What is your Favorite 3D CAD Program

[Leonbone]

Ive used Siemens Nx for about 8 years now.
If I disregard the ****ty support here in South Africa, the software is tops!
Everything you can ever need/want in a cad/cam system

[Jay Kyle]

Wow there seems to be a lot of Solidworks fans. What is it about Solidworks that makes you like it so much? I'm really curious.

Bill

I've only used Alibre and later Solidworks. I had to pay for both out of my pocket and for the cost I should have stayed with Alibre as it's a great package. But I wanted to play with the big boys.. so picked up Solidworks. It's nice. Wish the Fluid Flow module was better.

[scott0718]

I was an AutoCad guy for 6 years and i like the ease of generating a 3D model in Solidworks. I personally think it is more powerful.

[spawn_818]

I preffered to use solidworks........damn this good....

[karloterrazas]

when i was at school, I started with autocad, but after i knew that solidworks exists, i have never used autocad more again after using solidworks, because i can do the same things, but faster, its more powerfull and parametric,

I have used Catia also, but again, solidworks its quite more simple and intuitive.

[shtmtl999]

Anything I've tried to make can be created in SolidWorks including complex working 3D assemblies. Loaded with tons of features and is fast and easy to use. I started with my own seat of Cadkey ages ago, but had the chance to learn SolidWorks and SolidEdge and ended up getting my own seat of SolidWorks. I've now been using it for about 12 years and couldn't live without it. I also have FabriWin for laser/turret posts and can use half a dozen other programming packages. For machining I've been concentrating on MasterCamX as it seems to be the most widely used.

[Dan B]

Rhino, especially version 5. Why? Because I can do absolutely everything I need to do in Rhino, and then some!! Once you learn how to create scripts, the potential of Rhino is almost limitless.

Dan

[bgriggs]

We are getting a lot of good responses and reasons why you like your favorite 3D Cad. I'm curious if most people have tried more than one cad package?

[Dan B]

Autocad (1991-1994)
Cadkey (1994-2000)
SpaceClaim (2008 to present)
dabbled in SolidWorks (2006 to present).
Rhino (2000-retirement)

Dan

[visinica]

Solidworks with SolidCam

[johnohara]

BGriggs~

Nice site Bill. Interesting posts. Thanks for taking the time to create it.

Hope your son is learning to be a maker master as well.

~john

[CUTCNC]

I like solidworks, like most people. I think it is easy to learn, and the opration screen is sample, looks very nate

[bgriggs]

BGriggs~

Nice site Bill. Interesting posts. Thanks for taking the time to create it.

Hope your son is learning to be a maker master as well.

~john

Thanks John. I enjoy writing about CNC and making things.

Bill

[deadfishdesign]

V Carve is impressing me more and more

[jp32]

I work in composites and we CNC machine all our own tools and tools for our customers, so our environment is all about complex surfaces, and Rhino provides vastly superior handling of these surfaces.

The Solidworks reps keep saying that they've hired guys from Rhino and they'll have amazing surfaces in the next version, but it is been the same story for 3 versions. I still find that when working with customers that use Solidworks, when it comes to a particularly complex surface or blend, they tear their hair out for a few hours, and then send it to me to get it done in 20min, then they approve the shape, and we start cutting the mold or part.

If you need to work with complex surfaces, nothing touches RhinoCAD, and their software is solid and their support is excellent. I also use it at home to model home improvement projects, landscaping etc., and it is great there too. The only situation where it might not be as good as Solidworks could be a big assembly with hundreds of parts and simple surfaces, like engine or a transmission.

On a related note, while RhinoCAD is great, avoid RhinoCAM like the plague. They have a license to the name, but it is not the same company, the same software quality, or the same support. I don't have anything good to say about it.

[graffix11]

Im kind of new to all this. One cad software that I like and prefer over some others is TurboCad 2d/3d for around $100 well worth it. Lots of tutorials and file formats. I recently picked up Aspire which is more a cad/cam. I love it, but it was pricey.

[m.marino]

ViaCAD

I use ViaCAD 2D3D v8 and can do anything I need for parts. Assembly work I am looking at Shark FX, ViaCAD Pro, or T-Flex as all I have used and they work very well when dealing with assemblies. Being a small business owner the cost versus ability to produce is right where I need it and ViaCAD has cut down massively on design time over BobCAD/CAM v21 &v23 That I own seats of. I export in .stl and CamBam does a great job of giving me nice clean easy to edit if need be g-code all the time. I do a good bit of 3D cutting and it does the job.

Michael

[diyengineer]

For free, sketchup is a fairly robust and powerful tool. I created my entire deck and shed! Some people are skilled enough to build some really crazy things with it.

I prefer solidworks though. I have used inventor and have liked that also.

Tried out Rhino once and reminded me of CATIA, which is powerful, but not as user friendly to the untrained individual trying to get by teaching themselves.

A cad program, is better than no cad program. lol

[jrm850]

I'm surprised not to see any ProE fans so far.

I started with Autocad 2.1 when it came on 5 1/4 floppies somewhere around '85. I've tried Rhino,Turbocad, and Alibre, before I switch to Solidworks in 2002. I switched to SW mainly because our manufacturers used it and it made the digital transfers with full parametric integrity. I'm currently on ver. 2012.

Solidworks will do most of the complex surfacing I need for consumer products but like a previous poster said, I've pulled out my fair share of hair. It never fails to have at least one issue per part that appears so simple only to have SW refuse for whatever reason. Rhino did a great job but it was so different from anything that I ever used that I just had a hard time getting comfortable with it. My biggest complaint with Solidworks other than complex surfaces is that it requires overpriced workstation graphics cards to unlock some of the features.

If I didn't have my company footing the bill for Solidworks and the yearly subscription, I would probably fall back to Alibre. I think its a pretty darn nice program for the money and it runs very well on typical gaming type video cards.

[ididntdoit99]

Dabbled in a few other programs... but have mostly used solidworks.

Took 6 years to finally realize that every seat my company has purchased also came with a free home seat.... apparently the IT department never bothered to ask, or just kept it a secret. So I just recently got hooked up at home to play with my OWN projects