Just to let you know

[DonBoyd]

I am an 8 year veteran of Solidworks, I have recently been hired with a company that uses Inventor, I am finding no problems for the most part, But With some of the things I feel I'm missing something here. More Questions to come....

 

[J-C]

Why do you still DWG drawings? You can export out to dwg with entity mapping, then your "clients" can continue to sue Acad (which I assume they have already purchased).

I've done some Dwgeditor editing....it's not as polished as Autocad....but good enough to handle some legacy stuff or "tweak" exported dwgs.

Jason

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

 

[Bydga]

to rich942: You say "the Autodesk is .... based in America and employing an American workforce." Ask them, where is (for example) the Design Accelerators developed - it is in Decin in the Czech republic ;-)) I am sure the other parts of software are written all over the world and it means nothing about its quality. (I am UGS VAR partner ;-)))
Petr

 

[xgrigorix]

Autodesk is an American based company, but they are literally worldwide.

 

[rich942]

You're missing the point. Autodesk is a large domestic company employing thousands, I have visited the headquarters in San Rafael, they routinely win awards for maintaining a superior workplace. They have, over the years, acquired some of the best developement partners and their products, from all over the world, and integrated them into Autodesk applications. But they do not contract current developement to third-world countries, and accept inferior workmanship, simply to cut costs. I stand by my position to oppose the outsourcing of American jobs, and will not knowingly subsidize any organization that does so. Perhaps you will feel differently when it is YOUR job that goes offshore !

 

[J-C]

Perhaps you would like to visit Concord, MA where Solidworks headquarters and most of the Solidworks programmers reside. Or you can pop out to Califorina where the Solidworks Cosmos FEA programmers live.

Jason

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

 

[rich942]

You're still not comprehending the point of my post. Speak to someone in the software industry, and ask them why SW would release their uncompiled source code to an offshore contractor, if the programmers were only developing "add-ons and utilities".
Again, I would remind you that this is a forum for veteran Inventor users to exchange information and provide assistance to novices, not for promoting alternate CAD products.

 

[IOMATT]

R11 service pack is out.

 

[J-C]

Who's to say how someone got a hold of the source....or if they even had all of it. Lots of people steal things that they shouldn't have access to but manage to find a way.

I agree...this is an IV forum and I'm afraid we hijacked this poor guys thread.

Jason

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

 

[J-C]

Autodesk doesn't outsource?

http://autodesk.recruitmax.com/ENG/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=JobList&szFormat=search

Couple of programming jobs in China:

59134-Programmer/SW Engineer Posted 05/02/2006
Location: Shanghai, CN - Pidemco Tower


Design, prototype, write, test, and debug source code of AutoCAD features

Wonder if there's any Autocad source code floating around China yet?


Jason

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

 

[J-C]

Hmm..another one....Inventor related.

58642-Prog./SW Engineer Posted 03/09/2006
Location: Shanghai, CN - Pidemco Tower

• The employee will be responsible for leading a group of talented software engineers to design, code, and maintain applications.

Collaborate with extended team of Inventor architects, Product Designers, tech leads and software developers in the United States and other MSD worldwide engineering sites.

Design, prototype, write, test and [red]debug source code of Inventor applications.[/red]

Jason

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

 

[rich942]

Autodesk has long maintained field offices overseas, in many different countries, this does not constitute outsourcing, when the programmers and analysts are Autodesk employees. And the Chinese shipbuilding industry has been using Inventor successfully for many years.

 

[J-C]

Well, that kind of contradicts your earlier statement which seemed to be your main complaint:

"Autodesk is a billion dollar company with around 3000 employees, based in America and employing an American workforce"

I think it's safe to say that both Solidworks and Autodesk have programmers over seas and in the US. Really can't be helped with the numerous aquisitions of products..some being located in other countries. And if you checkout the Solidworks Corp jobs page....most all jobs are here in the US and some programming in the UK....with some Sales support jobs in the Asian area.

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/careers.html

Jason

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

 

[rich942]

I stand by my statements that Solidworks is a foreign-owned organization, which outsources programming functions to India, and has had a major security breach with its source code. This has been well documented. The fact that Autodesk has employees overseas is no secret, but if you ever have the opportunity to visit their headquarters in San Rafael, as I have, you would see exactly why their products are market leaders. It is a remarkable place to work, and the software reflects this. I can only hope that in the near future, the use of non-domestic software will be discouraged or banned, for security reasons. My current employer is a privately-owned defense contractor, and has concerns about this issue.

Please do not continue to misinterpret my comments. Choose your own design software as you see fit, and leave this forum to its purpose, the exchange of information among Inventor users.

 

[J-C]

Foreign owned...yes....foreign based...no. An American company I used to work for was bought by a Germany company but we still operated on our own....so by that regard...we were still an american company.

Outsources some programming...more like they partenered with an Indian company to provide some add-ins. Autodesk uses foreign programmers as well. I only brought up Autodesk foreign programmers since that seemed to be a major concern of yours. With that said...it appears that Autodesk has more China programming jobs on their site that Solidworks.

A good place to work doesn't make for a superior product. And Autodesk programs, Inventor included, have just as many problems as it's competitors...maybe more so.

