Don't, just DON'T!

[Anonymous]

Ignore all the requests here to make Inventor just like Solidworks!

If there's an actual "enhancement" for the way Inventor does something, great, but let's refrain from attempting to make Inventor act in the very same manner as its inferior competition.

Yes, there are many thing one software does better or different than the other, doesn't mean the other software does it correctly. Maybe, just maybe there are reasons why one does it one way and the other does it differently...more options? Less options? Freer workflow? Restricted workflow?

Just stop it already. You're working on Inventor, not SW. If you want to work on SW, get a job with SW.

Sorry, it's like demanding Chevy become Ford or vice versa.

Sorry, it's always been a touchy subject for me from a few years back when I used and maintained both and had to deal with a co-worker, who twice a day, like clockwork, would come over, interupt me with something he insisted Inventor just couldn't do that SW could. Yte each and every time I showed him exactly how to do it in Inventor. It didn't matter, he was hellbent on proving SW could do something Inventor couldn't and whenever it got to him being defeated, he'd pull out the old "number of clicks" complaint. If you're counting the number of clicks as your argument foundation, you've already lost the argument.

So, my idea for this post.......Don't make Inventor like SW, make Inventor much more superior to SW than it already is. Focus developement on what really matters to those in the field using it every day, not the fancy graphics and animations that the "suits" see.

[jasonrecords]

part of the issue is that some are used to how SolidWorks works or doesnt' work and don't see it could be better another way..

[Anonymous]

Nobody is saying make Inventor into SolidWorks.

What is being said is take the good things about SolidWorks (functionality also found in other 3D modeling software yet strangely missing from Inventor) and incorporate them into Inventor. And yes perhaps that involves taking a good look at what SW is doing too.

I use both on a daily basis, for two different jobs. 

If you want Inventor to be better than solidworks you have to be able to do the same functionality and more without having to 100 additional steps. Ease of Use is a factor. The number of click is a factor, this is all time spent, and wasted if it is not necessary.

There are some great features to Inventor. But there are also some simply embarrassing short comings as well too.

for example the inability of Inventor to display sketches through modeling geometry. The need to manually project geometry in order to reference existing model features. The useless measuring tool....and sure you can work around all this. But why fight it when it can be done much better.

There is a reason why market share is what it is. There is also a reason why people who have used and do use both point these deficiencies out.

NX, Solidworks they have their fair share of problems too, as do others. But don't get into a myopic mindset and think that what Inventor has is already perfection.

I can't speak for other contributors on this board, but rather than give anecdotes about co-workers and what they did or did not know,  I have given factual examples illustrating the need for functionality that does not currently exist in an efficient effective manner or even exist at all. If there is a really good way of doing something that I am not aware of I would gladly hear it. But unless it can be show as superior, then there is room for improvement. Competition drives innovation. Right now we have too performace cars being sold , both selling great value and capabiliity. Except in Inventors situation, the are selling a car that has no power windows, ac or wipers....but yes they have really great handeling a powerfull engine and hightech satnav bluetooth infotainment center....see the problem.

[Anonymous]

Dan, I'll never, ever claim a specific software is "perfection", that would be pure ignorance.

As far as the things you pointed out....display sketches through modeling geometry, not sure why you'd need to but yes, it can be done. By default the sketch gets "consumed" when the boolean operation is performed. This process goes back to the old CADDS4X and Pro/E days. The sketch is still there, it's visibility is automatically turned off for the simple fact that once the boolean is done, chances are you'll no longer need it and if you do, you can simply turn it back on. Otherwise, if you don't need it visible which is more often than not, then you're simply forcing the "extra clicks" issue upon yourself.

The "manually projecting geometry" step can be automated with a simple check box selection in the Application Options dialogue box. If you are only projecting an edge or a item to simply be used as a grounding reference to fully constrain your sketches, there's no need, by default the center point is automatically projected into each sketch, just use that as the reference. As far as the measuring tool, yes, it's been lacking for a long time, but it has gotten better and more robust. I don't use it that often but when I have, I haven't had much issue with it.

I hope you're not taking my post as a personal attack on anything you posted, it wasn't, but it seems like you might think it was.

