"Forget AutoCAD for serious 3D."

[ReMark]

That quote is from forum member J.D. Mather. See this post for his explanation before adding your opinion here. Do you agree or disagree and why?

 

Reference: http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37125&page=3

 

Thanks, in advance, for sharing your point of view. And let's keep it civil folks. It's a discussion not a free-for-all in the House of Commons.

[SEANT]

I suppose that is directly tied to the notion of what constitutes serious 3D. I’m pretty certain that stakeholders are serious whether their enterprise designs house additions, “daysailer”s, or the next version SST Concord.

[Patrick Hughes]

I've got two qualifications to make regarding my opinion.

 

1) I have no experience with the more current Autodesk offerings including Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, etc (I use r14 but solid modeling all the way).

 

2) My 3d work consists of relatively simple parts geometry wise - Plates, bars, shafts, etc your typical machine components.

 

Now as far as my opinon absolutely do not forget AutoCAD for serious 3d work. AutoCAD is fully capable of producing functional solid models.

 

I will admit that AutoCAD is cumbersome in its usage for 3d work, but with proper training and customization plain AutoCAD can become very efficient.

 

BTW what is the cost difference between AutoCAD and Inventor?

[rkent]

I have been learning Inventor (slowly) and would agree. You can make some pretty nice 3D stuff in AutoCAD but then when you need to edit it quickly and get 2D drawings out you will see the limitations of AutoCAD. Of course you can't use IV for buildings and many other types of drawings we do in our jobs.

 

I do get tired of JD answering questions that need an immediate response with, "use Inventor". As if the cad monkey is going to stop what they are doing, tell the boss he needs to spend $6K on Inventor, and wait 4 months while they get trained (another $4K), and then the drawing will be finished. The for profit world doesn't work that way, perhaps it is that way in academia or the government.

[ReMark]

I don't think it is so much that companies are "afraid" of the vertical products as they are afraid to spend the money because someone hasn't bothered to adequately demonstrate the positive affects of upgrading to a higher end package will have on the ROI (Return on Investment).

 

One also runs up against a culture of resistance to change. Thus, change comes slowly. How slowly? Well let's just say that some of the world's glaciers will melt faster than the time it takes some companies to fully embrace advanced concepts of 3D modelling.

[Patrick Hughes]

One also runs up against a culture of resistance to change. Thus, change comes slowly. How slowly? Well let's just say that some of the world's glaciers will melt faster than the time it takes some companies to fully embrace advanced concepts of 3D modelling.

 

You really hit the nail on the head here.

 

When I started my business in '91 one of my first realizations was the efficiency of working in 3d - actually at the time AutoCAD didn't really have solid modeling available so I worked in 2 1/2d.

 

The companies I did contract work for would have nothing to do with it. There was nothing I could do to demonstrate the advantages. Even on a different plane there were "advanced" features they didn't use like associated dimensions or grips. I remember one fellow that I brought in to do some moonlighting that worked for one company.

When I showed him how to use asso dims and grips he brought that knowledge back to the company and showed them. Within a couple of weeks they had adopted the method. Would they have learned on their own? Eventually.

[Doove]

Using Autocad but have tried Solidedge, Solidworks, Pro-E Wildfire, Inventor etc

 

I think it's important to remember that for most drawing offices REAL output is usually 2D paper drawings.

 

I found ALL the CAD software I used was a pain in the behind to produce elevations & sections in exactly the way I wanted them, I always feel I would have done a better job manually.

 

I think if you took experts on each of the packages for a year and gave them all a series of different drawings (ranging from architectural to construction to product design, PIDs etc) to output as 2D plots then you would find that they pretty much averaged out.

 

Basically, for product stuff exclusively then go with MCAD (my preference was Solidedge simply because I found it easy to get on with). If your business deals with all sorts of drawing requirements then I think you're still better off with Autocad, it's a good all-rounder plus there is an enormous range of add-ons, blocks and lisp routines available over the good ol' interweb.

 

In terms of 3D geometry, if you're dealing with the kind of tolerances that require more than ANY of the mid-range CAD / MCAD products can deal with then really you should be using something like CATIA, or a custom made application.

 

In the back of my mind I had an idea that Autocad's arithmetic rounds to 8 decimal places? Does anyone know?

[Patrick Hughes]

I think it's important to remember that for most drawing offices REAL output is usually 2D paper drawings.

 

Very true - the draftsman's output is simply a form of communication. If you desire to communicate a concept or a design then a 3d model is best. What a 3d model also offers however is the generation of the views and sections needed to produce the 2d detail drawing (for those organizations that still rely upon a drawing that is)

 

 

In the back of my mind I had an idea that Autocad's arithmetic rounds to 8 decimal places? Does anyone know?

 

AutoCAD displays to 8 decimals but the internal precision is 15 decimals.

[tzframpton]

Most industries have very specific CAD applications that are far above and beyond vanilla AutoCAD. Mine in particular is HVAC. I would never use vanilla AutoCAD for my mechanical work. However, AutoCAD is capable of any 3D drawing if you know how to use the program, and good at math.

[ReMark]

The choice of software may be predicated on the field you work in, as Styk has pointed out, and the types of drawings required. Not every company needs 3D or even wants it. Until I showed my manager a 3,000 gallon reactor with all the nozzles, jacket and some process piping he never gave much thought to 3D. I was using AutoCAD 2004 at the time.