Posted: 2/13/2008 11:05:37 PM EDT
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Any of you guys use their products at your work? If so which one and for what? Or any other solid modeling programs? Also would like to know if you design and build your own gun parts with these programs. |
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I use both Catia V5 and Solidworks 2008 at work. Catia files are generally a little messy and require cleaning up before programming with CAM applications like MasterCAM and such. As an option, you can save a Catia CAT.part as a STEP file, which cleans them up nicely. Solidworks imports to both MasterCAM and SurfCAM nicely...though working with Solidworks macros can be a bit of a headache sometimes. Catia V5 rules when it come to advanced surfacing. Six of one, half dozen of the other I guess. I don't really use AutoDesk stuff like AutoCAD anymore...their software is way too clunky IMHO. |
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I hear a lot of good things about UG, though I personally have had no experience with it. I understand that some UG programmers left to form Solidworks Corp. which was subsequently bought out by Dassault Systems (makers of Catia). There seems to be a great degree of interoperability between UG and Solidworks as Solidworks can read UG files directly without the need to translate anything via .step or .iges file conversions. Dassault used Solidworks as a benchmarking tool in order to create their Catia V5 for the Microsoft Windows platform. Dassault's premier product had previously been Catia V4, the version I have the most experience with was Catia V4.2.4 running on Sun Microsystems Solaris Unix workstations. Thankfully, Dassault carried over some of the legacy functionality of V4 into their V5 platform, most notably transfor/translation of 2D geometry, which is extremely useful for kinematics analysis. I also liked the fact that they carried over their boolean operations feature. Getting back to the original purpose of the thread... Solidworks is the least difficult CAD GUI to learn IMHO, and it is much cheaper than Catia, and it is great for most tasks, however if advanced surfacing and or very large parts/asssemblies are involved, Catia rocks. Advise staying away from AutoCAD...f'ing painful. Either CAD application will work fine with virtually any CAM package. If possible, purchase a space-mouse from 3DConnexions...you'll be shocked at how much time it'll save you. |
| I started taking CAD classes this quarter. So far i've only got to learn from KeyCreator and on wedsday we moved onto Autocad. We've only worked on 2D drawings so far. I'm really looking into taking their solidworks and Inventor courses to start working with 3D solids so I can start to build stuff with the CNC Mill that I have planed for a future purchase and want to see what your guys thoughts where and any gun parts you guys might have made. |
Don't even bother learning 3D on AutoCad, IMHO. I don't think it's a good system to learn it on. I used AutoCad and Microstation for 2D work. They were fine for that and nothing more. I first learned 3D on CadKey. It was great for learning the basics and doing simple modeling. They had great student pricing for it back then also. Unigraphics was definitely a step up. Catia V4 was a step backward in many ways. It did get me into a more specialized worker pool though. Catia V5 is half a step back up. Maybe they'll get it right for V6.  SolidWorks should be good for you to get into 3D on. I don't have any personal experience with it but have heard decent things. Until you use a few systems you probably won't know what you'll prefer the most. Look around for low cost student pricing as long as you are going to school. Perhaps you can find some demos. All of the major CAD systems have discussion forums out there. Do some googling. It looks like you can get a student version of SolidWorks with a 2 year license for 90 bucks. Your instructor should likely have some info. If not let me know. We sell Dassault products. I can ask about it. |
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I've been lurking on CNCzone.com for a while and the instructors at school are very helpful. We get a 1 year student version of Autocad for free next quarter. I've just been debating on weither to buy the student version of Inventor or Solidworks. I'm kinda curious if anyone down the road would want to start working on some projects ie. Uppers, mounts, sights, and other stuff together. AR-15 is a massive source of knowlege and opinions. I would like to put it to good use and hopefully make some decent products. |