Inv 11 vs Solidworks 2007 28

[Randy1111]

3 years ago when I was last in a postition needing to evaluate and decide on a 3d cad package, the choice was quite easy. 3 years ago solidworks had the tools needed, and inventor was playing catch up. Now 3 years later I'm once again tasked with deciding, but the race seems a lot closer.

My company makes pulleys. The assemblies are small. A typical assembly may only have 8 parts. (adding bearings may bring this up to 50) The variety of sizes of each of those parts is almost endless. Each part we manufacture has almost infinite sizes. Each purchased part like bearings, is one of a hundred or so variations.

I like to automate as much as possible. Every style will be pre done as an assembly with all drawings. When a new job comes in we change every part parameter in an assembly, and have the already done drawing update. Clean it up, and print. (with solidworks this would be done with a design table at assembly level controlling a skeleton sketch and all parts drawn in contect and constrained to the skeleton)

Inventor used to lack configurations. Now it has them.
Soliworks used to lack drawing functions. Now it has them.
Solidworks still lacks good equations and global variables.
Inventor still lacks in some tools it has.

I guess both are able to do the job for me. Inventor has caught up quickly. Will it pass solidworks in the next few years?
Any comparasin I've read in the last couple months while researching has always been versions of a few years ago. Back when the biggest points were configurations and design tables. Now that distinction appears gone.

To anyone who is familiar with both in their current state, do you have any insight that might sway me one way or another?

How is autodesk vault compared to pdmworks?

Jarery


-------------

Randy

 

[65Roses]

Wrong again Cookieman. Used ACAD R8 thru 2004, Mechanical Desktop, Microstation, CATIA, CADAM and SW. Also evaluated IV and SE. As a matter of fact I probably have more seat time on Autodesk products than any of the others. The truth is Bentley dropped the ball with Microstation. CATIA is high end and can be cumbersome. CADAM was good in its time but now is an out of date 2d package. Mechanical Desktop was absolutley the worst of them all and Inventor isn't much better.

 

[J-C]

That billion dollar revenue sure doesn't come from Inventor, not by a long shot.

I guess Google is the largest most successful cad company since they own Sketchup? Or maybe it's Microsoft since they own Visio?

Don't confuse overall company revenue with an individual product they sell. Otherwise I'll have to say that Microsoft has the largest most successful image editing software since Paint is included with every copy of Windows.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[ctopher]

True. As I mentioned earlier, our company is slowly phasing out Inv. and bringing in SW. SW is more efficient with importing/exporting files between us and vendors/customers.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[cookieman]

this seems to be more about unreasoning hatred of Autodesk than about their products. if anyone else had the better sales figures, i'm sure they would be shouting it from the rooftops.

lighten up guys! have a good chuckle,check out sw's newest effort!

http://www.cosmicblobs.com/

 

[ctopher]

Yes, it's been out since last year.
It's to help with the transition from ACAD to SW.


just kidding.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Diemaker1]

I tried to make IV work for 4 years before switching to SW. There is about 10 things from IV I would love to see in SW. But SW has a hundred things IV doesn’t. It’s funny, most of the things I like best about IV… was there when they released it. Like the original developers left… or maybe ADSK even outsourced the initial development.

I’m surprised eng-tips even has an IV forum. You can’t make a better board than Adsk.com. Of course any negative IV talk quickly gets stifled. A few weeks ago there was a huge hate thread over IV’s content center and adsk pulled it. Then they said they tried to retract some misinformation and accidentally deleted the thread. Ya right.

Watching the IV board for many years I’d say most there are drafters and students. The room lights up for rendering questions. There are lots of questions about sheetmetal from people who know nothing about bend allowance. You see a lot of questions that go on for a while then you find out the guy is modeling a car or nuclear reactor or skateboard. (playing with IV) I’ve seen a lot of die and mold people come and go. Tooling is tough. Tooling guys are the ones that really use the hell out of cad. IV has great constraints and automation design is possible but again, SW has greater tools for machinery. Product Engineers I’ve worked with spend a lot more time researching than drawing. I could see them warming up to IV’s ease of use and sophisticated UI.

