CAD vs. Inventor

[Ocire]

At my school I was required to take one year of Inventor and one year of CAD. Now, I'm not very good with either program but from what I remember, Inventor seemed to do just as much as CAD but much quicker. So what are the main differences in the two programs and why isn't Inventor just used instead of CAD?

[mdbdesign]

Not everybody need to draw in 3D, but Autocad I think is more flexible to design or just draw. I got nothing against IV, love to learn it on same level like AC-it is just my opinion

[Lazer]

Inventor and autocad are very different, Inventor can do lots of tricks, like prove out a design to see if it will work, parts can move like they would do in real life, the list goes on and on to what can be done in inventor.

Autocad is 2d and 3d, the 2d can be done very quick, the 3d side to autocad has got better with the launch of autocad 2007, but so no match to Inventor.

[Mr T]

AutoCAD has more detailed drafting tools but IV is better.

Once you create your model in 3D in IV then all the 2D possibilites are there. And they are better and easier to create than in acad.

I have used both for 3D and I can honestly say IV is better.

More users are creating 3D models to create 2D drawings.

Nick