KOP library for AutoCAD 3D?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by philso

I would like to ask a real CAD newbie question.

Is there a library of the KOP components that can be used in AutoCAD 3D (not AutoCAD Inventor)? I found a link to www.firstcadlibrary.com and they have compenents modelled for IGES, INV, SAT and STEP. Are any of these useable in AutoCAD 3D? My personal experience has been mostly in electrical CAD (board and chip design) so I have only heard of these terms.

If you are new to 3-D CAD, give serious thought to learning a non-AutoCAD product. Inventor, SolidWorks or Creo are free to FIRST teams, and far superior in terms of their parametric CAD capabilities, and each have sketch modes (for drawing 2-D profiles) that should be quite simple to understand with your background in 2-D CAD. 3-D mode in AutoCAD is a bit of a hack, and doesn't lend itself to more advanced analysis (structural, mechanism, thermal, etc.).

It's up to you to decide if a bit of familiarity (with AutoCAD) is worth more to your team than the other advantages offered by parametric CAD.