The issue I feel comes down to comfort. People that are used to SW will prefer it over Inventor and vice versa. Like you, I've worked on both and I greatly prefer Inventor for numerous reasons. One of which is the fact I can use formulas/equations in my parameters. Last I checked SW can't do a simple parameter of "d1=d2/4". Talk about a glaring deficiency. Another issue I always ran into was importing other cad platforms or neutral files. SW had a 60% failure rate when importing neutral files and holding the precision beyond 3 decimal places. That's a scary issue for any place doing tight tolerance work as we were. And last item I'll point out here cuz I'm sure you get the point, FEA...SW FEA is incorrect in its base. Along the lines of the imports being randomly off as of the 3rd decimal, their FEA package is "off" as well and this comes from a SW FEA expert teaching the class. He flat out admitted it was incorrect with it's calculation factors....again, a scary issue for anyone relying on SW FEA results solely. With that in mind, I'll take AutoDesk's NASTRAN....there's a reason why NASTRAN In-CAD is the preferred choice for SW FEA now.

Again, I could go on and on, but this isn't the forum for that. Again, this wasn't in any way an attack on anything you may have posted, I'm just tired of always hearing people say "SW does this, why can't Inventor?" When in fact Inventor can, just in a different approach and yes, "clicks" can matter, when you're talking about a lot of them, but one or two more when the matter is because you have more options....I'll gladly forfeit a few extra clicks for more options.

[Anonymous]

"As far as the things you pointed out....display sketches through modeling geometry, not sure why you'd need to but yes, it can be done. By default the sketch gets "consumed" when the boolean operation is performed. This process goes back to the old CADDS4X and Pro/E days. The sketch is still there, it's visibility is automatically turned off for the simple fact that once the boolean is done, chances are you'll no longer need it and if you do, you can simply turn it back on."

Not so much after make the feature....but while you are trying to create the sketch:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/sketches-should-always-be-visible-through-objects...

[Anonymous]

Aaaahhh...gotcha. I see what you mean, yeah, that could be a nice little improvement. I'd prefer the program to automatically "section" or "slice the model in the positive direction while the sketch is active, or at least have that option for having this done.

What you show SW doing, I feel can be rather confusing at times depending on the model.

[Anonymous]

"Aaaahhh...gotcha. I see what you mean, yeah, that could be a nice little improvement. I'd prefer the program to automatically "section" or "slice the model in the positive direction while the sketch is active, or at least have that option for having this done.

What you show SW doing, I feel can be rather confusing at times depending on the model."

There is the option to section as well if desired. The problem I see with having only the ability to section, is that more times than not I want to see the sketch in the context of model from the outside, sometimes to reference geometry, sometimes just to assist in optimizing the placement of the sketch itself. 

 This assists in the ability to dimension off features that do not happen to lay upon the same plane...ie those features can have their geometry automatically reference onto the same plane, or one can also project them if desired. This is a huge benefit.

As I type this I am currently working with Solidworks and being extremely frustrated in its inability to easily rotate my view position as it does not have that nice little spinbox int the corner of the screen. So there are pros and cons to both....I want at least one of them to have all the pros. 

[Anonymous]

Typically if I need to see the sketch in the context of the model I will simply change the appearence to something I care to work in. There are better options than just wire frame, Shaded with hidden edges might work for you or whatever.

"As I type this I am currently working with Solidworks and being extremely frustrated in its inability to easily rotate my view position as it does not have that nice little spinbox int the corner of the screen. So there are pros and cons to both....I want at least one of them to have all the pros. "

Yeah, don't hold your breath...LOL

As far as rotating, I'd highly recommend investing in a 3D mouse (3DCONNEXION) is probably the most common. I'm lost without mine. I find myself reaching for it when on someone else's computer.

[Dan_Margulius]

Hi,

I think all of us here just want Inventor to close the gap from SW in the category "easy of use" and some design features 

that the Red Software is doing for years (solid sweep for example). 

Then Inventor will be where it should be in the aspect of market share and 

get the recognition it deseves as an engineering tool. 

Dan 

[JimmyDoe]

...Creo is better than both...

[Anonymous]

"...Creo is better than both..."

---

By all means if there is something better with the way it does a funcion, put it forward as a suggestion. I have no experience with Creo. I hope it is lightyears better than ProEng.

[Anonymous]

_DanSolo_ is right on the money.

