Anyone else find Inventor the most frustrating program ever?

[Hickoz_bro]

This is pretty much just a RANT... please go easy if your gonna flame me... don't wanna turn it it into a full scale flame war.

 

Okay, so i'm not gonna claim to be a CAD expert of any degree, i've been drafting now for just over a year, spent 6 months+ working with Mechanical Desktop, and managed to learn crap loads in that time, and have spent the last 4months or so pulling my hair out with inventor... my biggest gripe is that everytime i tell someone how much better mechanical desktop is, they say "yeah.. well inventor is parametric"... WOOOPTY FARKING DOOO!! so far i've found that you need to put SOOOo much effort into constructing your model in such a way as to predict any changes your likely to make. otherwise when you change a dimension, your mate constraints chuck a spazz, and you spend the next 5 mins correcting your constraints... then if you decide to change something back, you do it all again... mechanical desktop on the other hand has simple commands... like MOVE... and COPY... and SUBTRACT etc etc... it means that if you decide to change a part, everything else is uneffected... if you want them to change as well... then you change them as well...

 

i have to admit, i admire the ability to use reference data in drawings, but the few advantages i've seen FAAAAR outweigh the disadvantages... i honestly can't see why inventor would be the prefered option over someting like Mechanical Desktop...

in Inventor customisation means learning VBA... mechanical dektop you learn LISP (took me almost 2 days to get the basics).

 

and another thing... is it just me, or is inventor the least stable program you've ever used??? i've had it crash on me HEAPS AND HEAPS of times when i'm doing stupid things like.. ZOOM, or... LINE... makes me wanna slam my head on the keyboard...

 

even the guys at work that have been using it for years curse it... i mean... HELLO... what about AUTOSAVE??? i've even had the computer crash when i was trying to save!!! meanwhile... if i use mechanical desktop, i can import dodgy SAT or IGES files, and then try doing operations like explode, and it'll just sit there chewing away until it's done... inventor on the other hand doesn't even offer similar operations...

 

and my final gripe... mechanical desktop allows you to work with 3DSOLIDS and PARTS... meaning you can manipulate solids SOOOOO much easier.... inventor only lets you do parts... and then not very well...

 

has anyone got solutions to my gripes? or gripes to add? am i the only one out there???a

[Tiger]

darn Hickoz - that was one impressive rant! I can hear you banging on the keys...:wink:

 

I got no solutions though - never used Inventor - I have my Vanilla and that's it..sorry

[Hickoz_bro]

i know... really just had to get it out there for an audience to offer comments and suggestions... everyone at work just shrugs their shoulders... which is equally frustrating as the program itself...

[Aardvark]

What version of Inventor do you use? Can you post a typical file that I could look at for you? That could go a long way to helping you fix your issues. Personally I would never use mechanical desktop (which I feel is the nothing more than the illegitimate son of autocad, a stop gap measure on the way to a true parametric modeler) after having used a parametric modeler like Solidworks or Inventor. Have you ever had any real training? Read some of the posts by JD Mather, he usually posts a document he wrote for Autodesk University that is extremely helpful.

[Lazer]

i've had it crash on me HEAPS AND HEAPS of times when i'm doing stupid things like.. ZOOM, or... LINE... makes me wanna slam my head on the keyboard...

 

In 6 years of using IV I have never had it crash on zooming or drawing a line:?

 

I use Inventor every day and I push the program hard, about once every 3 months if that It will crash it, I also save when I am happy with a model so If it did crash I am not too far away from were I was.

[driftingsun3]

I feel your pain, Hickoz, especially about the contraints issue. I am working with Inventor right now, and it keeps giving me that warning, everytime I want to move, or copy, or manipulate something. I know that the constraints are there for some reason, but when I am zipping along on a part, I just want the program to do what I tell it to, and not sass back!

[JD Mather]

>Mechanical Desktop, and managed to learn crap loads in that time,

 

Everything else you post in this thread related to MDT tells me you don't have a clue how to use MDT. That's right, MDT. I'm saying you don't know how to use MDT properly either. At least from the clues you have included in you rant that is my perpective. I've taught a lot of MDT users to use Inventor. I used to do the same problems in MDT and Inventor to show them that they really didn't know MDT.

 

>much better mechanical desktop is, they say "yeah.. well inventor is parametric"...

MDT is parmetirc - no different than Inventor.

 

>i honestly can't see why inventor would be the prefered option over someting like Mechanical Desktop...