Don't expect to see non-domestic software to go away.....you make it sound as if foreign programmers aren't as good as US programmers. I guess you expect the US to ban Catia from Boeing and Chyrsler.....I rather doubt that Inventor is capable of doing what those companies need.

Jason

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

 

[Ratso]

I have been using Autodesk software and not being American, maintains that this is one of the few good things coming from the big US of A - the others are root beer, jelly beans, and Camerion Diaz. We are a reseller doing a whole host of industrial type software and have certified application engineers not just for Inv but also ACAD, Pro-E, SW, Solid Edge, Catia, and some other obscure bits of code.

I run Inv 11 with my content centre, design acc, vault 5 and sometimes have an ACAD window open at the same time. My laptop specs are 2 gig ram, a radeon card with 128 ram, 1.8 ghz processor and the rest is basically standard stuff. Doing demo's - sometimes on the fly - is very brave but touch wood, i still have to crash and burn. Have crashed it on some complex assembly making dumb mistakes like constraining to the (obviously) wrong features or iparts, but that is a human error, nothing to do with IV.

In a previous co i was a designer tasked with petroleum product used in filling stations. I investigated a whole bunch of software, including sw and decided the migration and learning curve till we reach full productivity will be easiest with IV - that was version 9 and they are still using IV having happily upgraded to 11.

Finally, we have done comparisons on clickrates between most of the abovementioned software in a controlled experiment and Inventor kicked the c..p out of the rest having less steps to take to complete a full part, assembly and drawing - and we have used exactly the same for all the software (supplied by a customer at random).

I am extremely happy with using Inventor doing a lot of modelling - approximately 30 hours per week and the new or improved features really made me happy. And I amtalking about the frame generator, improved lofting and projecting features to curved planes, etc...... and including Vault 5. Enjoy yourselves.

Cheers time for a beer.

 

[sg20]

The fact of the matter is most large companies are using Catia and ProE, and most mid-size companies are using SW or migrating to SW. Let's face it, may the best prevails.

 

[rich942]

Ratso, thank you for injecting a practical perspective into this discussion. It is user satisfaction that counts the most, after all. I do notice that the vast majority of posts on this and other Autodesk product forums involve inquiries from novice users to veterans, not complaints about the products themselves.

Also, Autodesk posted earnings of $436 million for the first quarter of this year, they must be doing something right ! As a California resident I am pleased to know that they contribute to the local economy in a positive way.

I am currently using Inventor 11 in a department that switched from Pro/E to SW about 4 years ago. My colleagues are constantly impressed by the advanced features of Inventor, and by its stability, even on modest computer hardware.

Again, I apologize to the originator of this thread, his original intent got lost in a discussion that was more political than technical. To DonBoyd, if you are still following, please do not let this discourage you from posting your inquiries about Inventor features, there are numerous expert level users here, who have provided me and others with priceless assistance.

 

[rockguy]

AutoDesk is NOT a forward thinking company. If SolidWorks or SolidEdge had never appeared in the market place you would still be using AutoCAD ot MDT and AutoDesk would be telling you it was cutting edge technology.

Some of AutoDesk's most noteworthy products (3DStudio, Revit, Studio Tools) aren't even theirs. They were developed by other companies that were bought out by AutoDesk under the AutoDesk "if you can't beat em, buy em" development strategy.

AutoCAD (and it's flavors Architectual Desktop, Mechanical Desktop, Land Desktop, etc) being one of the only products AutoDesk has developed from the ground up has been lacking in 3D functionality for many years. It was only in the lastest release that AutoCAD introduced 3D technology sketch-up has had for years.

No offense to you Rich942 but I believe your post are very narrowed minded and biased toward AutoDesk. They are your opinions however and I respect that. This is my opinion and I hope you can respect it.

 

[rich942]

rockguy, opinions are the privelege of every individual, and mine have been formed over a 22 year period, using many different CAD products, including some that have long since been forgotten (ever heard of Applicon Bravo or Prime Medusa ?). I appreciated certain features of each, but selected my application of choice based on direct comparison.

As for AutoCAD's 3D capability, I generated my very first fully parametric table-driven model in Release 11 (1989)with AME, which was also the first MS Windows compatible version of AutoCAD, years ahead of any other mid-range CAD product. It was primitive by today's standards, but the linked spreadsheet functionality was there. AutoCAD Designer (from Woodbury) predated this, but was never in wide distribution. I used Mechanical Desktop until the advent of Inventor, but most AutoCAD users found the MDT learning curve intimidating. Solidworks was easy to use after that experience, but limiting in many ways.

Many of the protocols and functions that we take for granted in most 3D modelers were introduced by Autodesk over the years. And they have often integrated the best and most successful of their development partner's products into their own lineup.

Narrow minded and biased ? Nonsense ! I make a living with these tools, nothing more to it than that, and I don't have time to waste with unstable applications.

And after all, this IS an Autodesk Inventor forum ! There's a difference between enthusiasm and "bias".

 

[rockguy]

Rich942....a video is worth a thousand words. I think this piece of marketing shows the kind of professionalism that drives Autodesk.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=739069747045672188