I just was able to come up with this program from someone locally.

What's the learning curve? Can it do basically all the 3d modeling like Solidworks and Inventor can? I'm basically obtaining this to come up with some different manifold designs and just small various parts, will this work for me? Does anyone know of any good resources to learn the program?

 

Autocad can do solid modelling.... but it would be like using Notepad to write a Resume; it's not really the best tool for 3D.

Perfect for flanges though..

 

Yeah, I've been doing some simultaneous searching here and the results aren't too great. That seems to be the deal though....dang it. I need that inventor or solidworks.....just gotta keep trying here.

 

If you're a student you can get an educational copy of inventor. You can use it for lerning, just not selling stuff. I don't think if you were drawing things for personal use to then make would be against their rules.

 

solidworks id say is a bit more widely used, and its sooo easy to learn.
inventor is actually less user friendly than sw. those are the only two packages i have experience with, except for UG, which i dont even wat to touch.

 

So Solidworks FTW

I'm workin on it.

 

i've used solidworks, unigraphics and catia. i thought catia was the best design software, although it wasn't the greatest for creating prints.

 

Simple stuff Autocad works fine, but for actual design you can't beat something like Solidworks, or ProE.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2point2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Autocad can do solid modelling.... but it would be like using Notepad to write a Resume; it's not really the best tool for 3D.

Perfect for flanges though.. </TD></TR></TABLE>

hehe nice analogy

I have my inventor suite 08 upgrade but havent installed it yet so i can't comment, I doubt there is much difference from 07 tho.

Autocad/mechanical desktop definitely not the ideal 3d modeling tool, not by a looooooooong shot

 

Well, one day after meeting Solidworks and I must say...WOW. I did alot of Engineering Drafting in school...man the stuff that took me hours is just pow pow on Solidworks. That is seriously powerful software.

I'm gonna keep doing tutorials, then just start trying to make some basic stuff in the garage...see what I can come up with.