AutoCAD or Solidworks

What is easier for 3D. I've been using AutoCAD, but I see more preference for SolidWorks. I have a SolidWorks, but never played with it. Is there a real difference?

plain straight AutoCAD ? SolidWorks beats that hands down. AutoCAD is not built for 3D, I have never had any luck with it anyway.

Yes there is a real difference. You should not even be comparing AutoCAD to SolidWorks. Autodesk Inventor is the Autodesk product equivalent to SolidWorks.

I would consider the use of AutoCAD to be pure torture in the mechanical design field compared to next-generation 3D CAD software like SolidWorks or Inventor.

Students (and displaced workers) can download Inventor for free from http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity

Welcome to the 21 century.

It depends on what you are trying to produce. A visualisation, or 2D Engineering drawings generated from your model that update with your model.

Broadly speaking, you can use AutoCAD to produce 3D models, dumb shapes that visually show you what the things going to look like.

You can use something like Solidworks to generate 2D drawings from your model (amongst other great benefits).

Main limitation (certainly within my industry -water) of AutoCAD is that it's difficult to generate 2D drawings from your model that update with the model.

Main limitation of Solidworks is that you can't always import high poly models created by other packages so that the model is a managable size, or you may not have a model if some design is done by another company - this then leads you to the idea of overlaying a 2D XREF. If you want to do this then Solidworks is not for you.

This has lead my company to try and explore MEP which on the box says it does the best of both worlds but I'm yet to try it.