Inventor or Creo?

[Heburn]

Right now, I'm having our team use Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical for or CAD models. I recently have been looking into PTC Creo, and I'm starting to think that we should use it instead. We wouldn't change now, mid-season, but we would use it next season. I want to know which program to use. SOLIDWORKS is not an option, as it costs money.

[Chris_Ely]

Originally Posted by Heburn

SOLIDWORKS is not an option, as it costs money.

Solidworks is free for FIRST teams.

I haven't tried PTC Creo, but of the CAD software that I have tried (Inventor, Solidwords, NX), I found Inventor the easiest to learn.

[orangemoore]

+1 for Solidworks

I have used inventor and done a little with PTC Creo. I have found inventor to be the easiest to use immediately, but Solidworks for me has ended up being better after using it for a little longer.

[Heburn]

Thanks, I didn't know that. Whenever I used the link, it always took me to the student edition, which is $150. So I guess it is an option.

[Heburn]

I also want to say that ease of use isn't as important, as we would have the rest of the year to learn how to use it. I'm mainly concerned with speed of design and power of modeling.

[mplanchard]

Go to www.solidworks.com/first.

Click sponsorship.

It's free to First teams and vex

[cadandcookies]

I like Creo. It's got plenty of power and I find it generally more intuitive than Solidworks or Inventor (though Solidworks is miles better for drawings). To be honest, I think it's a matter of personal preference more than anything. I'd try each of them and figure out which one fits better.

I'd also ask what resources you have locally-- do you have mentors with experience with one or another? Are any of the companies local or do they put on workshops nearby?

[Heburn]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

I like Creo. It's got plenty of power and I find it generally more intuitive than Solidworks or Inventor (though Solidworks is miles better for drawings). To be honest, I think it's a matter of personal preference more than anything. I'd try each of them and figure out which one fits better.

I'd also ask what resources you have locally-- do you have mentors with experience with one or another? Are any of the companies local or do they put on workshops nearby?

The CAD team does not have any mentor help, and as far as I know, there aren't any local companies or workshops.

[IocanePowder]

I've used both Inventor and PTC and agree with others that AutoDesk Inventor is easiest to learn and to use. I haven't had a chance yet to download SolidWorks, but hope to do that in the off-season and try it out.

For people on your Team who are new to Inventor, please feel free to download our free, 5-session introduction to Inventor (geared more towards Robotics designs) that our Team (#2530) put together: http://frcteam2530.org/resources

[Michael Hill]

I have never been more fed up with SolidWorks...external references are handled pretty horribly and is extremely unforgiving when other people make changes and you need to update your model. I wish Dassault gave out licenses of CATIA, but I may have to switch to Creo. I don't want to do it, but SolidWorks kills me. I 'be always preferred top-down design and SolidWorks' implementation just isn't that good.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Heburn

The CAD team does not have any mentor help, and as far as I know, there aren't any local companies or workshops.

In this case I'd definitely suggest having your CAD team try each of them out. Inventor and Solidworks have good built in tutorials, and Creo has some good tutorials available on the PTC website. Once they've tried each, they should have a good grasp of both the fundamentals and and the general "feel" of each program. Like I said, I really do see this as a personal preference-- all three packages are perfectly capable of doing everything an average FRC team needs, they just have different flavors and approaches to solving essentially the same problems.

One thing to keep in mind is that generally Inventor is an academic program-- while I'm sure there are companies out there that use it, Solidworks, and to a certain extent Creo are vastly more common-- I know several people that design professionally in each. Make of that what you will.

[kgargiulo]

Disclosure up front: I work for PTC. The opinions below are my own, not PTC's.

You can download all the free PTC software and free training if you start at http://www.ptc.com/go/first

PTC is a huge sponsor of FIRST (sponsoring dozens of teams, the annual Kick Off, many regionals, and FIRST at a corporate level). Hundreds of our employees volunteer with FIRST. I say that just to give credence to the fact that we're not just throwing some software out there and hoping people use it. The company is firmly behind FIRST's mission.

I believe PTC provides FIRST teams with the most comprehensive set of free design and data management software and training that you can get. That said, I hope every team looks at all the options out there and picks the best one for them. As you are doing so, I suggest you look not just at the software functionality, but also at the job postings in your area from product development engineering firms and consider the specific CAD skills that are in demand in your area.