I do feel most of the seats sold aren’t being used. As indispensable 3d may be for some, it really is a huge jump and I'm sure test projects have been a big waste of time for many. When you look at adsk “customer successes” you see a lot of east Europe companies. Some don’t even have a web site. I know Adsk offered my main customer (big, well known name) complete installations, free of charge, if they would just use IV for a project.

The people using IV most are probably small manufacturers making valves or drawer knobs and such. And their whole catalog is in acad and they probably bought IV because it was cheap upgrade and thought it would convert acad the best. Funny, but SW is much superior for converting acad… But they don’t need all the high powered tools and without a doubt, IV is much easier to learn and use. There are a lot of furniture and cabinet guys at adsk.com. They are always asking for a woodworking version of IV. Hehe. And you know… the world might not have been big enough for multiple makers of 2D, but it might be for 3D. I don’t think IV gives a crap about me (tooling). It took 9 releases before they programmed built in screw holes. While mfg has become hand to mouth, construction projects are like printing money. And, although adsk says IV is for mech, I think… mech is just a vertical market to fund the programs overall development. IV doesn’t have any packaged tool steel materials… but it’s got 10 different carpet textures. Hehe.



Personally, I’m super happy with what SW does. I’m not as happy with how it does it… When you do a job, any job, there are hard parts and easy parts. Sometimes you do the easy stuff first to make progress while thinking about the hard stuff. Sometimes you better do the hard stuff first or you’ll have to redo the easy stuff …I’d say SW did the hard stuff first.

 

[andrewjmorin]

Don't change your horse (in mid-stream or otherwise). I'm a SW certified expert,' or was 2 years ago before I switched jobs. The new place was addicted to Autodesk, so we got Inv against my recommendation (Keep in mind, before I got my SW cert, I ran Adesk AdvanceModellingExtension for ACAD v10 around '92, Adesk MechanicalDesktop beginning with v1.2 circa '97, and evaluated the Inv Product in '03 side-by-side with SW)

I can get Inv to do what I need, most of the time. However, I long for the days when I could use SW. SW is a better product across the board.

andy

 

[DeSimulacra]

Yes I just tried to dimension to a midpoint. Didn't work, most of the time it does. Hehe.
The 10 versions of carpet..; Good point maybe I've been looking at Inventor the wrong way, I've been trying to do complex mechanical work. I have to say I have designed one house and one commeriacl bldg. with Inventor and it does those well!!

I vote for Inventor as the best architectural 3D software, now keep AutoDESK out of my Job Shop.

Thats all I got to say about that.

 

[ajack1]

Surely that is the whole point NO system is the best for everything, it depends on what you are trying to do on it.

Diemaker1 I am surprised you went for SW if your main work is tooling, there is at least one product out there that is vastly superior and no it is not inventor.

 

[ctopher]

Autodesk would have a nice product if they combined ACAD, Inventor & Revit. But, for most users it would be overwhelming. Those of us that know 3D mech design wouldn't have a problem learning it quickly.
I would like to see some architectural thrown in with SolidWorks. I was told by them, not any time soon.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[Mechman50]

Here is some interesting historicla data related to seat counts. I have been tracking this since 2002:
[tt]
Monster.com

February 2002

Solidworks 179 positions
SolidEdge 5
Pro-E 266
Catia 233
Unigraphics 125
Mechanical Desktop 81
AutoCAD 1655
Inventor 8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2004

Solidworks 585 positions
Inventor 99 (14.5%) (between IV & SWX only)
Pro-E 436
Mechanical Desktop 134
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2005

Solidworks 550 positions
Inventor 138 (20%)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March 2006

Solidworks 769 positions
Inventor 252 (25%)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
August 2006

Solidworks 767 positions
Solid works 222
Inventor 243 (20%)
Pro-E 577
ProE 207
Mechanical Desktop 50







[/tt]

 

[ewh]

The problem with that data is the source.