How much training did you get in Inventor - honest answer please.

 

>is it just me, or is inventor the least stable program you've ever used???

It is just you, well OK, and a few others who haven't figured out to configure the software/hardware.

We run Inventor on hundreds, thats hundreds, of machines none of which are certified for the program (except for mine) and crashes are only occasional. I push the machines pretty hard. I suggest you have a consultant come in and set up your hardware/software correctly to solve the problem.

 

> what about AUTOSAVE???

Anybody who does not know how/when to save their work should not be paid to touch a keyboard. Period.

 

>i can import dodgy SAT or IGES files, and then try doing operations like explode, and it'll just sit there chewing away until it's done... inventor on the other hand doesn't even offer similar operations...

 

Huh? Have you had any training in using Inventor? I've written several tutorials on handling SAT, STEP and IGES files. Not for the beginner like you, but the tools are there.

 

>and my final gripe... mechanical desktop allows you to work with 3DSOLIDS and PARTS... meaning you can manipulate solids SOOOOO much easier.... inventor only lets you do parts... and then not very well...

 

I don't even know what this means.

 

>has anyone got solutions to my gripes?

Get some professional training. This field is a professional endeavor and requires a professional level of preparation.

 

If you can't afford training at least read the documentation attached to my signature - I will be adding additiona documentation today.

 

I used to start my design class by telling my students that MDT was my preferred program, but that we would take a look at Inventor. By the end of the semester I was eating those words. Inventor is by far a better program - no questions, hands down, forget about MDT.

Get some training.

[tzframpton]

> what about AUTOSAVE???

Anybody who does not know how/when to save their work should not be paid to touch a keyboard. Period.

Amen, brutha. Personally, I hit CTRL+S about every 30 seconds. I don't even think about it, it's just comes as second nature to me now, and everyone should be that way, especially in CAD design.

[SLW210]

Amen, brutha. Personally, I hit CTRL+S about every 30 seconds. I don't even think about it, it's just comes as second nature to me now, and everyone should be that way, especially in CAD design.

 

I agree with that, I even tell my kids, that if they don't save there schoolwork as they go and loose it all, too bad do it over. Need to learn to save stuff as you go, even in nonCAD programs.

 

I have had no formal training in Inventor and find it quite easy to use, especially compared to ProE, which I hate as much as you hate Inventor, but I must confess I have no formal training with it either. Like mentioned already, I think if you got a little formal training with Inventor, you will grow to like it.

 

Sometimes when something starts frustrating me, I just take a little break, get a new outlook on things and go back with a better attitude and a clear head.

[Lazer]

 

and my final gripe... mechanical desktop allows you to work with 3DSOLIDS and PARTS... meaning you can manipulate solids SOOOOO much easier.... inventor only lets you do parts... and then not very well...

 

Same here JD I have no Idea what this means:?

[Hickoz_bro]

 

 

That is a ROUGH example of one of the drawings i've done recently which has given me some grief. i've mocked it up in Acad since i don't have inventor on my home computer.

 

the first problem i had was a modeling ability one, probably my lack of experience (i'll get to that in a sec). all the model is, is just a piece of pipe bent to share the shape of a Motor Grader cabin roof (it's a windscreen spray bar) getting the shape of the pipe is a walk in the park, the problem i had was making the holes in the pipe for the spray (inset, rhs). along the straight section (bottom of image) it's a simple case of rectangular pattern/array, thankfully however inventor will also allow me to pattern along any given path. problem is that the featurs patterned are position parallel to the original feature, i want it to pattern and be normal to the path (or surface of the pipe). i consulted the two top inventor drafters at work (atleast 5yrs experience each with inventor) they had no suggestions,

 

second problem was in the detail drawing for the part. and it was definatly no fault of my own, i can replicate the problem easily. i took an auxilary view of the end of the straight section so as to show the holes mentioned above. i then took a detail view of the end section just to cut out the whole length of the pipe. and then proceeded to dimension this end section. now... when i tried to move the original auxilary view, the arrow indicating the view direction would only move perpendicular to the direction i had originally intended. whilst the acctual view remained where i wanted it. so basically the auxillary view, and the auxillary view indicator arrow had become mis-aligned.

 

when i tried to dimension the end section of the pipe, it would crash instantly. but only on the diameter dimensions, i could place dimensions for other features,

 

(i'll try and replicate the problem at work and catch some screen shots.)

