Anyone use AutoCAD and AutoDesk Inventor?

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Autocad started out nearly a decade ago . As such it does a lot of things that people new to the field might not quite understand. It is always tough releasing new versions of software while keeping the older users happy . Without knowing exactly what you want to do with a program it is hard to recommend anything.

Eh? Autocad's been out at least 2 decades.

Edit: released in 1982.

 

[Old Hippie]

I've played with both of 'um and there's a reason why the "help" files are 1/2 the size of the program.

Are you moving to "Plan B"?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Thanks. I'll take a gander at the other CAD software. I've been playing around with a demo of AutoDesk Inventor and it's pretty cool! Made myself a doorknob looking thing that's actually a nozzle of some sort out of T6061 aluminum. I'm excited at the possibilities of this stuff. If I can get somewhat proficient at it, find myself a good CNC shop, and be able to locate certain parts, I could be in business.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I've played with both of 'um and there's a reason why the "help" files are 1/2 the size of the program.

Are you moving to "Plan B"?

Plan B IS Plan A... I need to learn how to use these CAD programs to draft up blueprints for those CNC shops to use in making my parts.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: theflyingpig
No, they are not easy to learn. No, you should not just "try to figure it out". You'll fail if you do. Everyone knows this.

i taught myself how to use autocad when i first got the job i have now. version 97 and using a v14 book for reference. it isnt THAT hard to figure out.

our local rep keeps bugging the hell out of me to upgrade to inventor, but everything we do is not even worth getting full seats. i maintain LT versions, thats all i need. i dont actually USE cad anymore, but am still in charge of the drafters here.

id say if you can get your hands on a copy of the software and a autocad bible, you wont have too much trouble working things out. entirely depends on how well you assimilate new programs tho

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: theflyingpig
No, they are not easy to learn. No, you should not just "try to figure it out". You'll fail if you do. Everyone knows this.

Inventor is much easier than AutoCAD (imo).

You CAN learn inventor all by yourself, but not by fiddling around with it.

There is a very very good set of tutorials, if you carefully run through them in order you can easily become proficient all by yourself.

SolidWorks/CosmosWorks also has a really great set of tutorials.

I've found ProE's set to be lacking somewhat.

Are you talking about the tutorials that come with Inventor or ones from some other site?

The ones that are part of Inventor. I haven't used Inventor in five years, but that version shipped with really good tutorials.

My Solid/Cosmos Works experience is more recent and it also had really good (better than Inventor's) tutorials.

Should I be looking into going with Solidworks then? I always thought that the AutoWorks stuff was the industry standard, like Adobe is to graphic design.

You really looking to plunk down $5000 on this without any prior knowledge or experience? Unless you're going to Uni and get student version you are looking at around $5K for AutoCAD Inventer or Solid Works. Pro/E maybe a bit cheaper, around $2-3K.

I got lucky here. My highschool robotics team was given two copies of Inventor while I was one of the leaders. The team was dying when my class left (our fault for not involving the classes behind us as much as we should have) so I kept the seat that I was using.

My university had Solidworks/Cosmosworks licenses and I liked the program more (I think for actual drawing it's a wash between inventor and solidworks, but I didn't have any FEA tools for inventor like Cosmosworks, and that is a really cool program).

I have a hard time using stuff like rhino because I'm so much in the solid modeling mindset of sketch-extrude-modify-constrain.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
EDIT: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

I just realized that AutoCAD was a 2D design program and that Inventor is a 3D design program! I had just assumed that AutoCAD was also a 3D design program (considering the times?), which is why I was so confused on what was the big difference and all between the two.

autocad is 3d. you can render directly in full version as well, but 3d studio max was originally created to render autocad. 3dsmax has gone far beyond just being a renderer for acad, and is one of my fave tools to make 3d shorts and effects. the animation is very robust. i use lightwave more tho, not sure why.


(my degree is in digital animation production, had a part time drafters job while in college. went full time right before graduation and have expanded my job title ever since. acad was not covered in school beyond the import into 3dsmax for rendering)

 

[AtlantaBob]

There are some pretty good YouTube instructional videos that you might want to check out for AutoCad.

 

[FleshLight]

It's pretty straightforward. You just need to memorize some of the commands and understand the way it manages layers (sort of similar to photoshop).

Solidworks is a lot more efficient than autocad for creating parts for cnc manufacturing.

But both are around $4k.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I've played with both of 'um and there's a reason why the "help" files are 1/2 the size of the program.

Are you moving to "Plan B"?

Plan B IS Plan A... I need to learn how to use these CAD programs to draft up blueprints for those CNC shops to use in making my parts.

there is another option. break out some pencils and rulers, design it on paper and have a drafting house put it in cad for you. doesnt take much to get a paper drawing into acad, we do it daily here in our drafting dept.

edit:

disclaimer... we only do it in-house for our projects, we arent a work-for-hire drafting shop for the most part. UL508, yes we will build pretty much anything.

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I've played with both of 'um and there's a reason why the "help" files are 1/2 the size of the program.

Are you moving to "Plan B"?

Plan B IS Plan A... I need to learn how to use these CAD programs to draft up blueprints for those CNC shops to use in making my parts.

IC says the blind Old Hippie.

I thought maybe you were doing what hanoverphist suggested.

I'm sure those shops offer it for a price.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: FleshLight
It's pretty straightforward. You just need to memorize some of the commands and understand the way it manages layers (sort of similar to photoshop).

Solidworks is a lot more efficient than autocad for creating parts for cnc manufacturing.

But both are around $4k.

Educational version is cheap as hell...

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=56225643

here are other similar products:

http://www.journeyed.com/searc...KW=mechanical+software

 

[vonmises]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: FleshLight
It's pretty straightforward. You just need to memorize some of the commands and understand the way it manages layers (sort of similar to photoshop).

