Please Help!

Hey there Guys!

My name is Jenna and i am working at an engineering company in Orlando, FL. The company i am working for is trying to decide between solid works, and Alibre. I have used CADD for 3 years, but have never used either of the other two. Obviously the cost comes into play - but if SolidWorks is worth it - the company would have no problem with purchasing the software.

Please help me! if you have ANY information about either of the two, please let me know!

thanks for taking the time to read this
hope to hear from someone soon! -Jenna

I think it depends somewhat on what you are trying to achieve with your CAD system. Could you elaborate on your product?

Jenna

I work for an engineering company in Denver Colorado, and we use SolidWorks. It does the job for everything we do. One of the main reasons I recommend SolidWorks is because it's ease of use. I have used SolidWorks, Pro-Engineer, and Inventor, and out of all of them SolidWorks was the one I liked the most. It does the job no matter how complex the projects we are working on. As for the price, what you get and the power that SolidWorks has is well worth it. Another huge benefit is that if you have a problem or a question, most of the times you can google it and find the answer. I do it all the time. I hope this helps, but as always get a few opinions before you decide.

Rick.

if your company have no problem with cost, then of course SolidWorks is better than Alibre

I use both Pro-E and SolidWorks, and I think SW will be more useful than Alibre. Refer to this MCAD discussion below on the Pro-E forum:

[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=35 992&KW=alibre+surface&PN=0&TPN=6 [/url]

'I've looked at Alibre; thinking they
might be in line, but they don't offeranything that will move the
industry forward - just low pricing, and moderate capabilities. There
trying to chip into the low end, but off no innovations. They
don'thave surfacing. And, lets face it, if you can't do advanced
surfacing with the modeling software, then it isn't really worth much.
Extruded rectangles and rounds with corner radii and maybe some draft
faces is Alibre's limits.As a contract design engineer, I couldn't make a living with a package that didn't have surfacing.'

If you are only designing parts that require machining, Alibre is probably fine. To design injection-molded plastics, surfacing or hybrid modeling is a must for anything complex. What about sheet metal parts? Both Pro-E and SW can create a flat pattern from a formed sheet metal part. Can Alibre do that?