 

that's just an example of some of the problems i experience daily.

 

as far as what version we're running, it's Inventor 11 sp3... inventor 2008 is currently being put through it's paces by the IT department to make sure it's compaitble with our database systems. (lots of vba there)

 

JD - in terms of time spent working with any cad system, i can't argue that i don't know how to use anything. however, if you compare my acctual abilities with anyone who's been drafting for significantly longer, i think i'm doing pretty damn well. so far i have a little over 6 months full time experience with MDT, and ACAD (in industry, and a few years stuffing around otherwise) i've had semi-formal training in Solidworks (Uni subject - 1 semester ~ 5 months). as for inventor, i've been using it for only a fraction more then 4 months, and still have bucket loads to know, but already know the majority of what our top brains at work know...

 

MDT is definatly parametric, i'm not gonna argue there, the way we used it was to develop our 3dsolid models using ACAD functions and commands, before converting them to a PART model (for this reason i forget about it's parametric capabilities from time to time, don't get to use it anymore either ). this saved us HEAPS of time in constructing components, i'll accept no arguments on this part. we designed AND built an entire mining truck in a little over 8 months, with 2 drafters (me being the unexperienced n00b).

 

Training with inventor = i half read through the Autodesk training manual, and what i read taught me nothing i didn't already know (from solidworks), unfortunatly the training manual we have doesn't go into depth about documentation etc, and that's 90% of what we do.

 

as for the people who haven't learned to configure hardware/software? i have 3 documents (300+ pages total) from work which outline step by step all settings to be used on all workplace computers. right down to cross hair size in acad. there simply isn't any room for experimenting with configurations. though i'd appreciate any tips which may help.

 

as for the SAT, IGES etc comment, i was refering to the fact that inventor doesn't offer commands like explode... i'm well aware of the importing capabilities, and use them regularly. however once imported they are left as reference models, not used for construction of new parts etc.

 

 

and the comment about MDT being able to use 3DSOLIDS and PARTS... your making me feel a whole lot better there... i've no doubt of your advanced experience, but maybe your forgetting the basics? create a closed profile.... extrude it.... and you have a 3DSOLID... click new part, and select it as a base, and you have a PART... 3DSOLIDS were far more useful for manipulating and modifying, 'cause your completely unrestrained as to your actions... you can manipulate it in almost any concievable manner.

 

finally, MDT is faster to create parts and assemblies because you can do everything with out any external references, you can have a full blown assembly, before you even create a single part (using 3DSOLIDs)

 

looking into the documentation in your sig now...

 

thanks for the responses

[JD Mather]

> thankfully however inventor will also allow me to pattern along any given path. problem is that the featurs patterned are position parallel to the original feature, i want it to pattern and be normal to the path

 

The "Rectangular Pattern" is really a misnomer - it should have been named Curve Driven Pattern where often the curve(s) happen to be straight line (rectangular). See Tips 56-60 http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2006/MA13-3%20Mather.pdf

for the orientation normal to path solution.

More examples Tips 54-58

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2007/MA105-1L%20Mather.pdf

 

>second problem was in the detail drawing for the part. and it was definatly no fault of my own, i can replicate the problem easily....

I would have to see an example dataset - zip and attach. I am not sure of what the problem statement is.

 

>when i tried to dimension the end section of the pipe, it would crash instantly.

Obviously not good. What graphics card and driver are you using?

With no file open, in Inventor set Tools>Application Options>Hardware tab to Open GL instead of Direct 3D and then open a file and see if you can reproduce the crash.

 

 

>JD - in terms of time spent working with any cad system,....

...this saved us HEAPS of time ...

 

Many people I run into who think they know MDT are actually using it like AutoCAD. They are not using the Base Orphan Reference Node (BORN) technique. They do not know how to create parametric workplanes. There files are all actually assembly files as that is the default. They do not know how to use the Catalog. They use AutoCAD move of parts rather than 3D assembly constraints. On and on.... they think they are faster by using it like AutoCAD and skipping the parametrics. Through years of observation and testing I have found that those who were the absolute fastest and best quatlity gurus never skipped fully constrained parametric 2D sketches and 3D assemblies.

 

>i half read through the Autodesk training manual..