PTC provides Creo, Mathcad, Windchill, and Internet of Things software platform access for free and has for many years (IoT is new this year). We also provide the field and KOP models each year for free (http://www.ptc.com/go/firstkop).

Future teaser - I'd expect future games to start to include aspects that are specifically oriented around IoT. Maybe not next year, but I'll be very surprised if the game design committee isn't looking in that direction. I have no insider information, just my prediction.

Creo invented 3D parametric solid modeling, but besides everything you expect from solid modeling you also get mechanism design and analysis, automated drawing creation, automated BOM generation, photorendering, and quite a few other modules.

Mathcad allows engineering calculations to be performed, documented, and even linked to drive your CAD models.

Windchill is fully integrated with Creo (you run it in Creo, within the same interface, or can also run it in any browser). Windchill manages all the CAD content so you can avoid shuttling thumb drives around and having people lose files or step on each others changes. Generating CAD files is easy. Keeping them in synch manually is guaranteed to fall apart if you are reaching any reasonable degree of model complexity.

Windchill handles backup and is accessible anywhere there is an internet connection. People who don't have Creo but who want or need to see the model (and measure or otherwise interrogate it) can use Creo View as a very lightweight and easy to use interface to see the full 3d model and get information from it. You control access for your team, and can store and iterate whatever electronic file you wish in your project.

PTC provides FIRST teams access to all of its on line training for those software packages, hosts a multi-week webinar where PTC experts lead you though the "How to Model Almost Anything" training (Sept to Nov each year), and finally PTC also offers live and video conference training workshops scheduled with individual teams.

All of this software and training is exactly the same as PTC provides to its commercial clients, except where we added more that is unique to FIRST. Oh, and its all free for FIRST teams.

Our team has had tremendous success using Creo, Creo View, Windchill, and (admittedly to a lesser extent) Mathcad.

I am not seeking to start a posting war over which CAD is better. OK, I will say that if SolidWorks is actually charging FIRST teams for their licenses (I've read posts that say they do, and others that say they don't) then I don't understand why there isn't a mass revolt against them (we'll welcome you to Creo any time!). In any case, our team is very confident in our decision and the benefits we get from it every day. Your mileage may vary. I hope the information here helps, whether anyone chooses PTC / Creo or not.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

I have never been more fed up with SolidWorks...external references are handled pretty horribly and is extremely unforgiving when other people make changes and you need to update your model. I wish Dassault gave out licenses of CATIA, but I may have to switch to Creo. I don't want to do it, but SolidWorks kills me. I 'be always preferred top-down design and SolidWorks' implementation just isn't that good.

External references are a big no no on 254, because they cause nothing but headaches.

Solidworks is easier to learn than Inventor and Pro/E. Pro/E is arguably more powerful (and more prevalent in industry), but it's not going to matter for FRC purposes.

Solidworks is the best bet for it's blend of ease of use and adoption in industry. Inventor is going to be a distant third in terms of industry use.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Cory

External references are a big no no on 254, because they cause nothing but headaches.

Solidworks is easier to learn than Inventor and Pro/E. Pro/E is arguably more powerful (and more prevalent in industry), but it's not going to matter for FRC purposes.

Solidworks is the best bet for it's blend of ease of use and adoption in industry. Inventor is going to be a distant third in terms of industry use.

Yeah, I don't think I'll be using them again. It just made it so easy to start with a requirement and build parts to suit the requirement. It's really not that bad when 1 person is working on the model, but when you have a team of people working simultaneously, it's just a nightmare.

This is a mistake you do once... I'm sure it's responsible for setting us back at least a couple days this build season.

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by Cory

...

Solidworks is easier to learn than Inventor and Pro/E. Pro/E is arguably more powerful (and more prevalent in industry), but it's not going to matter for FRC purposes.

Solidworks is the best bet for it's blend of ease of use and adoption in industry. Inventor is going to be a distant third in terms of industry use.

I learned drafting in college using AutoCAD...then tried to learn Inventor when I first got involved as a FRC mentor, and had much difficulty...Solidworks has been great, and I've managed to teach it to 5 or 6 people on my team easily. I've since figure out Inventor, but still prefer Solidworks for it's intuitiveness. I have tried and failed several times to learn Creo.