Inventor for 3D

[manchest]

Hi

 

I think after asking lots of questions on the forum and elsewhere I am going to get Inventor to use at work.

 

The only thing that is putting me of at the moment is the fact it is mechanical based. I am looking for a software to do fairly basic 3D drawings not mechanical based.

 

I have been told that 3D AutoCAD is harder to learn and not as quick as inventor, is this true?

 

Does it matter that my drawing have nothing to do with mechanical, I am going to be drawing cables in the ground, and very basic steel structures.

 

 

One thing I am not sure about is weather I can save Inventor drawings so they can be inserted into a AutoCAD LT drawing, and then saved as a .dwg file

 

I have been going round in circles trying to decide on the right Autodesk software package for 3D drawing. I Inventor will be the right software for me

 

Thanks again for your help

[shift1313]

manchest, inventor has a lot of standard mechanical elements preloaded like beams, bolts, etc. There is a cable/harness section that will aid you in drawing cable runs. The new inventors also have a bit more in the way of circuit board and cable layout(will even do ribbon cable). I have used the sheet metal section of inventor and exported a dwg before. You end up with a 2D drawing and not a 3d solid. Inventor is very mechanical based but to me it sounds like what you are doing is mechanical. I dont think autodesks website has a trial of inventor but i know you can request it. Go to the autodesk website and look at some of the literature on the new inventor and you will see what it is capable of.

[Lazer]

Great advice from shift, the 3d model can be turned into a 2d drawing with only a few clicks, Inventor can create tube and cable runs if you but the pro version, frames can be generated with the frame generator, this comes with all levels of package.

[Lazer]

One more thing, the Inventor 2d drawing can (I think) be saved down to open in LT. I sometimes save at as a dwg so I can edit it in Autocad to tweek it.