 

I was referring to training lead be a professional who has already cleared the hurdles you are experiencing and knows the tricks. I went down the same road you are now on. I would estimate that 1% comes from reading avialable documentation, 10% from professional instruction and the rest from participating in forums like this where you can see 10 different solutions to a problem. You are wise to participate in such a forum - but keep an open mind and realize there is a good reason why most everyone has switched from MDT to Inventor - you just haven't gotten over the hurdles yet. With problems like your machine crashing on something as simple as dimensioning a hole no wonder you are frustrated.

 

>as for the SAT, IGES etc comment, i was refering to the fact that inventor doesn't offer commands like explode

 

Ah, but it does. But I don't think you are ready to go there yet. (Construction Environment - a whole different set of tools for editing non-native geometry)

 

>and the comment about MDT being able to use 3DSOLIDS and PARTS... your making me feel a whole lot better there... i've no doubt of your advanced experience, but maybe your forgetting the basics?

 

I refer to these as dumb solids vs parametric solids. In any case Inventor can edit base solids or surfaces and parametric solids or surfaces - just need to know how.

 

Stick around and ask questions. Post actual files whenever possible.

[Mr T]

I teach Inventor everyday to 12yr olds up to 18yr olds.

 

They love it and we don't teach autocad now really at all.

 

IV is great coz you can keep changing design details all day

and it is easy once you have ben shown techniques like always

sketching on the origin plane, dimension constraints.

 

Tip - don't try to draft like acad or solid works, draft like the way IV

does to be efficient.

 

Nick

[Hickoz_bro]

well... i had a good day today... thanks to those who supported Inventor so far, i figured i'd persevere more when i hit a snag instead of dismissing it as being "stupid inventor"... and wadda ya know... i found a thing or two... only in drawing, basically just methods of dimensioning, so nothing new for you... :)

 

i also captured some of the errors i experienced previously, so i've attached screen shots of those

 

First one is the first step.. taking a detail view of the end of the pipe: (works fine)

 

 

Second one is the auxilary view...

Note how the arrow for view D is aligned parallel to the centre line of the pipe. this is how it should be.

 

 

Third one is where it goes pear shaped...

Note how the arrow is now perpendicular to the centre line of the pipe, but the view remains aligned the way i want it... i disregard this as being a bug, and continued...

 

i couldn't get the dimensions and crash to replicate today, so i didn't capture any screen shots of errors, but i don't think you'll have any trouble in visualising what a dimension looks like, followed by a "send error report to autodesk" message box.

 

another gripe while i'm still finding problems... the thread note dialog box for drawing annotations is terrible... should be atleast half as good as the hole note dialog box...

 

and this next image shows how we're suppose to do detail views at work (company policy... not personal preference)

 

 

is there any way to alter the distance of the detail view label letter from the detail fence? and is there any way to associate the leader i've added in with the detail fence and label letter??

 

 

NOW... Mr JD... i read through the document cover to cover, and have a few questions......... okay... crap loads of questions...

 

24. Sometimes implied constraints can be a nuisance......

 

-> good tip... didn't know that one...

 

26. Tip: Under Tools>Customize>Commands you can set up your numerical keypad....

 

-> VERY good one... will experiment tomorrow, can you setup Function (F1, F2 etc) keys for this purpose???

 

31. Use List Parameters and set dimensions to predefined variables.....

 

-> can you setup complex equations? FOR, IF, loops etc? if so, how? if not, is there a way to do it easily?

 

37. Autoproject edges can cause difficulty in selecting text sketches....

 

-> lol... i know this one all too well... i do alot of labels, so plenty of etched text...

 

50. I have changed the 60 dimension to 50 and Updated the part...

 

-> i can't see where there was a 3D sketch in this example... looked all 2D planar to me... the intersection of anything with a plane will create a 2d planar profile. how do you create complex shaped planes i.e. helix? can you create similarly complex axes?

 

54. You can rotate the view of the model 90° at a time by clicking on one of the edges of the glass box..

 

-> good tip... didn't know this one

 

58. The most common problem experienced by those who know this feature is somehow possible...

 

-> yep... figured that one out the hard way with the pipe drawing i mentioned earlier (the inventor guru at work couldn't)

 

63. A hole in a surface model can be patched with the Boundary Patch tool.

 

-> we import alot of STEP, and IGES files, most of which are missing faces, or so it appears, i believe it's just the reverse (transparent) side of a surface, but i'm not too familiar with surfaces... is there a way to 'flip normal' for a curved surface? i know with MDT a surface can only be seen from one side just like a one way mirror... is this the case with inventor?

