Mechanical verses Solidworks

I can't say much about MDT compared to Solidworks, but I do have some background info on MDT that should factor into your decision.

Mechanical Desktop is actually a program that sits on top of AutoCAD Mechanical much the same way that early versions of Windows sat on top of DOS. MDT adds tools for the parametric capabilities, and enhances the 3D modeling.

Autodesk is not really updating MDT, as in updating the tools that are part of it and not part of AutoCAD. Whenever they put out a new release of ACAD, they just port the tools into it to make MDT.

Because MDT sits on top of ACAD, it works like ACAD. ACAD was first written for DOS, and it still has some DOS characteristics. On the other hand, Auotdesk's other 3D parametric modeling and drafting program, Inventor, was written for Windows.

One major difference between MDT and Inventor (and similar programs such as Solidworks) is that you do not worry about drawing everything to the right size at first, like you do with ACAD. You first concentrate on getting the shape right, then you use the dimensions to control the size. Another difference is that Inventor automatically adds constraints that you have to manually add in MDT.

During a recent interview with a prospective employer that uses Solidworks, the product design manager said the one factor that made him choose SW over Inventor is that SW is fully parametric. You can change a dimension value in a drawing, and it changes the model as well. I can see that would be a great time saver, because you would not have to change from the drawing to the model, change the model, and then go back into the drawing.

I have seen other comments on Solidworks posted her on CR4. You might use the "Search all of CR4" function to find them.

With apologies to the guys in Troy, there's a forum that's better for this question. The reason is that it has some of the big-time user groups represented.

It's at

www.eng-tips.com

Just ask them the question and then come on back here.

I used AutoCAD's Mechanical Desktop in the late 90's for plastic fastener design, and periodically since. Engineers and injection mold-tool makers who sat near me in the engineering trailer used Anvil5k and SolidWorks. My understanding at the time was that SolidWorks is superior because part design starts with a solid model, whereas the software engine that drives AutoCAD only approximates this. I still believe this is true. - april05

I havn't used MDT, only AutoCAD over the years, and found SW quite easy to use, once you have used AutoCAD, the learning curve isn't all that steap, but at the same time, you can put less dimensions on your model as your constructing it, and referancing dimensions on 1 line to other lines.

I have been running SW since about 2000, and Beta-tested 2008 last year, now struggling to get the boss to upgrade to 2008 from 2007, I found the GUI improvements from '07 -> '08 so much simpler to use.

You could also look at SolidEdge, as SW and SE I think are coming together in operation, but price could be the defining stage in your selection.

I have spoken to another company who went from SW -> SE as the time it took to open a 10,000 part file in SE was by far faster then in SW. 10,000, yes, once you start including all the nuts/bolts and fixturing, tubing and electrical runs.

The key is a good parametric interface. I am not so familiar with MD for AutoCAD, but our design group is nearly evenly divided between ProE and Solidworks. I am personally proficient at none of them, but the benefit I do enjoy is that Solidwords is very 'transportable', and there are very functional free Solidworks viewers and allow full functionality except for actually 'drawing' or changing the part. For me, this is a huge benefit as I need to send concepts and designs for approval everywhere, and anyone can easily download the 'viewer', look, 'spin', section, and measure parts and assemblies.

Within our group, there are a host of platforms used: Solidworks, ProE, AutoCAD, Catia, Solidedge, (and another I can't seem to remember). By far, ProE and Solidworks are the most used. ProE seems to be used most often by the 'newcomers' as it seems to be the platform taught in the universities, but for someone learning from 'scratch', almost everyone settles on Solidworks.

I've talked a lot ... haven't helped much ... but, if it were my budget, I would 'vote' strongly for Solidworks IF there is sufficient training to get things up to speed quickly. Also, unless things have changed since I last looked, Solidworks is the best value, with lots of 'add ons' you can get later if you need them.

Regards,

When looking at price, parametric capabilities, model reusability, stability and time needed to get a job done my experience is that ProE is way beyond the capabilities of a SW, Solid Edge or Inventor.

I have been designing and developing mold tools for years on ProE and ME10. When using family tables in ProE, I sometimes designed a completely new molding tool in a matter of hours instead of weeks on another system by simply reusing data managed in family tables.

I sometimes sat in my chair in awe after regenerating. The bosses were quite happy too. We sometimes were already ramping up production when other collegues were still designing the other components (using Autocad).

Yes, the learning curve IS steep, but once you get through it, you have a very powerful tool in your hands that will save you and management a lot of money in the design process.

SW, SE and some other mid range packages come close, but f.i. SW lacks the capabilities of replacing the molding product and automatically regenerating models and drawings based on the replaced model.

Autodesk products tend to be a lot more expensive, not due to purchase, but to design time, avoiding bugs, problematic memory management, not being fully parametric in many cases (during copy, mirror) and errors that can slip into the drawings due to more extensive manual labour that needs to be performed.

