Industry standard CAD. 1

[Peter7307]

There are a number of CAD packages in the marketplace.
The more well known ones are AutoCAD , Solidworks , TurboCAD etc.

Is there a preference for one over any other?
Is this just the choice of the individual user?

Cheers , Pete.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Individual users hardly ever get to choose.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[GregLocock]

None of those are used in the auto industry in my experience, except Autocad for buildings and plant layouts.

You need to know Catia or Unigraphics round here. The good (ie busy) guys know both.





Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[IRstuff]

The preferences change from year to year, at best. Some particular program might have some useful and interesting feature introduced one year, and after a while, they all have them.

The only practical choice is to match what your customers or your suppliers have. Having a sufficiently portable design data interface makes coordination above and below substantially easier and less prone to oddball translation artifacts.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[GMIracing]

In the Automotive Industry, the biggest names are UG, CATIA, and Pro-E. I would guess the decision to use one package over another really depends on a decision from the management and was made many years ago. Large companies are not usually willing to invest the huge resources into changing from one package to another due to the massive training required, restructuring their Data Managment system/procedures, and possible problems with legacy parts.

In regards to using the same package as your customer/supplier, I disagree. From my experience, even if our main core CAD package is the same as our end customer, we will only send them a converted to native language STEP/IGES packaging envelope to remove all of our proprietary technology and the CAD structure tree. We will never send them a raw native langage part. We keep basic seats of the other packages only to make sure the translation goes correclty when we deal with stubborn customers that demand files in their native language (non Step/IGES format, but must be UG, CATIA, or Pro-E).

-Ryan

 

[KENAT]

By Industry standard do you mean the automotive industry (as you posted in this forum I'd guess so)?

If so from what I know I'd say the above are probably correct about Unigraphics, Catia & Pro E.

If you mean mechanical engineering generally then there are a bunch more. In my part of the world Solid Works is popular but we actually use Solid Edge which though less common here is popular elsewhere.

If you're talking about civil type work then they still seem to be 2D a lot of the time, especially AutoCAD.


KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[ewh]

Ryan,
I've seen the results of asking for a file in a native package. Crap. You may as well send an iges file instead of opening an iges in UG and sending that as native. Parasolids or stp files are far more robust than iges, and are what we request when the vendor does not use the same software as we do.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[mloew]

Here is an old thread on this topic:

thread108-45579

Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew

http://www.daxcon.com

 

[GMIracing]

ewh-
I would be inclined to agree. I would much rather send a stp file, but some customers I have worked with will not accept anything but their native language file format.

mloew-
interesting old thread: I am curious how it would look updated now that it is 5 years later. I would assume that the companies that used I-DEAS has since switched to UG or NX?

It surprises me how many Powertrain areas were Pro/E, and I am curious if this is still the case after the latest CATIA V5 and Pro/E Wildfire.

-Ryan

 

[mloew]

Pro/E still has a strong position in automotive powertrain. Toyota, VW, and Hyundia-Kia being the largest powertrain users among the OEs. Most heavy equipment and diesel engine manufactures use Pro/E as well.

There have been no real defections in automotive for some time; the last being when Ford announced that CATIA would be the standard for new programs rather than migrating to UG NX from I-DEAS. I'm guessing this had much to do with Chris Theodore (now with ASC Inc.) piloting it on the Ford GT program. I was at a presentation of his where he continually used the word "CATIA" when he simply meant "CAD". I think the biggest development for the automotive industry was Autodesk purchasing Alias.

Automakers will always want the native CAD; suppliers will always resist (for two reasons: not wanting to support the CAD package if they are not already standard on it and for IP protection). Fortunately there are so many good interoperability options now that it is less of an issue.

All this being said, there is no reliable, publicly available market study for CAD & CAE usage in industry as far as I can tell. All that information is privately held but can be purcha$$ed.

Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew

http://www.daxcon.com

 

[Peter7307]

Thanks to everyone who posted.

KENAT , Yes I was refering to the auto industry and should have mentioned that in the original post.

mloew , Thanks for the link. I will have a look shortly.

Cheers , Pete.

 

[JAFDias]

For simple mechanical design users .. try Alibre Design.

This software is extremely cheap and works well for simple parts. It's enough and i'ts an huge advance for users that are doing mechanical parts in AutoCAD.

 

[mloew]

Alibre Design is not used in mainstream automotive engineering. I've never run across it in my work in any industry, in fact. JAFDias, why are you posting about this tool in this thread?

Best regards,

Matthew Ian Loew

http://www.daxcon.com