Joflaherty:

Although your initial post was painful for me to read, you seem to have come around with your follow-up comments.  As Dan mentioned, nobody is asking for Inventor to become Solidworks, just basic functionality that most other CAD systems have, that does not involve convoluted "work arounds".

While doing my engineering degree I completed a course on Pro/E, so that is what I was trained on; I found it a ridiculously difficult CAD system to use.  My first engineering job after graduating, I used Solidworks for two years.  I found it much easier to use, and far more intuitive than Pro/E.

Moving on to a different company after that two years, I have now spent the past three (plus) years using Inventor daily (modeling, drawings, great deal of FEA).  I consider myself quite proficient with Inventor, and am able to achieve most if not all of my design intents.  That being said, I still find myself cursing the difficulty with which certain simple tasks must be performed.  

I will say in closing, however, that I feel Inventor has improved a great deal since the 2011 release that I began with.

P.S.  During a professional career with an organization, it is not as simple of a matter as "If you want to work on SW... then get a job with SW"... 

[JimmyDoe]

I'm a former Creo user who just came to Inventor several months ago. There are definitely some shortcomings that I've found in Inventor. Inventor seems like a more 'juvenile' program that is faster and easier to learn, but can't do as much as well. A chevy to a ford may be Inventor and SW, but a pagani to a chevy and ford is Creo 🙂 There definitely are some things that are great, like frame generator, which I use a lot. One thing that I miss sooo much are recordable mapkeys! Those were huge time savers.

There are just so many differences that I can't even start talking about them or I'll waste the rest of my day. I have no experience with SW, but it seems that It and Inventor are quite similar?

In assemblies, I really wish you could see a highligted wireframe view of a component, if you select it in the browser. Because if I have a component that is completely hidden from the outside of the assembly, how am I supposed to find it? I can highlight it in the browser and it highlights the part, but if it is behind another component I can't see it.

And datum planes are a pain. It would be nice if the names of the planes were shown as a tag on the outside of the plane, so I could easily find it in the model window, instead of trying to fin it in the browser, highlight and then go back to the model window. And it would be great if they were just a wireframe, instead of being such a dark purple that you can hardly see throught them. Especially if you have a skeleton with all sorts of planes; you can't even see the model with the planes on because theyre so dark. And I know you can make levels of detail, but why waste time? just make it so the planes don't completely obsure your view of the model.

Anyways, no more wasting of my day 🙂 I know these are idea station things, and I've put them on there. Thanks for listening.

[Anonymous]

JimmyDoe:

This is a great point:

"In assemblies, I really wish you could see a highligted wireframe view of a component, if you select it in the browser. Because if I have a component that is completely hidden from the outside of the assembly, how am I supposed to find it? I can highlight it in the browser and it highlights the part, but if it is behind another component I can't see it."

Curtis

[JimmyDoe]

Find my post in ideastation and kudo it!

[Anonymous]

Or... you could post a link to it...

[JimmyDoe]

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/nodel-and-datum-visibility/idi-p/5621587

[JimmyDoe]

Kudo it, please!!   Tell all your friends!!! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Comparing Inventor to Pro/E or Catia, etc. is apples and oranges. Pro/E, Catia are higher end cad packages and always have been, SW and Inventor are middle of the road cad packages, always have been. You might as well compare AutoCad to Catia.

From what I'm seeing are a lot of comments here that are borne in the fact you need training, formal training on Inventor, basically there's a lot of things I'm seeing that Inventor can actually do but you just haven't been shown/told how to do it or how to do it correctly. This is not the place for that, post those in the general discussion forum and I'll be glad to address them for you.

But back to my original post, there are a LOT of posts here and on the general forum where people are actually asking to make Inventor look and act just like SW, THAT is what I was getting at. I have zero issue with an actual enhancement, but considering Inventor has left SW in the dust on many issues a few releases ago, I just can't see the reason to pull it backwards. Maybe for the way you use Inventor you don't see the need or you simply don't know the shortcuts, more advanced workflows/commands??? But when it comes to tight tolerance and accuracy, SW has no ground to stand on. Again, anything of 3 decimal place or tighter, SW has a 60% failure rate, add a formula (d2=d1/2) in a parameter in SW...oh, you can't.....export a SW file to a dxf at full or actual scale...again, you can't, do some FEA in SW and tell me you're positive the results are correct....

yes, there are some things SW may seem to do better or easier, but the very same thing can be said for Inventor. My claim is to improve, not duplicate. Just because you know how to do it one way in SW and you're not sure how to do it in Inventor, doesn't mean Inventor can't do it or does it wrong (and I've seen a recent post here which states just that).

