Settings like Solidworks

[Anonymous]

I have been a frequent user of the newest editions of Solidworks. I changed for inventor about a week ago and is totaly lost. Does anyone have settings that is closer to those of Solidworks? Can you send me these or tell me how to change.

The things that bugs me especially right now is that the workarea pans instead of rotating/orbit when the scroll is pressed down. There's probably more things that I can't think of right now.

[Anonymous]

Why would you change all the settings to match those from Solidworks? Wouldn't it be better to keep them the Inventor way? After another 1/2 week's you'll get used to it anyway.

[stevec781]

I changed from SW a while ago and find IV faster and more stable so stick with it.  Here's a few things to watch out for.

1. Rotating.  Get a spaceball.  I got the old usb 5000 model off ebay and couldnt work without it.

2. Project cut geometry across assembly components is not associative so be carefull when using it.  If you need associative you have to derive the faces to be cut into the part and make the cut at part level.

3. Project cut geometry at part level cuts everything that is visible.  You cant select the faces you want to cut.

4. Trimming surfaces has to be done 1 at a time.

5. There's not as many mate options so plan your workplanes for mating.

6. If you mirror a part in an assembly you have to re-create the mates on the mirrored parts manually.

7.  There's no dynamic sectioning.

8.  Frames are not in weldments they are in their own menu and work great.

Other than that its pretty much the same workflow.

I can recommend the Mastering Inventor book.  It covers just about everything and helped me make the switch without any training courses.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

Hi!

 stevec781: I don't know which version you have (I've Inventor 2011 student edition) and from what I've noticed your sixth point is not correct, luckily. 🙂 Thank you for your long and informative answer by the way!

I've used Inventor for a while now and it isn't that bad at all. But one thing that really gets on my nerves is that the program grid but not mate with the previous line when I'm using the line tool. I havn't found the grid and mate automatically tool either. Does this exist?

/Tess

[stevec781 · Accepted solution]

I am using 2011 and point 6 is unfortunately correct.  See in the attached screen shot, mate1 has not been reproduced in the mirrored part and I am able to drag it off the plane.  Not sure about grid and mate - I dont use grids.  Perhaps post a question in the general section of the forum.

[Anonymous]

If you want to use a regular mouse and want controls like Solidworks (middle button orbits, ctrl + middle button pans, and inverted mouse wheel zoom), follow these steps:

1. Download Autohotkey.  It's a scripting language that can be used to create hotkeys and much more, but in this case, we'll use it to swap around mouse controls.

2. Open notepad, and paste the following script:

#IfWinActive Autodesk Inventor
;Make middle mouse click orbit
MButton::
   Send {LShift Down}
   Send {MButton Down}
Return
~MButton Up:: Send {LShift Up}

;Make ctrl + middle mouse click pan
^MButton:: Send {MButton Down}

;Invert scroll wheel zoom (remove these lines if you don't want this)
WheelUp::Send {WheelDown}
WheelDown::Send {WheelUp}
#If

3. Save the file called something like "ahkInventor.ahk". Make sure you include the .ahk part.

4. Double click on the file to run it and use Inventor normally. 

[james.mcadams]

THANK YOU.

I've been using Solidworks for a decade, and just had to switch to Inventor at work. I'm fine with basically everything else about it, except for the navigation part which was driving me NUTS. This helps sooooo much.

Seriously, thank you.

[NachoShaw]

As an Inventor user who had to divulge into the world of solidworks, i can honestly say it the most frustrating process i had to go through. for 1 click for EVERYTHING in inventor, there is a 3-5 mouse click equivalent in SW.

Most of the listed points from the above post i disagree with

If you struggle, i would be happy to reply with Inventor equivalent methods if you wanted to list out where you are struggling. always happy to help 

Nacho

[Anonymous]

Awesome!

Thanks a lot!!!

[Anonymous]

It works beautifully, thank you.

[Anonymous]

I realise this post is old, but came across it and was curious. I'm a SolidWorks User turned Inventor user, and for me there are a few benefits, but otherwise it seems there the same, except for one major issue (in my opinion)... The work flow is longer.

1. trim: Inventor only allows you to trim one line at a time

2. Projections need to be created in Inventor in order to create relations to them in new sketches. This isn't necessary in SW, and relations can just be attached to existing sketch geometry.

3. Highlighting objects in the graphics window doesn't highlight them in the browser properly.

4. The feature tree cannot be organised into folders for ease, like in SolidWorks. This makes life so much easier.

5.  I have to manually hide dimensions after each sketch. Constraints can be hidden by default (to hide all), but then you can't show dimensions per individual sketch.

I'm picking things up, as there are a lot of similarities. I've used it for a couple months now and work flow seems to be slower, at least twice as long. I kinda wanna stick with it as I hear good things about woodwork for Inventor, but I must admit i'm close to ditching it (at the moment i'm modelling sofa frames, but this can be done in SW anyway).

I can't speak highly enough of the forum though, as I've had excellent support on here! I either find a solution, or I don't - in which case it usually comes down to how the software functions. So in the latter sense it is what it is.

[thomas_hendersonLGWBH]

Oh HELL no!  Inventor is used by less than 30% of the engineering firms that we work with, while Solidworks is used the the other 70%.  Not to mention the fact that Solidworks is just BETTER a most of the complex (and basic) features we use in CAD/CAM.  The mouse interface is just screwy when compared to the other four or five major CAD/CAM players, so we stick with the Solidworks scheme.