AutoCAD vs. Inventor

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Gabe

I love having the control over AutoCAD as you plot drawings, and the fact that _underscore is very easy to learn and adopt. I tried learning Inventor on 10 but the shock of not using _underscore was a little too much for me, and I've kinda given it up.

Another thing was the other day when our machinist mentor looked at one inventor image and said he didn't like the application. So...if he doesn't want to use it then probably neither will I get use it very much.

On another note, CNC mills, lathes, laser cutters, and waterjet cutters all use AutoCAD because it they are tools that work mostly in two-dimensional motions on an x-y axis.

No machining tool I've seen uses AutoCAD -- rather, they typically use GCode. Such code can be written by hand or generated automatically based on drawings created in any number of CAD packages. It is true that most CAM packages can read AutoCAD's DWG format, though it is by no means the only format they'll accept.

In our lab, we use a variety of programs in conjuction with the different machines.

Our CNC mill runs on GCode generated using MasterCAM V. 9, which in turn uses DXF or DWG formatted files that I can export from Solidworks.

Our laser cutter acts similarly to a printer and so we use Microsoft's Visio as a CAD/CAM application. It allows us to draw basic shapes easily, but also can import DXF or DWG formatted files from other CAD packages.

Finally, our plasma cutter is set up to use SheetCAM to generate GCode based on DXF or DWG files.