Moving to another CAD software

[GuyM142]

Hey everyone,
Our team is new to CAD, we have only used CAD for 1 season.
We have a mentor who knows how to use Siemens NX and he teaches us how to CAD in it.

The problem is that we don't have support from siemens and use cracked software.
I consider moving to another software such as Inventor or SolidWorks which support FRC teams.

How hard will it be to move to another software?
Will it be worth it?

Thank you :)

[cxcad]

All the CAD software are relatively the same, once you know one you can switch to other ones relatively easily. My team this year switched from Inventor to SolidWorks this year during the build season; we only had one day of struggle but after that it was pretty was. AutoDesk and SolidWorks both give free licenses, so try them both now

[Michael Hill]

PTC Creo is another piece of software worth looking at. It's a much more comprehensive piece of software than either Inventor or SolidWorks, and IMO, is probably used more widely in industry (SolidWorks may disagree). However, if you look for engineering jobs, many of them are looking for Pro/Engineer people. (Creo used to be called Pro/Engineer). Almost nobody in industry seems to be using Inventor.

[lynca]

Almost nobody in industry seems to be using Inventor.

Inventor is not as widely used as the rest of the Autodesk suite of Products, but I have worked with multiple companies using Autodesk Inventor.

Regardless, our personal viewpoints are not actual usage numbers. Anyone have real numbers of CAD software usage /marketshare ?

[Michael Hill]

Inventor is not as widely used as the rest of the Autodesk suite of Products, but I have worked with multiple companies using Autodesk Inventor.

Regardless, our personal viewpoints are not actual usage numbers. Anyone have real numbers of CAD software usage /marketshare ?

As far as "real" numbers go, I don't think you'll get a cohesive list, but I've found it useful to look at engineering job postings looking for Mechanical Engineers. Most will have some CAD software requirement. Just from my searching, for mechanical engineering anyway, Pro/E seems to be in rather high demand, even more than SolidWorks. For other engineering disciplines, it can be skewed toward other software. For example, Aerospace Engineering will demand more CATIA than other disciplines will.

[cadandcookies]

I was at a presentation on using CAD in competitive robotics earlier this year, done by a man from PTC, and I remember him saying flat out that Creo, Solidworks, or Inventor are all three perfectly viable options for use in FRC.

It comes down to what you are looking for. I think Inventor is the easiest for people completely new to parametric modelling to get into-- AutoDesk has some really great resources both baked in and available online.

Solidworks is similar to Inventor, but used far more widely in industry. In my experience, finding mentors who know Solidworks is far easier than finding mentors who know Inventor or Pro/E. Take that with a grain of salt though, because that's just what I've experienced.

Creo (or Pro/E) is a very capable program. I started on Pro/E, and in my opinion it is simultaneously more flexible and more old school that Inventor or Solidworks. There isn't a slot feature here (which I personally miss, but oh well, UDFs for the win!), but there are a lot of features that make it, for me at least, the go-to CAD program in FRC. Also they sponsor teams with money for using their software if you apply for it. Pretty great company, and, at least in MN, they put on several in-person trainings.

Another software available in general to students/ whoever is Solid Edge (by Siemens). I've been experimenting with it for a couple of weeks now, and frankly the only reason I'd use it for FRC is if the team had a lot of mentor support for it. The resources out there for Inventor, Solidworks, and Creo are just too good.

[Michael Hill]

That being said about industry, I would recommend SolidWorks for FRC. It's very easy to use and there is quite a bit of support available from other teams and the SolidWorks forums. Also, being free for FRC teams helps.

[Chris_Ely]

As a student who was first taught Inventor in high school, NX my first year in college, and who is learning Solidworks right know, I found Inventor and Solidworks to be a lot more intuitive.

[dtengineering]

Have you considered Solid Edge, also from Siemens? The software is free for high schools to use.. actual school site licenses, that is, not just for individual or team use... and can do a few things that some of the other CAD packages cannot. Definitely worth checking out.

