i have been using autodesk inventor for a while and we all know its time consuming and complicated to use my team and i recently attended a solidworks seminar and it seems to be a lot easier to use and quicker.
my question is why do most teams use autodesk?
is it the price? i know you can get autodesk student versions free but the solidworks student version is about $100 a seat
even the vex parts were originally made on solidworks (i am assuming this because the step files were converted from solidworks to step)
From the very first versions of AutoCAD, back in the 80’s, as I recall, Autodesk has recognized the importance of the educational market as an important component of their overall marketing strategy. They have simply done a better job than anyone else at getting their product in front of educators at a price they can (sometimes) afford.
They have also been reasonably good at building upon the success of their earlier products… so since I know AutoCAD fairly well (because it was the first “real” CAD program for the PC, it was the one that I learned on) it was fairly easy for me to learn Inventor, and fairly easy to show my students how to use Inventor.
I had a free copy of Solidworks sitting around here, as well as a free copy of Pro/E… but never really bothered to do more than a little bit of exploring with them, because I had enough free copies of Inventor (through FRC) that we could do what we needed to with them.
(It also didn’t hurt that FIRST’s CAD guru, Phil Dollan, was able to drop by and give us a hand getting started!)
Something you might be interested in checking out, if you haven’t already, is 123D (http://www.123dapp.com/) a beta version of a free 3D modelling package that Autodesk is putting together. Their tutorials and curriculum materials for Inventor are also excellent…
But that said… I know lots of smart, talented people who’s opinions I respect who use Solidworks and Pro/E (or whatever they are calling it these days.) I also saw some very interesting CATIA products at the ASEE conference a while back. But you asked what we use and why… so I’ll say Autodesk, because they were there first!
Autodesk no question. Its just more universal, and almost every team uses autodesk CAD in FRC, and i believe the majority of vex teams use it. Its just overall more user frendly.
i think your incorrect when you say it is more user friendly solidworks dose an excellent job of making their product extremely easy for any user to start building with very little prior experience. you may say it is easier to use because you have been using it for a while but for the vex parts solidworks beats autodesk when it comes to being user friendly in my opinion
You might want to rephrase that I know A LOT of teams use solidworks and even Pro-E. In saying that I only use autodesk because its what I have come to know and love in cad. When it comes to cad program’s it is simply up to personal preference.
That being said autodesk has pleanty of tools for speeding up design systems. And I’m sure solidworks has as well but I can’t speak from experience on that. So Paul if you would like to make the switch because its more streamline to you go ahead.
I think half is just your own personal preference. I think another major factor for specifically a team sense is what your mentors or sponsors use. The company that mentors our FRC team, Genesis Automation, uses SolidWorks so we use solidworks. There would be no way to collaborate with them if we used a different program. I know many teams sponsored by Catepillar use Pro-E simply because Catepillar uses Pro-E and CAT supplies the mentorship. I think for a team that can be what pretty much makes the decision.
Both programs pretty much any feature you would want to use. I think from a VEX perspecticve, VEX teams are on a smaller budget and aren’t as interwoven through a large company mentor where they need to use the same CAD program. Many VEX teams run on less then 2,000 dollar budget, so spending money on a student version of solidworks doesn’t seem practical when you can get a student version of Inventor for free.
I personally use solidworks because it’s what I learned being on our FRC team and like what Andrew said, it’s what I’ve come to know and love. I’d say play around with both and see which one you feel more comfortable with. The more comfortable you are, the more quality and quantity or speed of your CADing skills.
I disagree, talk to some more FRC teams. I’d say its split pretty good between Inventor, SolidWorks, Pro-E, and then a minority of other programs.
This is not neccessarily true. How user friendly a program is depends on the individual.
Autodesk is one of VEX’s strongest strategic partners. Their support & commitment to the educational market is peerless. I’m excited to be working with them on a number of projects which are… very cool.
im only basing that off of pics and discussion on the forum what i was hoping from starting this thread was that someone would give a flaw in either software that would cause problems in the design or building of a prototype not to cause an upset or trash either software also i would have liked others to benefit from my trial and maybe convert
I have used both Autodesk and Solidworks at a professional level and would consider myself to be proficient in both. In my experience both programs are very much the same in their capabilities and features to the point of being almost indistinguishable (look at mates and constraints as an example). My platform of choice is Autodesk as it requires a far less powerful system to run on and does not require high end graphics cards for near real visualisation during the design process. As an example Autodesk runs very happily on my Toshiba laptop and does animations and renderings with no problems, Solidworks just does not like it.
I am not trashing Solidworks (part of my income depends on it) but I really do like the look, feel and function of Autodesk (part of my income depends on it )
My advice, use Autodesk as any product demo will make a product look easy but the real proof of the pudding is in the eating.
All of the VEX CAD files work just as well in both products.
