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Inventor vs SolidWorks - Which is better.

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Message 1 of 93
sprayvent
22598 Views, 92 Replies

Inventor vs SolidWorks - Which is better.

Hello,

I just talked to the owner of the comapny I work for about getting Inventor insead of getting Solidworks. Does anybody know of any sources that has some pro and cons of both software. I perfer Inventor, since I am Autodesk loyal. I also got my two Certifications in Inventor at AU 2009. I have used Inventor since R11 and love the user interface compared to solidworks. Since i know Inventor, I can save the company lots on training for me and others, since I can train them. Any inoformation Inv. vs sw. will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Sam
92 REPLIES 92
Message 81 of 93
brien
in reply to: jasonhfx

Nice Work!

You could model all of that easily with Inventor as well do the rendering in Inventor Studio. Drawing creation would be a snap.

I dont have much experiance with Rhino. I used it once years ago working with surface meshes. Wound up doing them with Catia. Inventor and SW are solid modelers and both are horid when it comes to working with meshes. Modeling them all from scratch with Inventor or SW in solids would be a huge plus just for the parametrics alone.  

Message 82 of 93
smokes2998
in reply to: CosmosK

You can wreak havoc in inventor doing this as well as in SW Make sure there are no projected loops and lost projected edges.
Also make sure that the part is easy to edit as I have seen many people pull a push a simple part and multilbody into shape with so many cuts and extrudes that could have been done with one master sketch and one extrusion. Which make it difficult for another user to edit or modify.

 

If you want to pull and push a part or multibody into shape use Ironcad or solidedge st8 in syncronus mode or NX as they have a non history based modeller.

Message 83 of 93
stevec781
in reply to: sprayvent

I have used both and having reviewed my productivity I have gone back to 2d.  Parametric 3d cad has not killed off 2d cad I think because too much time is spent waiting for regen and fixing errors.  If I had my time again I would buy a cheap or free acad clone and use spaceclaim or rhino for the 3d work.

Message 84 of 93
brien
in reply to: CosmosK

Cat is pretty awesome as far as ability and surfacing. Probably because it's one of the oldest and built from the start to handle complex surfaces. I totally agree that the interface is really clunky. I think it has such strange mouse manipulation commands like the pan and rotate because it was designed back in the days before mouse wheels and space balls. I kind of like the simple customisable buttons but the lack of modal commands makes some simple things tedious. The drawing creation part of it is pretty darn archaic as well. But the thing will handle pretty much anything you throw at it and is as reliable and stable as a stone.

If dassalt took the code base from Cat and made a SW like gui on it that would be killer. But as of now they have an awesome code base with a junk front end with Cat and then a junk code base and pretty good front end with SW. Guess thats what happens when politics and bean counters ultimately determine the fates of products.      

Message 85 of 93
CosmosK
in reply to: brien


@brien wrote:

.. But the thing will handle pretty much anything you throw at it and is as reliable and stable as a stone.


In my experience, it's no more stable than SW.  It's prone to corrupt files moreso, but crashes due to performance less.


@brien wrote:
If dassalt took the code base from Cat and made a SW like gui on it that would be killer. But as of now they have an awesome code base with a junk front end with Cat and then a junk code base and pretty good front end with SW. Guess thats what happens when politics and bean counters ultimately determine the fates of products.      



That's what they are planning and the same reason lots of people will bail from the SW platform (myself included).  The current SW platform is just a cash cow to fund their next Catia kernel SW replacement.  This is why recent SW updates are non-value adding, just moving buttons around.
Autodesk Inventor 2016 SP1
HSM Express
www.cosmos-industrial.com
Message 86 of 93
brien
in reply to: CosmosK

You have obviously never used it for complex surfacing! Cat will do complex surfaces that no other software can Including everyone's favorite dog Pro E or NX. Or do simple surfaces with only a few hundreds of thousands of facets ten times faster. If you don't know that you haven't used it for any complex surfaces. I think I did have it crash a few times during the time that I used it but we were doing things that none of the other systems could even do and it was nothing compared to the hourly crashes with Solid junk just doing simple basic part assemblies.