I'm considering switching from Inventor to Solid Edge myself. The Synchronous Technology... the ability to model using both an ordered approach and a feature based approach makes it quite powerful and easy to learn.

jason

[Gray Adams]

Some people are recommending Solid Edge. I only have limited experience with it (half of one course designed to teach basic CAD...), but I hated that software with a passion. It felt very limited and clunky. Support for it was difficult to find and I've never even heard of it being used in industry. Others may disagree, but I see no reason to go with Solid Edge over Solidworks. Synchronous modeling isn't that important, especially for FRC applications.

If you can get legit copies of NX, that would be ideal. NX is some of the best modeling software I've ever used, and its widely used at larger companies. Solidworks is pretty universally used (many large companies use or used to use it for smaller projects that don't require the stability or PLM capabilities of NX+Teamcenter), so that would be a second choice. It's also much more intuitive and still pretty powerful.

[dtengineering]

Some people are recommending Solid Edge. I only have limited experience with it (half of one course designed to teach basic CAD...), but I hated that software with a passion. It felt very limited and clunky. Support for it was difficult to find and I've never even heard of it being used in industry. Others may disagree, but I see no reason to go with Solid Edge over Solidworks. Synchronous modeling isn't that important, especially for FRC applications.



Depending on when you used Solid Edge, and what version you used, your experience could have been quite different from what is offered by Solid Edge ST7. Solid Edge has spent the last decade developing the Parasolid kernal, and even the people at Solid Edge will admit that this may have cost them some early market share. Personally I hadn't used Solid Edge until this summer when I had a chance to sit down for a day with a Solid Edge applications engineer as part of an article I was writing. I didn't think that Synchronous Technology would be that big of a deal either... but that was because I hadn't seen what it could do. He showed me enough of what Solid Edge could do that I came home and decided to learn more.

My experience was that it wasn't learning Solid Edge that was the challenge, so much as unlearning the limitations of Inventor. After about ten days, however, I started to get the hang of modelling in Synchronous mode and I found that for many projects it offered far more flexibility than Inventor. It had almost the same degree of flexibility as a 3D animation program, but with the added ability to lock down sizes and dimensions when I wanted to. I'm still a long way from mastering Solid Edge, but so far I'm impressed.

Anyway... there is a 45 day free trial available and the site license is free for high schools to use. That is not available for either Inventor or Solidworks... which offer individual licenses or team licenses, but not free licenses suitable for general classroom instruction (you could look into Creo as I know that Pro/E used to have a good high school license available). My only experience has been with Solid Edge ST7, which came out this summer, so users of previous releases may have had a different experience.... and yeah, if you're used to ordered modelling as the only way to model, then it will take a while to get your head wrapped around what Synchronous Technology can do... personally I have found it worthwhile, but I also had a bit of a head start having had a chance to sit down for a day with an expert on the topic.

I like Inventor and have used it for about a decade with FRC teams. I've organized classes to get teachers certified in Pro/E... now Creo... nothing against that software, although I found Inventor's learning curve easier. And I've got no complaints with Solidworks. They are all fine packages and you'd do well to learn using any of them. But I'm pretty impressed by what Solid Edge can do once you get your head wrapped around the fact that your model won't fall apart when you delete one of your early dimensions.

Jason

[headlight]

+1 for Solidworks.

If you're not sure what software to use, just get a couple of them and try them out.

I personally like Solidworks because it is what I use at work and I have found it extremely intuitive compared to NX.

I also like Solidworks because the process to get it is really straight forward.
You click the apply for team sponsorship link on this page (http://www.solidworks.com/sw/education/robot-student-design-contest.htm), fill out the form, and they e-mail you download instructions within a couple days (2 days when our team did it). A really useful thing for us was that the software was licensed for team's personal computers, not for school computers. So we were able to give our students and mentors licenses to put on their personal computers.

[laythrom]

+1 for either SolidWorks or Inventor. Working in both the mechanical and electrical fields, it seems that SolidWorks and Inventor are widely used on the Eastern coast, while Pro-E/Creo is more predominant on the Western coast.

If you are looking for a good program for entry level, Inventor is probably the quickest to learn; closely followed by SolidWorks. As far as Pro-E/Creo is concerned, it may be a bit confusing for those just starting out in the parametric modeling world. But that's my 2¢.