 

69. Use Derived Components to create tooling dependencies...

 

-> lost me here... any more information?

 

74. Need to change the dimensions of a hole???

 

-> out of curiosity... early version of inventor? create hole dialog box more comprehensive on my computer.

 

80. Just as you can go back and forth between the Modeling and Sheet Metal environments...

 

-> CONTOUR FLANGE for a pipe?!?! i'm gonna have to investigate this one... would be bloody handy to be able to create bent pipe parts in a similar method to sheet metal parts... but i though that would require a seperate add-in...

 

81. Perhaps one of the most underutilized feature options is the Intersect option...

 

-> explain the tangent circle/autoproject bit further indepth? not sure about the method here...

-> the method you've shown to create a fillet around a polygon is very similar to the way i do it, i use cut revolve instead.. is there another way to create a similar fillet???

 

90. You can apply auto assembly constraints by Alt select-drag method.

 

-> please elaborate? (will try and see if i can figure it out)

 

91. If you open Windows Explorer and set the Thumbnails preview.

 

-> any way to thumbnail preview for vault???

 

92. Additional instances of components can be drag copied from the browser tree...

 

-> good tip... use it alot

 

94. You can create different Design View Representations

 

-> didn't know colours transfered into design view reps... good tip...

 

95. Make sure you know whether you are in an assembly level sketch or a part level sketch.

 

-> haha.. yeah, been caught out there more then once...

 

96. They especially make this mistake when trying to do a circular part pattern because the Circular Pattern Component is icon hidden.

 

-> what do you mean by 'is icon hidden'???

 

99. ...it is easy to Rotate the initial Base View.

 

-> but impossible to rotate back for an unknown artbitrary angle... like with that pipe example i mentioned earlier, if you rotate it using 'edge-horizontal' then there is no way to return it to the default position... TO MY KNOWLEDGE

 

106. I prefer to go through a drawing setting one dimension of each style needed and then use the Copy Properties..

 

-> one of the features i found today

 

112. They might not be aware of the feature to Aligning Text in idw views. The creation of a company standard title block and sketched symbols is a topic worthy of a class by itself.

 

-> available using the normal text command? or just for sketched symbols only? i haven't seen it in drawings... haven't looked for it in sketched symbols.

 

 

 

after all that, i'm still no furter advanced with the rectangular pattern question, however i'll have another crack at it tomorrow, see if i can't figure it out, your PDF shows it can obviously be done, i'm just not sure which setting controls it... i tried identical, and adaptive, but that didn't help, and your direction 2 remained unselected in all 3 images in the PDF...

 

Going to attack your 2nd PDF will have more questions when i'm done

 

Thanks in advance... i'm already feeling better that inventor may not be the crappy program i always thought it was...

 

 

EDIT: 2nd PDF looks alot like the first one... anything significantly different in content?

[Hickoz_bro]

and for the sake of interest... this is the kinda work i did when i started to learn MDT....

 

 

 

The truck in the pics above was constructed virtually from concept to customer delivered in a little over 8 months, all design work was done by 2 drafters (myself included) and a contract engineer for components that required certification.

 

the particular model shown i constructed to match a customer 2D pencil sketch, i utilised the model we had existing for the acctual truck, and constructed the fluid rig and access system myself in 1 week. most work went into designing the access ladders. the tank is representation only for a customer proposal. remembering this was done by a junior with less then 5 months experience (at the time)...

[JD Mather]

Dag gone-it.

I just typed in a rather lengthy point-by-point response and then it timed out. Well I'm not going to type all that stuff again but you might also want to go through these tutorials -

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/content/DSG322/inventor_surface_tutorials.htm

[arusho]

I feel your pain!! I work with this hunk of crap every day and every day I am cursing to myself most of the time. Everyone here at work hates it too...I have an even bigger list than you do on my C: drive that I update a lot.

 

Solidworks is a lot better, its too bad you got exposed to Autocad Inventor (be sure to call it AutoCAD Inventor, it pisses off the AutoDesk people). ...I pray everday that our company will switch to Solidworks. We have Mech Desktop, but I don't know it that well, but I do know AutoCad 2D pretty well.

 

As far as "relations" or "adaptivity" ...Every body here turns all that crap off, Inventor goes INSANE if you build parts off of other parts and then do a change. Most of the models people make here are total garbage and now I know why - they can't get the "adaptivity" to work correctly, so they just throw in features "manually"...