 

Has there ever actually been a value added update to SW?

 

As I said before SW when it was actually Solidworks beat Autodesk to the punch by having a lax licensing scheme and converting AutoCad users over to 3D parametric and that is it. Autodesk finally realising what was going on and that they had dropped the ball ditched MD and started developing Inventor. Inventor was just an idea and not a developed product so they had a lot of work to do. If you ever used the earlier versions of Inventor you would know that it was a pile of doodoo. Once Solidworks sold out to the big D all the original developers jumped ship and the big D has been just milking everyone with SW for decades. Because of the SW fan base with mind sets and the geometric spread of lemming's Adesk tried to win back some of these customers. The major thing was Autocad and it's similar lemming like herd! Since there was company's with literally tens of years worth of old drawings done in Autocad, Adesk bundled Acad with Inventor and put a price to good to refuse on the suite and a price to high to be tasteful on Autocad. This worked and got Inventor into a lot of doors. They continued to invest in Inventor where big D just continued milking and playing Sheppard with the SW lemming herd. I am going to throw out a bone here, when Inventor dropped the numerical edition versions and went to the yearly brand, Inventor got a lot better and much more stable?????? Hmm I wonder what made this sudden jump in shapemanagers stability? acquisitions? licencing of code? I will leave that for you to ponder and do a little research on! 🙂

 

When big D does dump that pile of crap depracated parasolid kernal and adopts CGM to SW, it will be a much needed and long overdo move to remove the SW achilles heel. It would make SW an actual competitor to Adesk again rather than just being a sheppard for the SW lemmings, because sooner or later they will catch on and all just start jumping off a cliff. You have to give Autodesk credit for there foresight and actually getting the upper hand by forking ACIS and building Shapemanager so many years ago, just as big D is doing with CGM for solidworks now over a decade later. 🙂 SW may have beat Inventor to the punch back in the 90's but now SW has over a decade worth of shapemanager development to catch up to. If anything the future looks interesting for the two main streamers.

 

         

Message 87 of 93
smokes2998
in reply to: brien

You forgot to mention that SW uses the siemens owned parasolid kernel and siemens won't licence the latest versions of the kernal as SW are owned by a direct competitor. Siemens probably won't want dassualt ripping of the parasolid code base as the CGM kernal is a bit behind in development. compared to parasolid. i remeber using v14 version of catia  and having to carve the part into its finall shape it was a very odd way to model...

 

Message 88 of 93
CosmosK
in reply to: smokes2998


@smokes2998 wrote:

You forgot to mention that SW uses the siemens owned parasolid kernel and siemens won't licence the latest versions of the kernal as SW are owned by a direct competitor. Siemens probably won't want dassualt ripping of the parasolid code base as the CGM kernal is a bit behind in development. compared to parasolid. i remeber using v14 version of catia  and having to carve the part into its finall shape it was a very odd way to model...

 


Correct.  This is maybe the main reason Dassault is going to replace SW with a program using their kernal. Maybe it will be good, but count me out!

Autodesk Inventor 2016 SP1
HSM Express
www.cosmos-industrial.com
Message 89 of 93
brien
in reply to: smokes2998

You are correct SW never forked from the old junk Parasolid kernal because they were to busy milking the herd for all those years. There is no reason why they couldnt have developed there own version like Adesk did with ACIS and Shapemanager.

 

Cat as far as simple part modeling is no different than any other solid modeler. It actually has more features than the others. It does have it's own idiosyncrasies much like Pro E, Unigraphics and AutoCad. You ether need some training or time to settle into them or you will just be borking around with it like a blind pornstar. There UI's are not inuitive like Inventor or SW because they are focused on high end professional designers hence the 10K plus price tag's.

