SolidWorks vs. Inventor

[,4lex S.]

Due to Autodesk First Base we all have free updated Inventor downloads for every new year from the company, so it really isn't a case of price for FIRST teams I wouldn't say.

I personnally prefer Inventor because I find the sketch mode to be significantly quicker to use.

[mplanchard]

SolidWorks will support any FIRST Robotics Team that ask us at www.solidworks.com/SponsoredDesignContest. Click the Apply button. We have sponsored robotics teams for 7 years.

After you fill out an application, we will send you software. Then we send you information about our contests such as March Robot Madness www.solidworks.com/robotics or the VEXplorer scholarship contest with Grant Imahara, Revell and Robot Magazine (see the announcement page of this website).

SolidWorks supports FIRST teams at the Regional level. SolidWorks employees are judges and mentors and SolidWorks customers are heavily involved in robot competitions.

Students who design great products should be open to all tools for their own evaluation on what is best for the project.

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by mplanchard

SolidWorks will support any FIRST Robotics Team that ask us at www.solidworks.com/SponsoredDesignContest. .

I can verify this. 885 asked for a copy of a Solidworks student edition and received 10 seats of a full up install and a bunch of nifty shirts and other swag. We were pretty impressed with how friendly, fast and easy the whole thing was. We asked, Solidworks delivered.

I'll echo M.Krasses comment about collision detection in assemblies. It's incredibly useful and something I wish that Inventor did as easily. I remember the first time I played with that feature after 2 years of Inventor training. Blew my mind. COSMOS is also pretty darn good and well featured for the price. I find the moldflow tools very useful, and am hoping to be able to utilize them in place of some specialized mold software we now have to rely on.

-Andy A.

[Jeff Waegelin]

I've used SolidWorks myself for the last three seasons, and I love it. I've used Inventor, UG, AutoCAD, and Pro/E, and of all of them, SW is definitely my favorite. I was very pleased to find out when I joined 121 that they use SW as well. I can also attest to the fact that SolidWorks is very helpful in sponsoring teams - we got an email from one of their reps asking us if we'd like some copies of the program, and they sent us 30 seats of the student edition. Very cool.

[Engineer]

I've been fully trained on on AutoDesk(Acad/mechanical Desktop/Inventor), ProE, Unigraphics but not Solidworks which is what I use now at work.

As for ease of use I'll put them in this order
1. Solidworks
2. Inventor
3. ProE
4. Unigraphics
ProE and Unigraphics are very close.

As for power of the software:
1. ProE
2. Unigraphics
3. Solidworks
4. Inventor
Again, ProE and Unigraphics are very close, and Solid works is not far behind.
Both ProE and Unigraphics require expensive work stations to run.

Bang for the buck, I would have to say Solidworks.

I prefere working Solidworks.

[R.C.]

does anyone know where to get good tutorials

[Aces]

2102 uses solidworks

Our school has a site license, so its a pretty obvious choice,
plus our school taught a SolidWorks class in the past, which 4 of our students have taken. Also, our CNC machine works with Solidworks, and not Inventor. (at least at the moment)

In the solidworks program there are a few decent tutorials, but basically the way I learned was pick up something and a pair of calipers and model.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Aces

2102 uses solidworks
Also, our CNC machine works with Solidworks, and not Inventor. (at least at the moment)

I guarantee you can get the machine to use inventor made parts

[wildmantaz]

I want to know if inventor is capable of copying line work to sigma nest torch program?

[Kyle Love]

I know in my high school we used Inventor with the Project Lead the Way curriculum. Why? It is a easy to learn, simple program. It gets you familiar with terms like fillet, extrude, revolve, and many many more that you can use, or use terms similar in other programs. Basically, Inventor is a good stepping stone into other, more advanced, industry standard software like Solidworks, Pro E and Catia.

[wildmantaz]

Well, i've heard it from people in 2002. Now which is better in 2008. Inventor or SolidWorks?

[EricH]

I'm going to say that Inventor is better, but I'm still learning Solidworks. They're similar, but definitely not the same.

[chris31]

Personally, I like SolidWorks much better. Its similar to Inventor but I like the UI much more and after having used it all the time for my summer job it is what I think I will stick with. Plus, I have a license on my desktop and laptop currently and I dont have Inventor set up.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I know both, I use mostly SolidWorks. Unfortunately everything else our team does is in Unigraphics (NX3 I wanna say)

Personally Id like to find how to change the shortcut keys in SolidWorks (2007 Student) but until then I have to keep using the buttons as opposed to the shortcut keys in Inventor. That to me makes a huge difference.

Power wise, I have to say Solidworks just seems to have more ability. But integration with 3ds max (for the animation or something) just isnt there in it. Yeah Photoworks can do some nice stuff but I know 3ds max really well.

[JOhnch181]

I used Invento for the first time last year for robotics, but my school has engineering classes (5 to be exact) that use solidworks. I know how to use both and so far inventor is alot easier to build in but solidworks has a better mating system.