Pro/E - Inventor: Pros and Cons

[pro_eek]

I've been using Inventor 2011 for a few months now on a
project. Observations thus far:



Inventor Pros:

1) Better user interface design and consistency as far as icons and neatness
goes.

2) MUCH better detailed help files, most showing an animated example.

3) Beter interface and options to set up different view representations,
assembly cross sections, save assembly snapshots with parts hidden or
suppressed. Just much easier and more powerful.

4)Drawing mode is better, looks neater on screen while creating it.

5) Frame generator module is included in base package. You can easily drop in
std structural elements from a library, onto a skeleton model or hybrid part
with edges.

Then quickly mitre or trim the joins.

6) Std Part libraries are better and easier to use



Inventor Cons:

1) Sketcher not as good as Pro/E, much prefer Pro/E handling of contraints,
that you can animate your sketch through modify to see behaviour etc. Inventor
sketcher is "easier" in some ways but you dont always know later what
is contrained to what.

2) Modeling: not as powerful as Pro/E, I only prefer the frame generator as
mentioned to any of Pro/E's tools

3) Sheetmetal not as good as Pro/E

4) Assembly constraints: I prefer Pro/E's style. In Inventor its harder to know
afterwards what you assembled to what

5) Adaptivity: Inventor does not always handle its referencing (adaptivity)
well. This makes top down design very hard, where I found part geometry
referencing other part geomettry not updating after changes. You can actually
turn adaptivity off for each part!

6) Basic surfacing not as good as Pro/E



There are more things to mention, but here is the bottom line:



Pro/E has better capability than Inventor, but the tools that Inventor have is
better "packaged" for the user than Pro/E's tools.

 

[Mindripper]

How are the graphics? I miss the black edges and generally superior graphics from SolidWorks.

 

[design-engine]

i think inventor has some years to go before any real comparisons can be made... dont you?

 

[Mindripper]

Uh, check out some of his comments, design-engine: perhaps this will give you a clue regarding some of the major barriers to entry that face many potential adopters of Pro/E when they compare it to other CAD products in the marketplace. Some of the Big Ones for new users and sore points for those who are long-time users: Help sucks in Pro/E, drawing mode sucks in Pro/E, the libraries and configuration management suck in Pro/E. Inventor is one of the up-and-coming MCAD packages out there: Pro/E had better start doing somethingabout trying to becompetitive in Today's MCAD world. Having a powerful surfacing tool just isn't enough: competitive strength across the whole spectrum of functionality is essential.

 

[pro_eek]

Hi Bart, I think comparisons can be made, depending on what you want to use the software for.

Agreed, under the bonnet Pro/E is more robust and trustworthy. But in the driver's seat PTC can learn a few things from Inventor (never thought I'd say that)
Another simple tool in Inventor: There is a cube in the top right corner, of which faces, corners, edges you can click to orient your model. Simple but effective. Better than the Pro/E drop down box for views.
If Autodesk now continue and push Alias style tools into Inventor, it will be interesting.

At this point I prefer using Pro/E, but:

I dont know about the push for Creo to provide tools for everyone in the organisation.
Why not spend your resources to make better and complete the interface consistency we've now been hearing about for years? I like a lot of Pro/E's interface, but please complete it into a smooth product!

I cast my mind back to Windchill and how it would be the best PDM system ever as it was built on JAVA. Did Windchill really change the PDM CAD world? I don't know.
I think PTC was branching out into other industries, hoping Windchill would work well for managing non CAD documents and data.
But have those industries really taken up Windchill as their solution? I'm not sure, I don't have figures.

I'm just wondering if PTC will deliver with Creo. Are they branching out to be a better tool for all, but maybe at the cost of their core MCAD user, who just wants the best tool on the market? Are they playing a calculated numbers game for their revenue, even if it means other MCAD systems have some better features now?

Sorry if I'm maybe being too cynical, if Creo proves me wrong I'll eat my words

 

[pro_eek]

Mindripper, the graphics display itself is not beter than Pro/E. I find Pro/E graphics quite good now. except for not having a proper dark edge option.

 

[pro_eek]

Another sagely analogy: With Inventor 2011, Autodesk has skinned their Alpha Romeo in an attractive manner, making it a pleasurable experience, until something breaks.

PTC need to take their 90's Volvo Turbo Brick and complete its skinning into something beautiful and ergonomic, without losing its core strength and reliability.

 

[SW]

I'm in a similar situation to pro_eek, and I think the points raised are good ones. I also like the fact-based description (these are supposed to be design engineering tools). That said, descibing the first post although desribing Pro/E as a a 90's Volvo Turbo Brick, is quite accurate. They just keep bolting another turbo on.

Sam

 

[AaronMejia]

This kind of topic always hurts feelings on either side of the discussion, but I don't have them so here are my comments. Please consider them just that, my personal opinion and take what you may consider useful from it.


We have a few engineering teams in North America using Inventor 2009and the rest of the engineering teams worldwide using Pro/E and windchill 9.0 except for a few new aquisitions. I can tell you that we get more support calls for Inventor than Pro/E, and the ones we get for Pro/E are mostly for large assemblies crashing Pro/E, but that's what you get when you use 32-bit software in 64-bit capable hardware.


By the way, we are currently migrating those teams from Inventor to wildfire 3, and wildfire 5 by the end of next year.


Over here we consider Inventor a school software; good for learning the basics at college and very user-friendly, but simply not enough when you need to make some serious engineering. WF 5 improves the eye candy, if that's what you care about. Inventor is OK for as long as you only need some basic modeling, but if, for instance, you want to model a sheetmetal enclosure and then automatically generate the code for a CNC machine then I can only wish you good luck with Inventor.


Personally I think of Inventor as compared to the big 3 like a VW beetle vsan F-350: It's ok if you only want to go and get the groceries at the mall, but it lacks the horsepower you may require to do some serious work.

 

[pro_eek]

Interesting comments everyone. Aaron I hear what you say, I also wont trust Inventor with my own projects. For me Pro/E still beat Inventor in the more important areas, but GUI and user experience is becoming more and more important. All of this has prompted me to think a lot about the GUI of the different software packages that I use:


Pro/E, Inventor, 3DS Max, Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, (still have to check the latest Keyshot)


Once I think seriously why I like or dislike certain user interfaces, it starts to become quite interesting. I think I'm going to start investigating GUI design in my spare time! I designed front end web user interfaces for a few years (pre dotcom bubble) so this is an area of interest for me.