 

The 3D kernal has absolutly nothing to do with the user interface and the simple features of the program. It is pretty much transparent to the user. What you will notice is speed, precision and stability. All the other stuff like modeling features, ect is just UI. If you read around the net you will here a lot of hoopla about the new version of SW mainly because a bunch of the higher up jerk weed sales guys at SW got jobs working at Seamens and now they are trying to create another lemming herd with them like they did with SW. And that is fine but I will pass on the coolaid this time around!

 

Autodesk may have had its moments over the years but personally I think I will stick to them. At least I can see some steady improvements in there products instead of just getting fed coolaid for over a decade. 

   

Message 90 of 93
smokes2998
in reply to: brien

 

Please try SE  on a major project before complaining about the kernal.  The Parasolid kernal works alot better than shape manager. You should check out who uses the parasolid kernal as well

 

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_gb/products/open/d-cubed/

 

even autodeck using some of the stuff created by the people that created d-cubed

 

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_gb/products/open/d-cubed/customers/index.shtml

 

kind regards

 

 

 

Message 91 of 93
ralvarado
in reply to: sprayvent

This may be a very bad place to seek non biased advise for comparing programs.

This is an autodesk forum, and the comparison here is especially kind to Inventor as compared to a much more robust comparison you can locate on Revit

Message 92 of 93
blair
in reply to: ralvarado

I'm sure the same would be found, on this Inventor user site with comments about Revit.  


Inventor 2020, In-Cad, Simulation Mechanical

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Message 93 of 93
mhag33tg2
in reply to: sprayvent

From what I can see in Australia at least, many job ads requiring 3D CAD skills ask for SolidWorks so that is a good reason to learn it.   I am proficient with Fusion 360 but I do not see much employer demand for it. 

 

I downloaded the SolidWorks "free trial" and thought I'd see if I could quickly get up to speed with it.  But it was a pain in the neck.  Operation was slow and glitchy.  It would shut down after not using it for a while, about 30min, I think.  They did not clarify how long the trial lasted but a couple of weeks later it had vanished from my PC.  It may have been as short as one day. I don't know.  Functionality looked a little different to Fusion but I figured I already had the basics and would get my head around it quickly. I looked over their you-tube content and it was not well organised and I struggled to find a beginner/intermediate jumping in point.  You just get loads of you-tubes in no particular order, or at least I could not bring any sensible order to it.  That was the killer for me.  I also read the negative reviews on G2 for all CAD software and some say SolidWorks suffers from a lot of crashing but I can't confirm that.  Autodesk product also get their fair share of complaints.

 

For me Autodesk, and the Fusion 360 team in particular, structured the help files and you-tube content better and in a way that helps newbies/intermediates get up to speed faster.  And it ain't fast, btw.  That was the #1 draw card for me.  The Inventor you-tubes are pretty good and many but Autodesk could do a lot more to bring structure and order to them to target various levels of skill, rather than mainly providing channels for "what's new in 202X".  Google searches ended up being a better "organiser" of inventor content.  Many of the Autodesk inventor videos are really annoying, and are more about sales and marketing BS than communication, with words not matching actions or just going too darn fast.  The written inventor help files are very thorough but that in a way is it's downfall with too many articles suffering from boffin-speak rather than clear English.  And they lack graphic examples.  Autodesk provide 30days trial and a lot can be learned in that time.  I see there is employer demand for Inventor but not as much as SolidWorks.

 

So, if you are in Australia and already know SolidWorks then I suggest you'll possibly be more employable with it, at least for now.  But if you need to get people up to speed, I'd go with Autodesk.  If doing super complex stuff with very many parts then Inventor, otherwise if doing moderately complex stuff then for me Fusion is a good and cheaper starting place and then you will have seen some similarities to Inventor if you need to upgrade.  How SolidWorks really functions compared to Inventor or Fusion I can't say but it probably does not matter much.

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