 

[rich942]

"Here is some interesting historicla data related to seat counts."

Interesting historical data, yes. Related to seat counts, of course not !

 

[J-C]

You still never countered with info as to why it doesn't. I guess the 1000's of hits for Autocad doesn't indicate that there's a lot more Autocad out there than anything else?

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[rich942]

"I guess the 1000's of hits for Autocad doesn't indicate that there's a lot more Autocad out there than anything else?"

Actually, it doesn't ! It simply reports the number of current job openings at any given time, not the overall installation base, these are two entirely separate issues. Monster does not track the software industry, there are other organizations that do. If you choose to discredit the official report of any particular software developer, due to personal distrust, then research the facts and figures elsewhere, as I have done. No one would ever evaluate the size or viability of any industry, solely on the number of job postings.

 

[ctopher]

There are also hundreds of companies world wide that have illegal seats of each, especially AutoCAD.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)

 

[J-C]

Still you neglect to say why number of job openings doesn't not correlate to the number of seats for software out there, especially when comparing to similar software packages. You're saying that there are lot more Inventor seats out there than there appears from job listings. That for some reason, companies using Inventor don't need people with Inventor experience or that they don't post jobs.

Do you care to list an organization that lists number of seats that is not from the cad companies themselves. All cad companies that give you numbers give you a total commercial install base that is total seats shipped since day one. If a customer doesn't use it, its still counted. Pro/E has a hugh total listed....but many have left Pro/E for IV or Swx, or SE...yet PTC will still count it.

So where are your facts and figures that you have researched?


Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[rich942]

I have responded to each of these issues, to the best of my ability, previously in this thread. Repeating these answers will not make them any more acceptable. The actual number of active seats of any software package is impossible to know at any given time, so we have only the total licenses shipped, to evaluate the relative success of the competing products in the marketplace. Inventor's sales figures have exceeded all other mid-range modelers for the past five years, according to every source I have encountered. And I like my job, so I'm not particularly concerned about the Monster postings !

 

[J-C]

So where's your research you keep speaking of.....and no...you have never answered why the number of jobs don't correlate. If I look in the paper and see twice as many ads for Ford F-150s for sale than Chevy Silverados, I can reasonably conclude that Ford sold more unless you can provide a reason to show otherwise. Compared to Toyota, you might say that Ford trucks are less reliable and thus people sell them more than Toyota owners. But Ford and Chevy (or Swx and IV) have a similar track record regarding quality and features. There's no reason for the ads or jobs in this case to not be a reliable indicator to the ratio of seats in use. Of course it can't tell you how many seats are out there (Autodesks own numbers claim more)...only that there are more Solidworks seats in use than there are Inventor seats by around 3 to 1. With Solidworks having sold an estimated 228,788 commercial seats (source: CADCAMNET.com), its reasonable to conclude that there around 75000 to 100,000 Inventor seats in use.

Total seats shipped doesn't mean much......Alibre might claim that they have a couple hundred thousand seats out there but how many are actually being used. Autodesk practically gives Inventor away or deeply discounts it. I've heard from other Solidworks users where Autodesk came in and offered to replace all Solidworks with Inventor for free....just pick up maintenance. That's probably why Autodesk's Inventor revenues are less than Solidworks even though they suppossedly sell more seats. Also notice that the last two quarterly statements have ommitted the number of commercial Inventor seats that they usually mention, so are they still selling more than everyone else?

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[ctopher]

I know in Hong Kong you can purchase any of the CAD programs on the street for $10, with real license. I have seen it and they work. THey are installed like the real deal without any cracking
So, those seats are out there, not counted, and revenues not accounted for.
I agree with Jason.

Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)