Thread: Why Inventor?
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Unread 07-12-2006, 02:42
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M. Mellott M. Mellott is offline
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AKA: Mike Mellott
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Re: Why Inventor?

I've been using all sorts of CAD programs for the last 15 or so years, mostly for 3D design of components and assemblies, including AutoCAD, UG, CATIA, I-DEAS, etc.

Inventor is an excellent design tool...easy to learn, and (most importantly) easy to TEACH. When I first joined with FIRST, I thought they were nuts to try to teach high school students CAD. In my experience, getting a new employee to become proficient in the the more advanced CAD systems (UG, CATIA) can take 6 months or more...and these are adults with degrees! To see kids pick up Inventor and be able to make simple models from a napkin drawing within a couple days, then be able to produce accurate working drawings within a week or two for the Build team to manufacture parts...that's impressive.

Yes, Inventor is not nearly as complex as some of the high end systems, and you can't do some things that those systems can, but we do not really need that kind of capability 98% of the time. Once you learn the basics of 3D construction (sketch, extrude, rotate, unite, subtract), these are the same concepts that every 3D CAD system uses...they just use different terminology from one system to another.

Oh yeah, don't forget that once you add all the fancy design packages to UG or CATIA, you're looking at $15,000 to $50,000+...for ONE SEAT (I'll pause while you pick up your jaws off the floor). For the money, you can't beat Inventor for 3D design.