Pro/E, Inventor, SWorks which one?

No chance of that happening here in this group......LOL.

Might help if you described the type work, what your customers require such as what they send you, what you are required to do and send back to them.

Tom

xsi. Screw solid modeling, too many rules.

David:

We're just a small 10 person CNC & manual job shop that does mostly prototype, tooling, and short run aerospace, satellite, medical, machine builder, computer component, automotive, and anything else that walks in the door type work. We get solid models in various formats, but in recent years more and more of our customers have switched to SolidWorks - probably 75%. The rest would be split between Inventor, CATIA, Pro/E, UG, Alibre, and others. This also may be affected somewhat by geographical location. We're in Valencia Calif.

Hello BB,

OK, thanks, that's exactly what I a after. I don't want to spring thousands of bucks nd be pretty much in the same place I am with Pro/ E.

One swallow and Summer and all that stuff, so I will stay tuned here and see how this shapes up. My gut feeling was for Solidworks going by the comments I have been receiving from clients. While most have not changed to SW, they are often asking questions about it, more and more.

David C. H.

Hello Tom,

Yeah, right!! LOL I was reading the OneCAD or CAM, whatever it was, talk about range war. {grin}

I can't see how it would help listing what I get and what they expect.

Mostly they give me the parameters and constraints of a project and I pretty much design it and then give them the solids back. Usually they generate the drawings and the CAM from that. About 30% of the time I also generate .dwg or .dxf for them. Some use their own CAM software with the .dxf. It is pretty generalized and that's why I really can't list a lot of stuff or I would be here typing all night. {grin}

Quite a few seem to be doing more in house stuff but with a variety of software so I have not been able to form a trend for a direction to go. That's why I am asking here.

David C. H.

Some companies require contractors supply them with parts & assemblies native to their CAD, CAD/CAM system so what the customer supplies & requires from most outside contractors is a major concern. Since you are giving them DXF it does not seem to be an issue.

I have experience with SolidWorks and ProE. Working with large assemblies I would say definitely stay with ProE. And in your particular case where you have years of experience with ProE I don't see any positives for you to switch to SolidWorks unless your customers require it.

Siemens is pushing UG/NX & SolidEdge w/ Synch-Tech real hard. They are offering discounts on SolidEdge to get people like you to switch CAD programs and buy SolidEdge. I haven't seen it live or taken it for a test drive. If it does half what they say reliably then it looks to be a good buy and worth evaluating, however right now it is just hype, new marketing buzzwords and glossy advertisements.

Tom