Computer Aided Design

Be more specific about what do you want to know about CAD!

Ummmm....its easier than using a pencil and a napkin?

I don't have a particular response to your query, but I do have a comment which will probably evoke the type of discussion you're looking for.

I have just finished my BS in mechanical eng. So, I have been taught in the arts of CAD. With an extensive background in AutoCAD from before college, Wentworth Institute of Technology taught me how to produce 3D models using SolidWorks. Since my introduction to Solidworks I have lost all interest in using AutoCAD for anything except simple 2D schematics which are few and far between.

My problem is that I have come into a company with some old-school guys who still love AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop. Mechanical Desktop (from my understanding) is a 3D modeling software which is supported by AutoCAD. Being a Solidworks fan, I am very frustrated with this Mechanical Desktop. I can't seem to convince these guys that Solidworks is a much superior 3D modeling program. They just love the damn Mechanical Desktop like it was their old dog which is now old and getting arthritis.

I would like to get an idea of what anyone out there thinks about these two programs and if you think Solidworks is a better alternative to 3D modeling or if it is just a failed replacement of Mechanical Desktop.

Well I would say Solidworks is better off in terms of rendering capabilies and user-friendly window.

What is missing from this discussion is what you actually DO with the geometry. Once something is "DESIGNED," what happens next? Is your geometry good enough to make a mold and produce the part as an injection-molded plastic part or must you convert the geometry and then run a program like Moldflow? Can you get a CNC path from the geometry? How easy is it to change the designed part because the normal manufacturing processes cannot make a good part that looks like original geometry?

Now the real fun begins. Have you run any kind of analysis (FEA) on the part? Are you even mildly aware of the gyrations you must perform to get a beautifully designed part through analysis? Those delicate curves (which must be vastly simplified) add hours to analysis times while degrading usefulness. Will your CAD software support the defeaturing necessary to run a quick analysis? If you can't analyze or manufacture the part, CAD is just a bunch of very expensive pretty pictures.

Your points are all valid, though you don't need me to tell you that. Your insight leads me to believe that you are experienced with the design process and therefore your opinion on my previous post is valuable.

Tell me, what is your opinion on the difference between solidworks and mechanical desktop? Solidworks does have an FEA program which works nicely (but can be deceiving if you give it the wrong inputs). Mechanical Desktop seems very difficult to use as someone who has not been introduced to it yet.

What do you use in your design work and why does it best suit your needs?

Autocad, in my humble opinion is over-rated. SolidWorks is by far a superior tool. I personally use a less expensive 3D Cad program and get great, easy results. Everything we make has 3 dimensions, why design in 2? I will grant that 3D wire frames tend to flip and invert to someone looking over your shoulder, to them I say shoo! The finished drawing will be on your desk in an hour, fully rendered with multiple lighting sources and a cherry on top. (not to mention animations)

Please be specific. But if you meant machine part design and development. There are lot of cad software e.g solidworks, alibre.that can help you out in the design and test it under different simulated conditions. you could visit any of these:www.solidworks.com, www.alibre.com for more understanding.

And do not fotger web sites form inventor, catia, rhino, solid ege, ... and many more 3d modeling programs that in top 10 best programs.

Every one of this is best for samting and worst for somting else.

You realy must define what you need and then deside what to use!

As a Mechanical Design engineer, who actually started out using t-squares and drafting machines on a real drafting board, I have had the chance to try many CAD products over the years, however SolidWorks is my first parametric CAD system. I used wireframe systems in 2D and 3D for years including one of the first proprietary systems developed by the University of Missouri at Rolla which ran on their mainframe computer with I/O via graphics terminals (in the era before Apples and PC's, when "microcomputer" meant a box with a bunch of switches on the front panel!).

My early years were spent in Manufacturing, where I did most of my design on paper, but assisted Product Engineers who worked with CADAM, Unigraphics, Catia, Pro/Engineer, etc. Then I got into Product Design myself, however stumbling along with primitive systems liked Generic CADD and Bentley's original MicroStation 3D. Then, WOW, I got to work for a company that started using Solid Designer, an HP product from their German subsidiary, Co-Create. It was very intuitive and easy to use, just like Solidworks, but I had to leave that job and eventually wound up with a company that abandoned Solid Designer in favor of AutoCAD/Mechanical Desktop, primarily because two of their engineers promised to customize their system to use industry specific tools to speed the design work. However, it was a bigger job than either of them thought and the usability ended up being very low and the bug rate being very high.

