I USE INVENTOR 8 AT WORK.
I want to know how many Inventor users are here.
I compared Inventor to Solidworks and found that although Solidworks has a few capabilities that Inventor does not yet have, I found Inventor easier to use.
Plus I did not want to give up my Autocad updates. IV or SW cannot replace many of things I can do with Autocad at this point.(with all the custom 3rd party programs the many users have generated).
I took the one week class for IV and need to keep practicing with it to get good.
One thing that was mentioned in class is that the plan is to eventually get all the functionality from Acad and MDT into Inventor. Its at release 8 now, 9 is due out soon. Release 10 next year, will have full surface modeling capabilities.
Bill
I USE INVENTOR 8 AT WORK.
I already have tried a lot of programs like solidwordks, autocad, unigraphics, ideas and still I`m only using inventor profesional 8 to do al of my drawing, I think it`s still is the best programs tot make drawings, fast and easy. i use it at home and also on school. inventor is the most suitable for beginning designers, i learnd my little borther (14) inventor in a weekend, so......
greetz Maarten
As for your macros in Acad and MDT, if you buy inventor the latest version, there is a way to model in Inventor and draft in MDT while maintaining the associativity.
Check out this site for more detail
http://d3technical.com/forum/phpBB2/
I have used, Unigraphics, solid edge, and solid works. While I like the primitves of unigrphics, I think that Inventor is mreo powerful and intutive than solid edge and solid works.
I also think that Inventor is more powerful than solidworks in the overall package of what it offers.
I agree, maybe SW2k4 have more features, but i felt more comfortable with Inventor8, to sketch and for 3D, although assemblies movements are not so easy than in SW2K4 IMHO.
I'm a die hard Autodesk user for years. Been using AutoCAD since R12 DOS days. And I disagree with in saying that SolidWorks doesn't have the features and is more powerful than Inventor. SolidWorks is what we are currently migating too and it is far superior solid modeler than Inventor. IMHO Don't get me wrong I still like AutoCAD / Autodesk products just glad someone didn't bring up ProE) That is one app I don't care for.
Brent
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Sometimes people have a hard time reading my emails and posts, so thats why I type slower.
So people can understand me then.
I use Inventor also.
Having used Catia also, I find it very easy to use, train etc.
Yes it doesn't have ALL the features available in other programs it does have the ones I need 99.9% of time and they keep adding and updating.
I think the user interface is one of the best.
I have used also used Autocad since r12 dos days. I have also used SDRC, Pro Engineer to R20, Inventor, and Solidworks 2004. Inventor is a nice package for the money and easy to use. Solidworks has alot of nice features as well that Invetor does not. I like using both programs, how ever given the choice I pesonanly would choose Solidworks. The translators in Solidworks are pretty good compared to Inventor. Just my 2 cents. Budget wise I beleive Inventor is cheaper than Solidworks. If cost was a issue I would go with Inventor.
I use IV8 at work. Very easy to learn and use.
Hello,
I too have been using Auto Cad since the days of DOS, I have V5 at home, and use V8 at work. I also have a copy of Solidworks and yes, it does have many advantages over AutoCad, but then so have others in the past and Autocad has always managed to come back and take back market share. I started back when Versa Cad was the top Mechanical software and Auto Cad was the Arch. software of choice. My opinion is that Inventor will catch up to and surpass Solidworks if history is any indicator. Inventor is much easier to learn out of the box for the basic 2D'r out there.
Glen
I have used inventor at my previous place of employment and found it quite user friendly. I agree with the earlier comment that it doesn't really to more than AutoCAD can. In the days before inventor/mechanical desktop we used to do 3d solid modeling in autocad with the same results as inventor. Without getting into to much technical details I feel that inventor is just a "dumbed down" or user friendly approche to 3d modeling. No offense to inventor users. When we did 3d in autocad it was a lot more time consuming in the early stages and as new versions were released the tasks became faster. The one thing I found inventor has over autocad is the parametric aspect and even that can be duplicated somewhat in autocad with the xref feature. Now having said that it doesn't update adaptive parts (hence the parametric thing) but if done effectivley all drawings can be updated.
Anyway I now use Alibre design which i find to be similar to inventor. My question is how are you guys affording inventor with the 15,000.00 price tag?
Maybe we here in Canada our prices are different but Alibre has a price tag of approx 600.00 and is as powerful as Inventor.
Thanks for reading
I've used inventor to model a couple things www.fusionxstudio.com/mcad.html