Inventor vs Solidworks API

[george1985]

Hello,
My company has both Inventor and Solidworks licenses.

I know the very basics of Inventor aluminium parts modelling, and I've been using Solidworks to do the same task, for the last few years.
However, I would like to learn an API of one of these two. And if API of one is better than the other, I think this is how my modelling decision with which I should stick with, will be made.

Does anyone have experience with both Inventor and Solidworks APIs?

Are there some pros and cons of these two?

I did some googling, and there is a pdf showing migrating SW to Inventor API, but they do not talk about pros and cons of one or the other.

It would be an invaluable experience for me to hear, if anyone worked with both Inventor and SW APIs.
Thank you in advance for the reply.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

Think that making the decision via the API is not relevant.

I would take a look at the possibilities with the software selves.

Normally the API support most features in these softwares.

Regards

[george1985]

Hi @bradeneuropeArthur ,
Thank you for the comment.

For what I need (aluminium milled parts) both of these software packages do the work. So they both provide all the modelling possibilities I need.
Price is not an issue, as my office regularly buys both packages.

It is only up to me to decide on which API to use.
To be honest, just by quick check Solidworks API looks like something from early 2000s made for VBA. Not by its functionalities, but by the way methods are named, and how parameters are provided (I saw methods with more than 15 input parameters).
I am not sure how Inventor API looks like in comparison to Solidworks one.

[basautomationservices]

Have no experience with SolidWorks API but I've seen some impressive third party plug-ins so I assume alot is possible. (https://solidsteel.de/solidworks?m=/SolidSteelparametric) 

Inventor has iLogic though, which makes it very easy to start using the API and easy to accomplish things. 

More things to consider are the community and the documentation. I've been using Solid Edge at work and there is basically no community and the documentation is crappy.

[bradeneuropeArthur]

The same as @basautomationservices mentioned, you can contact us always for support also on this platform.

Regards,

[george1985]

Thank you for the replies, once again @basautomationservices  and @bradeneuropeArthur .
Is there some example of an iLogic API result, so that I can see what can be achieved with it?
Whatever I can achieve through Inventor iLogic with the use of UserInterface, I can do with iLogic API?
Happy Easter to you and your families.

[JelteDeJong]

I have never worked with the SolidWorks API so I cant comment on that. But As you need it for milling parts you might also want to look into Fusion 360 (in combination with Inventor) With Fusion its also possible to create programs for your milling machines. That could be an advantage.

If you are looking for examples of what you can do with iLogic then have a look at my blog: http://www.hjalte.nl/

For an example of addins (that are using the API) you can have a look at my GitHub. (ShowFullyConstraint and OccurrenceBundler) These are fully working addons that you can also download (without the source code) from the Autodesk app store.

On the topic of support for VBa (not vb.net) you might want to look at this article "Is vba obsolete? ". I guess that is a problem for Inventor and Solidworks

[george1985]

Thank you for the detailed reply .
You have some very useful and detailed articles on your blog.
I particularly got interested in this one:
http://www.hjalte.nl/47-writing-and-debugging-ilogic-rules

So Inventor iLogic Rule editor supports only VB?
Not C#?

[JelteDeJong]

Yes, the iLogic rule editor in Inventor only supports VB.net. (I wish I could use C#) Autodesk probably wanted to make something that would be similar to VBa. But if you are writing standalone applications or addins then you can use any .net language including C#. (I have never tried F# but I guess it would work.) 

[george1985]

Thank you @JelteDeJong for this information.
I assume it is much easier to just run the VB.NET code in iLogic rule editor, then making a standalone application?

[JelteDeJong]

Creating standalone applications is not that complicated. The iLogicrule tester I created and wrote about in the blog post is a standalone application. The big issue with standalone applications is that they are slow. (check the chapter "Running In-Process vs. Out-of-Process " in this post)

Creating addins is a bit more complicated but if you know how it works there are just a few simple things that you need to do. (a bit too much for a forum post maybe a new blog post)