Now I am with a company that does both SolidWorks and AutoCAD, primarily for cost and accomodation reasons. They had been using AutoCAD and Pro/Engineer, but dropped Pro/E because of complexity and cost. AutoCAD is used to accomodate many customers, as well as a huge database of .dwg drawings, and for quickie graphics such as Spec. Sheets and sketches. Solidworks is used for new product design and creating solid models of standard products for our customers to use in incorporating our products in their own designs. These models are put on-line on our website using the SolidWorks Part-Stream service, which will convert any SolidWorks model to almost any 2D or 3D CAD system currently in use.

I have found the learning curve for SolidWorks fairly easy once I had access to it, and after initial training through a Community College course. The drawback for Solidworks is it is still not very affordable for the casual user, or for use at home, legally anyway. AutoCAD will accomodate secondary use at home by registered work users. One thing I found, being fairly new to AutoCAD only a few years ago, was that long-term AutoCAD users still favored command-line usage rather than the windows based icons and toolbars. However, I learned AutoCAD using toolbars and icons (R13 and 2000) so transitioning to Solidworks was not as bad. The hardest part was wanting to use Boolean operations in AutoCAD, which you cannot do in Solidworks, so that took some getting used to. Plus AutoCAD seemed easier to correct mistakes, at first, then Solidworks. It was, and still is, somewhat easy to lock up a SolidWorks model with illegal operations, especially the dreaded "over-defined" error!

I do like SolidWorks for its quick rendering ability, but at the same time it seems less customizable than AutoCAD/Mechanical Desktop. Unfortunately, I have yet to use any CAE tools with either, like FEA, animation, thermal analysis, etc. My design work is fairly basic. Also, I recently had to model a fairly complex family of castings and the filleting was a nightmare in SolidWorks, which I could have more easily smoothed over in AutoCAD. SolidWorks would not, in fact LET me use certain radii at certain places, escpecially where multiple curved surfaces joined each other.

On the other hand the Design Table function of Solidworks lets me create multiple variations of simple parts (including hundreds or thousands of variations) extremely fast. With AutoCAD I would be stuck manually revising every model variation.

If I think of more comparisons tomorrow I will add them.

I would not argue relativity with Jorrie, and after reading your post, I will not argue CAD with you STL Engineer. It would appear that you not only did your homework, you were pressent when the text books were written.

Nicely said!

Are you serious

"I recently had to model a fairly complex family of castings and the filleting was a nightmare in SolidWorks, which I could have more easily smoothed over in AutoCAD. SolidWorks would not, in fact LET me use certain radii at certain places, escpecially where multiple curved surfaces joined each other."

Complex surfacing in autocad is the reason why we moved to solidworks - maybe you need a higher level of training on solidworks rather than "Community College course"

A Solidworks CP

Anthony @ Alno

www.alnoproductservices.com.au

Well in company where I am now we use mostly catia and rihino for 3D modeling. Some guys stil use solid works, but rhino and catia is better suited for our needs. But we still all use autocad/mehanical for 2d drowings.

Personaly I export from catia 3D model into 2D in then modify drowing into somting that I or subcontractors could use

There's something I've been curious about for a while now. I've used Solidworks somewhat extensively and I quite like it. I've seen other CAD packages like Pro/E, Inventor, etc. and they seem to be more clunky, less powerful, etc. I have heard of certain issues that people have with these programs when compared to others, but I'm looking for alternate opinions.

From what I know, Solidworks is considered one of the easiest to use, and with the right addons like CosmoWorks it can do some pretty powerful stuff. However it is apparently missing some key abilities that other programs like Pro/E can do, such as tolerance checking (I know it can do collision checking between parts in an assembly, to make sure parts don't "mush" into each other in the model, but according to a devout Pro/E user it can't check specific tolerances). I also don't really know just how often is Solidworks used as the sole, deep-level design tool for everything that a company may do, within the industry. From what I have heard it is used in many places but not the most often.

Pro/E is apparently supposed to be one of the top level programs, used perhaps the most in industry. From what I have heard, it is more powerful than Solidworks in certain aspects, but clunkier to use. Having never really used it myself I wouldn't be able to say for sure, but I am considering getting trained in it for the simple fact that it is that commonly used.

Anyone have any opinions on this?

And another small bright GEM of information.. SW 2010 and 2011 and FUTURE updates are NOT ever going to be backward compatible with previous versions so anything after 2009 .. how about that. I now discover that when you save an old file it converts it to the new standard. Word to any SW2010 users out there when you open a file save it as another name and DO NOT save the original or you are stuffed, all my old work that I have used this year is now locked to this version I cant use 2008 to work on it and sometimes I like to use the old stuff..so they lock you in and throw away the key..If you don't like it you cant then copy all your stuff and go back to your old system the .prt .asm .drw files wont load.. have yet to try it with .step or .iges or binary but got a feeling I am getting s*****d here...