. You can do almost everything in 3D, even a lot of our civil work is done in Inventor. To prove a point I could produce equivalent drawings in Inventor for previous 2D only applications but I don't believe you need to use it for everything as a blanket rule. We still use AutoCAD for some applications, mainly based on client request or plant layout drawings. We don't do full plant design ourselves but if we did it would be in 3D. Most of the time it is only because we are dealing with legacy data from our clients for fuel terminals and the like.

 

Start tomorrow in 3D if you have the software and your management doesn't object. At the end of the day all your drawings produced from 3D models are still 2D and can easily be exported to dwg. Concepts can still be done in Inventor quickly, just go into less detail in the model or sketch some parts of it in the drawing. If you haven't already looked into the advantages of 3D over 2D I am not going to repeat them all but have a search on this site and you should find plenty.

Please mark as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question or "Kudos" if you found it useful.
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Stew, AICP
Inventor Professional 2013, Autodesk Simulation Multiphysics 2013
Windows 7 x64 Core i7 32GB Ram FX2000
Message 11 of 15
JDMather
in reply to: Oakcutter1


@Oakcutter1 wrote:
 I read somewhere that it is possible to do anything done in Mechanical 2d can be done with Inventor. So my question is this, can I do assembly layouts in Inventor during conceptual design or do I still use the Mechanical module and do it in 2d?

For your work I would forget AutoCAD.  Old technology.


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Message 12 of 15
hfds006
in reply to: JDMather

I will certainly weigh in on the side of making the leap to Inventor.

 

I used 2D CAD for about 20 years (mostly AutoCad) to the point where I could do just about anything that could be done in AutoCad. Ten years ago I switched to Inventor and have never looked back.

 

I do mechanical design and use Inventor more than 99% of the time. I've gotten to the point that I will do things in Inventor that would be more suited to AutoCad, just because my AutoCad skills have deteriorated do to lack of use.

 

Just my $0.02 worth.

 

Richard in Houston

 

PS, Does anyone else think it's hilarious that the spell check in an Autodesk forum doesn't recognize the word "Autocad"?

Message 13 of 15
Oakcutter1
in reply to: hfds006

Richard, Thanks for your 2 cents worth, I too have been using Autocad 2d for years and can do just about anything I want or need to do. Having used Inventor for a short time I can see its advantages just not sure how I'm going to do conceptual layouts with it but I'm certainly willing to try it. Thanks again for your comments. B.L. Oats Mingo Mfg. Inc. Phone: 918-272-1151 Direct Line: 918-212-1214 Fax: 918-212-1214 boats@mingomfg.com
Message 14 of 15
JDMather
in reply to: Oakcutter1


@Oakcutter1 wrote:
...not sure how I'm going to do conceptual layouts with it

Post a dwg example of a "conceptual layout".


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Message 15 of 15
stevec781
in reply to: JDMather

The question should be what problems do you have with your current way of working and will inventor solve those problems.  If you are like me your only problem might be that you want to work faster and there's no guarantee that inventor will make you faster - it just might make you slower.

 

For me I waste a lot of time waiting for rebuilds, and modelling and placing trivial items just to get them to show up in a drawing view, eg brackets.  I'm no faster than I was when working in 2D and am still looking for a better (faster) way of working.  For large projects where rebuild times would be long I still use autocad, Inventor is just too slow rebuilding and updating all the time.

 

The big advantage of Inventor is that all drawing views update when you make changes, so there can be some big rework savings there, but you can wait a while for the drawings to update.  Sometimes it takes longer than a manual change in Autocad would have taken.

 

And then of course there's the problems and bugs associated with Inventor, which you just dont get in Autocad.

 

If you switch you will have a huge step backwards while you learn with no guarantee of being any faster once you have gone through your learning curve.  And if you use macros, the inventor macro language is a nightmare to learn compared to autocad.

 

Autocad still exists because it has a purpose and for some, its still the most efficient way to work.

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