Quote:
Originally Posted by JD Mather
Virtually any student anywhere can download Inventor Professional for free from http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity as well as most other Autodesk products. Almost 2 million members of the Autodesk Student Community. |
Anyone with a .edu email can get a free copy of either software, they give them out like candy for "educational purpose" *cough* advertisement. Both companies are also willing to give teams enough licenses that everyone interested will be able to have their own copy.
I'm partial to Unigraphics (UG) NX5 (VERY similar to solid works), but it's not used a ton in FIRST because you can't get free licenses without doing any work like with solid works and inventor.
In my opinion UG & CATIA are used much more than solid works, although this is based on personal experience.
I'd be interested to see if anyone has any data on market share of different CAD softwares
Correct me if I'm wrong with this, but here's what the big 3 use:
GM: UG
Chrysler: CATIA as of now, but with their work with FIAT they've decided to switch to UG causing MANY suppliers to jump ship as well
Ford: CATIA, but uses Siemens (makers of UG) Teamcenter software for file management
As far as suppliers I've worked for:
Delphi: UG
American Axle & Manufacturing: UG
Stick to Solid works don't even bother with inventor. Inventor is rarely used for anything. I've really only even heard of it through FIRST. If you can, pick up UG or CATIA they're most likely to land you a job (more so than Solid works even)