An example, during an Inventor training, I tried to use a scale factor of 33/100. On the drawing, it stated 1/3. Then I designed a cube with a rib of 75mm and transformed the drawing to DXF, simulating what we would need to do to feed production. With 75 mm as a dimension and 1/3 as scale factor, one would expect the length in DXF to be 25mm, which of course it isn't as the scale factor is set at 33/100 (0.33) and not 1/3. In DXF, the length was 24.75, which in production would have given a cube with a rib of 74.24 mm instead of 75 mm.

That was just one issue, there are a lot more of those. It was also in Inventor 10, I'm not sure whether this still is the case in Inventor 11.

---------I would go with SW in a job shop.-----------------

I trained on AutoCAD and used it exclusively in construction. I've played with Inventor and like it but I don't have any experience with Mechanical Desktop.

-----------"Different strokes for different folks"-----------------

Aerospace power plants (jet engines) primarily use UGS-NX while the airframe guys use Catia.

One of my cousins use Inventor for pressure vessels and another uses Pro-E at NASA on the shuttles internal goodies.

NOTE: Solidworks integrates into Mastercam (CAD/CAM) and vise versa and Mastercam has a robot programming module.

Boeing's main CAD package is CATIA a product owned by Dassault Systemes, the French Aerospace giant. It so happens that Dassault Systemes also owns SolidWorks.

Solidworks was introduced in 1995. It was the brainchild of software development employees who quit Parametric Technologies Corp, the parent to Pro Engineer, and struck out on their own.

PTC was powerless to stop the fledgling SolidWorks company and while PTC tried hard to create roadblocks to its success, it continued to loose market share to the upstart.

With it's future success assured, plans were made to take Solidworks public. However, as soon as plans for an IPO were made public, rumors began to circulate about an alleged plan by PTC for a hostile takeover of the new stock immediately on it's release. It was also alleged that PTC intended to kill the new package in an attempt to protect it's profit margins and restore market share.

With that threat lurking, the officers of Solidworks abandoned plans for an IPO and entered instead into negotiations with Dassault Systemes.

The marriage proved mutually advantageous. Solidworks has since prospered in the Windows environment. Rumors have it that one can start with Solidworks, migrate later to Catia if desired, and transfer all the legacy data from Solidworks upwards into Catia with no loss of it's history or features.

For those of us building model airplanes in our basement and dream of developing into an aerospace giant like Boeing or Lockheed, CAD software need not be a concern (sic!)

"And now you know the rest of the story"

Thanks all for your responses to this thread. As some have stated, I am one of the older goats that are comfortable with what I use. But I along with my other fellow engineers here are wanting to move forward to newer and better things. However not as comfortable as my manager who needs to be convinced. He does all the forming, coping, and stamping dies here in our facility. He uses, and is a staunch supporter of, Cad Key "97! I will take all that has been said here and move forward with it.

You possibly have a similar boss that I have.

If its going to cost money, and the current software still runs, then the process of trying to demonstrate that the newer software is so much better is a uphill struggle.

Maybe you could get a SW reseller to come to your company to give a demonstration, that may prompt the boss to upgrade the software.

I'm still running some Gerber software on a Cyrix 686 with 48Megs RAM & Win98 (for networking) cause its expensive to upgrade the software, computer and OS.

For those who wish to get a taste of what true parametric 3D modeling can offer, I suggest you Google for Alibre Express, download a copy and play with it some. It's free, it does not time out and is the perfect instrument for getting your feet wet.

There are limits to the number of features you can create in a part and a limit to the number of parts you can incorporate into an assembly, but it's still very effective.

It has a more powerful upgrade that is modestly priced if you want to play harder with it.

I'm not sure it's ready for prime time where the big boys play but it is a perfect tool for acquainting the 2D die hards without putting money at risk.

You could too, get a 30 trial demo disk from Solidworks.

Too lots of software make you bewildering.look at these

http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedProducts/Detail/FaroTechnologiesInc/Measurement_Software_CADtoPart_Comparison/21646/0?md=080708&mh=1938a3&Vol=Vol4Issue7&Pub=13&LinkId=262657&keyword=link%5F262657&vid=103129&email=cnndt%40yahoo%2Ecom&uh=b9a421&id=%2D1662558197&frmtrk=newsletter

Measurement Software, CAD-to-Part Comparison

http://www.2objet.com/Products/ObjetStudioSoftware/tabid/76/Default.aspx

Move smoothly from any 3-D CAD file to efficient, high quality 3-D printing

AutoDesk has been trying to drop MDT for years, but because it had a strangle hold on the marker it kept coming back, I used Autocad since 1985 and MDT since 1999.

Inventor had allot of issues when started out, even compatibity issues with MDT.

Feel real comfortable about it, I started using solidwork in 2004 and that was very easy to pick up (just have to leave go of MDT)

I still used MDT due the customers reqeust, but with only the drawing interchange (graphical) is good.