Mechanical Desktop vs. Inventor

[Anonymous]

I have a bit of a dilemma that I could really use some help with:
Ok so pretend (just pretend) that I am an absolute beginner at Computer Aided Design and know Very little about technical drafting or anything of the sort. Of course it is never too late to start learning, but here's the catch: in about 9 weeks I am expected to use CAD software to compete nationally in an Automated Machining Technology competition!

In about 9 weeks, my two partners and I will travel to Kansas City, Missouri to compete in the national Skills USA competition, and my role in the team is to produce a 3-D model of a part using CAD software, which will then be sent to a CAM program operated by another team member, and it will ultimately be cut out by a CNC machine. I will be required to export a .dxf file to the CAM program and produce accurate, dimmensioned, isometric views of the part.

So in reality, I will not require a hugely advanced program to perform these tasks; Mechanical Desktop would do just fine. But I have heard that Inventor is actually easier to use, and I was wondering if this is true for my purpose? It is a relatively simple project that will only consist of a single part, so is the complexity of Inventor really necessary? I am slightly familiar with Mechanical Desktop 2005, but when I downloaded MDT 2009 I was dismayed to find out that some major modifications and complexity have been added in order to make it more powerful.

So basically I can be considered an absolute beginner to both MDT 2009 and Inventor Pro 2009. So my question is, would my time be better spent learning MDT or Inventor for this purpose? I am a fast learner, but remember that I only have 9 weeks to become a pro at it!

Thanks in advance for the suggestions

[Anonymous]

If you are indeed a new user go with
Inventor.

I'm not an Inventor fan but MDT is on the slow
death march.

Any time invested in learning MDT may turn out to
be a lesson only as MDT is being phased out.

You can go with vanilla Acad, Cadia, Microstation,
or Inventor for your long term consideration.

Aug  PIA

[Anonymous]

Make sure you aware that all these progs except MDT
have separate files for models, dwgs and scenes(they call  it
Presentation or whatever)

which makes real painful to changes
and updates a mid-to-big assemblies/degs.

Also 2D dwgs are rather primitive and not updatable
as MDT layput dwgs.

Al

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<chundley> wrote in message
href="news:6160579@discussion.autodesk.com">news:6160579@discussion.autodesk.com...

I
have a bit of a dilemma that I could really use some help with: Ok so pretend
(just pretend) that I am an absolute beginner at Computer Aided Design and
know Very little about technical drafting or anything of the sort. Of course
it is never too late to start learning, but here's the catch: in about 9 weeks
I am expected to use CAD software to compete nationally in an Automated
Machining Technology competition! In about 9 weeks, my two partners and I will
travel to Kansas City, Missouri to compete in the national Skills USA
competition, and my role in the team is to produce a 3-D model of a part using
CAD software, which will then be sent to a CAM program operated by another
team member, and it will ultimately be cut out by a CNC machine. I will be
required to export a .dxf file to the CAM program and produce accurate,
dimmensioned, isometric views of the part. So in reality, I will not require a
hugely advanced program to perform these tasks; Mechanical Desktop would do
just fine. But I have heard that Inventor is actually easier to use, and I was
wondering if this is true for my purpose? It is a relatively simple project
that will only consist of a single part, so is the complexity of Inventor
really necessary? I am slightly familiar with Mechanical Desktop 2005, but
when I downloaded MDT 2009 I was dismayed to find out that some major
modifications and complexity have been added in order to make it more
powerful. So basically I can be considered an absolute beginner to both MDT
2009 and Inventor Pro 2009. So my question is, would my time be better spent
learning MDT or Inventor for this purpose? I am a fast learner, but remember
that I only have 9 weeks to become a pro at it! Thanks in advance for the
suggestions

[Anonymous]

Well it looks like I don't have much of a choice now, because my instructor absolotely insists that we use MDT 2005 when we go to nationals. I'm not sure what his reasoning is... just afraid to try out something new I guess. (We already use MDT 2005 at school)

I have MDT 2009 installed at home, so I guess I will practice on that. But apparently there is some sort of "ribbon interface" that has been added since 2005. I have heard that there is a button in the bottom right corner of the screen that will switch the interface back to classic mode, but I can't seem to find it. Does anyone know how to do this?

[Sridhar-Autodesk]

Hi,

There is no Ribbon in MDT 2009. Only AutoCAD 2009 which comes as a subset of MDT 2009 has Ribbon. (Start-->Programs-->Autodesk-->Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2009-->AutoCAD 2009).

To change Ribbon interface in AutoCAD to AutoCAD classic interface, click on the workspace icon shown in the attached image and select "AutoCAD Classic" workspace.

Thanks,

Sridhar

Software QA Engineer

Autodesk, Inc.

[Anonymous]

Ah that makes sense. Ok thank you