Alibre Xpress or Turbocad or something else

[lostbaka]

I'm interested in getting a CAD package. At work we use Inventor\Autocad Mech and I had originally learned basic 3D in Solidworks. Those are out of the question due to price, but having something with part and assembly creation would be nice. The student versions of these seem crippled to me.

Turbocad v12 pro with Mechanical pack seems like a good way to go especially with prices for students being under $200. But I was browsing through and it seem Alibre Xpress is another good choice and it's free. Should I go with TC or Alibre? Is there another program I should check out?

Keep in mind that money is somewhat limited (damn college) and I would like to be able to bring work home from my internship. What made TC stand out was the Mechanical pack. It seems like it would be easy to pick up after Inventor and give some of the same features (sheet metal part creation comes to mind). I'm looking into Alibre Xpress now. I'm guess both allow to make 3d parts from 2d drawings.

CAM\CNC\Fab@home are probably year or two away so integration of CAD software into that doesn't heavily affect the my choice.

On a side note: What the heck is NURBS and should I be concerned with them? Especially when I don't deal with complex curves, though thinking about it, it would be nice to learn how take a physical object like a water bottle and be able to represent it in 3d on a computer without the need of expensive tools.

thanks for any help\direction
Frank

[ger21]

Since Alibre is free, try it and see if it will meet your needs. The free version may be too limited, though. But, if youve used Solidworks and Inventor, It should be much easier to learn as it's very similar. You might want to check if they offer a student version of the full version. If you need Nurbs (Non Uniform Rational B-Splines) you might want to check out the student version of Rhino.

[lostbaka]

I went with Alibre. They having a special till the end of the month. So I'm getting Design with Sheet Metal. I think what did was the support and training offered and that they allowed customers to spread payments over a year.

I think my task is it get some books on modeling and drafting complex shapes and maybe a thorough reference on drafting (if such a thing exsists)

[ger21]

They offer the specials every month. If you're using Xpress, they'll email you with the special offers.

[DareBee]

If you download XPress they will also phone and badger you once a week.

[ger21]

Originally Posted by DareBee If you download XPress they will also phone and badger you once a week.

They only called me once, after upgrading to Xpress V9. They left a message and never called back.

[DareBee]

Downloaded it a month ago.
Have had 4 calls now.

I figure in playing with it just for fun to see what it is like - sometime in the next year or so, maybe at home.
I told the guy that we design with SW and gave him a speach like above and that I had NO intentions of replacing SW at this time.

I guess he figures by "at this time" that he should call weekly to see if I am ready.

He is just doing his job, I understand that, but he is also pissing me off by not listening to what I am telling him and getting the point.

[agewon]

I am completly new to CAD, but downloaded the trial of Alibre. I have to say, it's really easy to learn. But i am looking for a program that is as easy as Alibre, but also has manufacturing capabilities. The only other program i have heard good things about is Pro/engineer. Any ideas??

[justCNCit]

I'd say go with Rhino, I haven't purchased yet, but am planning to.

If you are a student, you can get it for $300 completely working commercial version. Or else it's $600(or is it 900?)

Rhino is an excellent program, it is actually used by professional polygon modelers for rendering high polygon geo. It handles solids surfaces and mesh.

If you're a novice CAD user though, I probably wouldn't recommend it as it is fairly complex in its command structure, it is not as simple and easy to use as most industry standard packages.

If you are skilled enough though you can really do mad stuff in Rhino. You can also purchase Mad CAM(an excellent CAM addon) for $600. has toolpath verification(nurbs) as well.

ps. just to add another 2 cents Rhino has excellent import/export capabalities. You can also produce solid lettering of any windows text.