Solidworks is a lot more efficient than autocad for creating parts for cnc manufacturing.

But both are around $4k.

Educational version is cheap as hell...

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=56225643

here are other similar products:

http://www.journeyed.com/searc...KW=mechanical+software

But AutoCad/Inventor have free student versions on there website. Though you aren't supposed to use the student version for profit, its a great way to learn.

Once you learn one 3D program they are all basically the same. I have used 5(?) different ones its like switching from MS Office to open office, things may have different names but they all function the same. I've found them all to be very user friendly now, but in order I would out SolidWorks, Inventor and Pro/E.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: vonmises

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: FleshLight
It's pretty straightforward. You just need to memorize some of the commands and understand the way it manages layers (sort of similar to photoshop).

Solidworks is a lot more efficient than autocad for creating parts for cnc manufacturing.

But both are around $4k.

Educational version is cheap as hell...

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=56225643

here are other similar products:

http://www.journeyed.com/searc...KW=mechanical+software

But AutoCad/Inventor have free student versions on there website. Though you aren't supposed to use the student version for profit, its a great way to learn.

Once you learn one 3D program they are all basically the same. I have used 5(?) different ones its like switching from MS Office to open office, things may have different names but they all function the same. I've found them all to be very user friendly now, but in order I would out SolidWorks, Inventor and Pro/E.

Unless Autodesk has changed their policies, you used to be required to prove you were a student registered in classes that required their products. I had to prove that I was registered in Architectural Drafting classes (and/or CAD classes ) to get their version of Autocad.

 

[Shadow Conception]

In my engineering class at school, we basically learned Inventor out of book that consisted of a bunch of chapters. The teacher didn't do jack shit. So yes, you can learn Inventor by yourself provided you have some kind of guidance in the right direction.

 

[Demo24]

I used a bunch of different Autodesk programs in high school as my mom teaches with those programs. Now AutoCad is best for 2D, and while easy to learn you need a book. You can use it for 3D but trust me, it sucks. It's a royal pain in the ass and can be very frustrating to get what you want done correctly. I was a test pilot for it's program, and I had to X out some tutorials because they simply wouldn't work.

Now Inventor is much different. It creates things in a completely different manner from Autocad, and is designed to create things exclusively in 3D. Some may like the way the interface works, I didn't as I found it annoying. I didn't bother to finish it's program.

There use to be a program called 3d studio Viz, it is now merged with 3ds Max. They were very similar, but Max has better control of animation. These 2 are much more similar to AutoCad in terms of interface and how things worked. I much preferred working with Viz. It's a very powerful program and if you get the basics done you can make all kinds of things.

---

Now these programs are ridiculously expensive for just buying for the hell of it. What I suggest is to find someone local to draw it up for you. Will be a fraction of the cost, and you know it will be done right.

However if you persist then get a book! Trying to go on youtube or by yourself is simply not going to be adequate to learn these programs. It's still going to take you many hours to learn though. So you really have to ask yourself if the cost and then the time spent to learn these programs is worth it for what your making.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Well, I've been messing around with both Inventor and Solidworks. I like them both, but there are problems that I can't figure out with Inventor, so I'm using Solidworks.

This stuff's hard to do! I spent the whole entire day just designing a stupid L bracket:

http://www.victorlinphoto.com/downloads/bracket.JPG

I had the hardest time centering the sketch that would go on to extrude cut the center empty sections of the bracket, and I just know that I haven't gotten the constraints right and everything will blow up if I try to resize the thing. Coming from 2D and having everything like crop, select, drag, etc. being so easy, this is definitely counterintuitive for me. Great, now 10 more parts to go and trying to size them right to fit together and MOVE together. Whoopie.

Also, I had accidentally filleted 10 edges when I had only meant to fillet 8, but it seems I can't just select those 2 edges and unfillet them? They all belonged to a single "Fillet7" group, so I had to delete the whole group and re-select the edges I wanted to fillet.

 

[Howard]

Edit the fillet feature and unselect those edges. If you selected the entire body, you will need to deselect the body and then select the edges you want to radius.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Autocad started out nearly a decade ago . As such it does a lot of things that people new to the field might not quite understand. It is always tough releasing new versions of software while keeping the older users happy . Without knowing exactly what you want to do with a program it is hard to recommend anything.

Eh? Autocad's been out at least 2 decades.

Edit: released in 1982.

Actually it wasn't the same code base that is in use now. That version was started around 1999. The versions prior to that have nothing in common with 1999 version except the name.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: DEMO24
.

There use to be a program called 3d studio Viz, it is now merged with 3ds Max. They were very similar, but Max has better control of animation. These 2 are much more similar to AutoCad in terms of interface and how things worked. I much preferred working with Viz. It's a very powerful program and if you get the basics done you can make all kinds of things.

They are still two separate products. Viz was renamed Design. So now there is 3DSMax and 3DSMax Design . The main difference is that Design has a lighting solver that is certified by international standards to match environments that an architect would create. Other than that they can do the same things.

 

[theflyingpig]

Originally posted by: Shadow Conception
book that consisted of a bunch of chapters.

Really? Tell me more about this book. Why did it have chapters? I have never heard of such a thing. Please tell me. I must know this.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'm completely at a loss at what to do. I managed to royally screw up my buttons in Solidworks... can the icons and toolbars be any more retarded?

http://www.victorlinphoto.com/downloads/solidworks.JPG

EDIT: I managed to get back my dropdown icons. I didn't know that Solidworks calls them "flyout toolbars" and was searching for the wrong name for it. All this time I was searching for "dropdown menu" or "dropdown button."

Still haven't figured out how to make the CommandManag long and narrow though.