Alias vs CATIA GSD or GSO

[Anonymous]

Hello,

can you point me the advantages of Alias compared to CATIA (has a half of fame in terms of surface creation). Has far as I know CATIA is real complete in surface creation. But there is a lot of information across internet that it has more capabilities, can you help me to understand what they are?

Can you point some of OEM that uses Alias?

[donstucke]

I use Alias for non-automotive consumer products and was trained and did some benchmark projects in CATIA a few years ago.  While CATIA had some super nice tools, I found that it took at least 3 or 4 mouse clicks for every one click in Alias to build anything. I suspect that CATIA may force the geometry to be be built tighter if that's important for your use. For me using Alias is about exploring design forms as quickly as possible more than it is about creating technically perfect surfaces, your use may differ. 

[Anonymous]

Anyone with more experience?

[systembolaget]

You see many companies in consumer goods, investment goods and transportation design use Alias only via job adverts that state that skill. Sadly, Autodesk does not provide a customer list or case studies from the real world. It is all very obscure, like few users go on forums and share knowledge, stuck in the 80s way of secrecy and superiority, last Millennium thinking.

[Anonymous]

Catia has the power of Alias paired with the flexibility of Solidworks, basically. It's the best of both worlds, coming from a company that is (if possible) even worse than Autodesk. Even though you are not allowed to own Alias anymore (you rent it, and like any renter, you're at a disadvantage to your landlord), you can at least run it on your local machine (for now). With Catia, you can't. You need to be connected to a team server at all times and no files are stored locally. So, even if Autodesk doesn't care about small designers they still allow you to rent a room in their building. Catia won't even look at you unless you agree to rent their entire building with staff and pay for all the amenities.

So, before even going further on this topic, can you really afford Catia? Do you have the infrastructure in place to run it?

[alex_zx15 · Accepted solution]

Alias is a dedicated Styling tool for visible A-Surfaces. Creating high quality singles span/ bezier surfaces and evaluating with a range of different shaders. Sculpting and controling highlights by pushing/pulling cv's and aligning single patches manually (g0,g1,g2,g3) every time you have new input.

Compareable to the workbenches "freestyle" and "icem shape design" in catia (much more expensive).

GSD and GSO is a "feature" based surface modeler. Features like, extruding, offset, sweep, join etc. once used, are visible in the design tree. you can edit (parametric) and create certain dependencies with other surfaces (associativity). 

You'll find Alias users in every OEM's design Studios. GSD/GSO is mostly used by engineers for creating B-Side Surfaces. As always, there are exemptions to this!!!

cheers