[Dan_Margulius]

Hello joflaherty,

Can you please give more examples where INV beats SW? 

Also I will be glad if you could elaborate on the tolerance and accuracy issue. 

FEA is FEA - garbage in garbage out...you can get bad results in CFD, Algor and Nastran in CAD if you are not careful. 

I know this is not exactly the best place for it but AD does not say where INV is better then SW so i hope you can give us more info.

Thank you

Dan

[Anonymous]

Dan,

Correct this isn't the place but I'll quickly, once again elaborate on the few issues I've pointed out.

1. Tolerance issue: A few releases ago we had both SW and Inventor in house. Management wanted a benchmark test done on how we used them to decide which one to go with. They hired a 3rd party group to run the tests and when it came to importing neutral files into the programs, 6 of 10 of the files brought into SW were off as of the 3rd decimal. That's a 60% failure rate and since our files were held to 3 or 4 decimal places, that was just too much risk. For comparision, Inventor brought those same files in accurate to the 9th decimal.

2. While I agree with you claim about FEA, this issue was admitted by a SW FEA instructor. He basically said the inaccuracy was in essense "built in" and is, or should be a "known". He suggested if we needed accuracy in the FEA results, to use something along the lines of NASTRAN In-CAD or Sim Mechanical. I asked him if it might have had anything to do with what I described in item #1 here, he said: "no, but it's along those same lines...that there's an error in the basic programming".

3. Again, attempt to insert a formula along the lines of "Dimension 2 being equal to 1/2 of dimension 1" or in other words "d2=d1/2" or how about making one dimension equal to another, i.e. "d3=d5" or how about controlling a model by Excel. Last I checked, SW doesn't have this ability.

4. Another issue I ran across was a client having to import dxf files for their CNC process. They were comparing both SW and Inventor. Testing both with the very same files, SW brought the dxf file in at 1/2 scale more often than not and when it didn't do it at 1/2 scale, it was some random scale. Inventor on the other hand brought the files in at full scale as the client expected and needed. The SW files need to be brought in to something like Acad and scaled correctly.

5. How's SW's electrical program? Can it talk back and forth between SW and SW Electrical? No? Inventor and Acad Ele can. Make a change in Acad Ele and it updates in Inventor and vice versa. Try that in SW....better yet, don't bother, you'll waste your time.

Again, a few years ago SW was ahead of Inventor, but that is no longer the case and no matter how much the SW put their fingers in their ears and say "la la la" to drown it out, facts are facts. I know numerous people who were bed wetting SW people, but once they were PROPERLY trained on Inventor nd they used it for a few, they flat out refused to go back to SW becaused they realized they could do what they needed to do much better or easier in Inventor. Again, most of the issues (not all, but most) of the issues I'm seeing here and in person where someone claims Inventor can't do this or that boils down to the fact they haven't had proper training. Another issue is terminology, where the SW is expecting and looking for a specific term for a command, based on what they know it to be in SW and can't find the same term in Inventor, then claim "oh, Inventor can't do it", when in fact it can and it's just a different term or located in a different location than they expect. Again, training! Adesk has specific training for former SW users that covers these issues, I'd highly suggest going thru it. Contact your local Adesk reseller and get the info.

I could point out so many more issues but again, this is not the place and frankly, in my experience, most SW people simply will refuse to admit to it. It always amazed me as to how anyone can be so "cultish" towards something like software. SW people are along the lines of Apple people. Why? It's a frwaking tool to do your job, that's it! Do they get this attached to a hammer in their tool box in their garage?

I'm in no way attached to Inventor or Adesk, but it is what I use for my job and I've learned to use it for what it offers. I had to do the same for SW, and for Pro/E, CADDS5, Catia, etc.

Speaking of Catia, do you realize Alias is far better and far more used in the industry for surfacing? Yet when you think of the ultimate surfacing cad program, you typically think of Catia. All your automotive heavyweights are now using Alias, why? Becuase it's far better these days.