Topic: What 3D sotware do you use? What are your likes, dislikes and uses?

[SDETERS]

What 3D software do you Use 

We use I-Deas

LIkes very Powerfull Great 3D filleting Good Surfacing and easy changes.  FEA and Tool Paths tied to the 3D model. 

Dislikes are Constraints in assembly could be done better.  The software is merging with Unigraphics.

[Draftek]

I use AutoCAD because I need 3d but not solids modeling.

[David Hall]

Autocad, because we have it. It does what we need fairly well

[Greg B]

SketchUp

Fast and easy to use.  Quick to learn.

Bad stuff is I don't have as much time to use it as I'd like.

[Swift]

Right now I have ACAD 2006 and SurvCADD 2006 but I'm constantly working on my own routines now to build models for the machine control. So my 3d work is composed almost entirely of 3dfaces.

[Cavediver]

I use AutoCAD for the majority of our 3D stuff, but I also use Solidworks to start the design process, and to help get past those rare items that would take a lifetime to model in AutoCAD.

I could use AutoCAD for everything, but it would take me a lot longer during the design and approval phase.  It takes me a little while longer to draw the initial assembly in Solidworks (taking time to make sure all of my mates and constraints are in place, adding important relationships, etc), but I make up that time during the usual 3-5 rounds of changes and updates after the initial modeling is finished...

[Dommy2Hotty]

Totally off-topic...Cavediver...your avatar looks like the one of the "Combine" troops from the game Half:Life 2...

[Cavediver]

Lol!
My avitar is actually a picture of a Russian military rebreather and dry suit that I spotted on Ebay.

[Maverick®]

Russian military rebreather and dry suit that I spotted on Ebay.

Chicks so dig that.   

[SDETERS]

Great Information

So most of you just need 3D modeling as 3d faces and not as a solid? 

Why Don't you use SOlidworks 2D detailing and not use Autocad any more?  Why use Autocad if you have to transfer back and forth between the two software packages Autocad and Solidworks?

For the SOlidworks what is the exchange Icons used for that appeared in Autocad when I installed SOlid Works?

Thanks

Shane

[Cavediver]

Chicks so dig that.   

Make that a single chick...  My wife thinks I'm a dork, but hey... she married me anyhow

Why Don't you use SOlidworks 2D detailing and not use Autocad any more?  Why use Autocad if you have to transfer back and forth between the two software packages Autocad and Solidworks?

For the SOlidworks what is the exchange Icons used for that appeared in Autocad when I installed SOlid Works?

Thanks

Shane

I'm only one of three detailers here.  The other two use AutoCAD only.  It's only our lead designer and I that use SolidWorks.  So, once the design process is complete, It's best for the others (and for recipients of any files we send out) if I do the rest of the work in AutoCAD. 

Our business is the design and construction of custom trade show exhibits.  We also store them in our warehouse, ship them, and provide show services (the ordering of labor, power, lighting, rigging, etc).  As clients go to several shows per year, we have to rearrange floorplans, change electrical drop locations and values, etc.  Most of this type of work is best done in 2D, and getting stuff close enough is good enough.  SolidWorks is great if you have all of the information to constrain the assemblies, but it's not efficient when you're just scooting properties around in a 20'x20' floorplan.

For Property exchange, I usually just export from Solidworks as an ASIS 4.  That allows me to send the finished "mass models" back to the designer for future rendering (Lightscape and VIS are his two main rendering programs), and it imports easily into AutoCAD.

Mass model is the term we give to the initial models, before they are broken down into construction components.  IE: I'll build a reception counter as a single 3D piece, complete with all of the exterior design elements.  The interior / construction components are not important for the rendering process, and they can actually slow things down.

[T.Willey]

I use Unigraphics for all the 3d work done here.  Very powerful.

Don't like the dialog boxes, how you interface with it.  I like the new version, Nx4 but we didn't upgrade to it, so I guess I will have to wait for the next one.

[SDETERS]

Hey I am might need your help in a couple or so years.  The 3D software we use I-Deas is supposed to merge with Unigraphics.  (best of both worlds.)  Anyways NX4 is supposed to be awesome and you can thank the I-Deas programers for most of the new and cool enhancments in Unigraphics like the sketcher and some other functions you did not have until the two softwares started to merge.  You going to PLM world this year?

[T.Willey]

I went this past year when it was in Long Beach,CA.  It was great, and to see how the tool could be used, and how I use it made me very sad.  I have no really training on it.  Someone from corporate came down, and did a three day training with it, and that only touches the very, very tip of the iceberg that is Ug.  I'm sad to say that my using of Ug has dwindled down to almost none.  I would love to help, and use it again, but I might not be able to.  I would say check the Ug forums, but they are dead, and were dead before I even found out about them.  Nx4 looked so sweet, and so much more user friendly that Nx3, which is what I learned on (I think, it not it was the previouse version the company had).  I went to a few I-deas classes when I was there, and it looked like a sweet tool also.  When they finally become one, man that is going to be one POWERFUL tool.

[Josh Nieman]

I use Autocad because we have it.  I've used Inventor and Solidworks as well.

I see no reason to choose either Solidworks over Inventor, or vice versa, if you have no other software those programs depend on.  However the add-ons or extra features seem to be the sole dictator of which to use, i.e., if you're doing machining, Solidworks seems to be a notch-up on Inventor for CAM'in' stuff up.  Inventor, however, was flawless, in saving 2d information to dxf for laser-cutter programing, as well as NC-punch programming with the software we had at my old place of work.

Autocad, though, is good for me.  I'm easy to please.