[Tristan Lall]

I've been using Pro/E 2001 (the predecessor to Wildfire) for several years, now, first in high school (for FIRST) and later in a co-op position. Of the various CAD packages I've used, Pro/E is the most versatile and intuitive.

Only recently, have I had a chance to try Inventor out, and while it clearly lacks many of the functions of Pro/E, it isn't half bad. It's certainly better than I expected, coming from the people who brought us the utterly useless (for 3-D) AutoCAD. I'd go so far as to say that for a FIRST gearbox, you don't give much up by using Inventor.

For complex assemblies, or advanced geometry, or FEA capabilities, though, Pro/E is the better choice.

Now, they both have their flaws, but I'm not experienced enough with the newest versions of either of these packages (Wildfire 2.0 and Inventor 9) to comment on what bugs and "features" remain from the older versions. One thing is for sure: older versions of Pro/E were not user-friendly software--Wildfire seems to have fixed this, but I'm not prepared to try to compare it with Inventor, once again, for lack of much concrete experience with Wildfire.

If I didn't have to worry about cost--a one-seat commercial licence for Inventor is $7 000 (CAD), and around $30 000 (CAD) for Pro/E with a common set of modules, last I heard--I would go with Pro/E any day.