[JD Mather]

(be sure to call it AutoCAD Inventor, it pisses off the AutoDesk people... have used Solidworks, Catia, AutoCad 2D, Mech. Desktop, Solidedge.

 

You sound like a real professional. Thanks for the insight.

 

BTW do you have a real name - if possible I would like to visit your company for more insight.

[Hickoz_bro]

MR JD...

 

been trying to push inventor further myself lately, and had another crash the other day... well.. was an almost crash... i tried to constrain to parts in an assembly, and i got this error:

 

"A REQUIRED RESOURCE WAS"

 

and the rest of the message was missing... the whole screen turned to shit, all the icons had letters, words, random characters etc and when i tried to find the "FILE" menu button (couldn't acctually see it) i got the part tree which had apparently moved to the top left corner of the screen (usually on the left under the menus).

 

anyways, i managed to save the work i was doing, and restart inventor and the problem was gone... any idea what's doing this? it's done it once before too... but i haven't got a clue why it's doing it...

 

 

 

another problem one of the other drafters had was that when he tried to manually ammend a dimension by adding text it wouldn't reflect that change on the page, and wouldn't show it when you tried to edit it again. apparently this was a common problem with service pack 1 and it was fixed by installing service pack 2 and 3... now, i had a similar problem on my computer where i couldn't update iProperties in the drawing (for sketched symbols)... we even tried to edit definition of the sketched symbols, but it didn't save the changes there either... even when we tried to re-start inventor it didn't work... in this particular case, i had to redraw the whole thing from scratch, luckily it wasn't an overly complex part.

 

 

OH... and is there a way to drive a part pattern (for example, nuts and bolts) off features in a particular (for example a bolt flange)??? so that when you change the number of bolt holes, or spacing of the bolt holes, the part pattern in an assembly changes also??? or is the only way to do this using custom parameters...

 

 

any suggestions for VBA in inventor tutorials for idiots?

 

thanks in advance...

 

 

Arusho - inventor isn't THAT bad... even i can figure out how to make parts adaptive and keep constraints with changes... it just takes effort... and alot of planning... which is where the whole DESIGN INTENT thing really comes into it...

[JD Mather]

>... the whole screen turned to shit, all the icons had letters, words, random characters ...

 

Sounds like a graphics card or graphics driver problem. Go to Help>Graphics Drivers and verify that you have certified card/driver.

The fact that there is a link directly from Help to this is obvious that many people run into graphics related problems by trying to run Inventor on word processing class machines.

 

Also go to Tools>Application Options>Hardware tab and run Diagnostics. Why you on that tab changing from Dircect3D to OpenGL will solve the graphics problems on some machines.

 

>manually ammend a dimension by adding text it wouldn't reflect that change

 

You didn't say what release you are using. This shouldn't occur on r2008 and there is only a SP 1 & 2 so I'm assuming you are on an earlier release. This problem was fixed by a Hotfix - it is not included in the Service Packs. Incidentaly the problem was caused by Microsoft. You should find the Hotfix on the Autodesk website.

 

>OH... and is there a way to drive a part pattern (for example, nuts and bolts) off features in a particular (for example a bolt flange)??? so that when you change the number of bolt holes, or spacing of the bolt holes, the part pattern in an assembly changes also

 

Yes - it should be readily discoverable, very easy. What release are you using?

There are actually two ways to do it depending on whether you are using Content Center components or not.

 

>any suggestions for VBA in inventor tutorials for idiots?

 

I recomend that idiots change careers - this is field is a professional endeavor that requires a professional level of training. Assuming this was a bit "tongue-in-cheek" you might get started here

 

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=15&sid=767d0de512b23d4ffb0fff8d9ce05f8b

 

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=767d0de512b23d4ffb0fff8d9ce05f8b

 

http://discussion.autodesk.com/adskcsp/forum.jspa?forumID=120

 

http://www.c3mech.com/

 

>Arusho - inventor isn't THAT bad... even i can figure out how to make parts adaptive and keep constraints with changes... it just takes effort... and alot of planning... which is where the whole DESIGN INTENT thing really comes into it...

 

I have not found any significant difference between Inventor and SolidWorks in most respects. Seven of my students just passed the Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) exam with one of them also passing the Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP) exam. I'm looking forward to Arusho providing more information on his (her?) experience and credentials. Arusho - do you have a link to the products your company designs?