Prologue.

In late 2001 I was faced with having to make a software decision relating to whether I upgraded to the latest version of Mechanical Desktop (MDT6) or switch to Inventor 5.

The need to make this decision was being driven by the economic reality that to continue to maintain individual licences of AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop and Inventor, for me as an individual, would become too much of a financial burden.  My AutoCAD and MDT were doing all the work and Inventor was idling in the background!

It was further complicated by my knowledge of the fact that all Inventor versions up to that point in time (Inventor 5) had not lived up to mine or others expectations by a long way, and yet Autodesk and its dealerships had developed a single minded, blind acceptance that MDT was dead and Inventor was the only way forward.  This attitude prevailed in my discussions with them despite demonstrating my misgivings and the obvious shortcomings of Inventor 5 at that point in time (all still to be found in Inventor 6).

It proved impossible to get Autodesk’s senior technical and marketing personnel, or senior members of Autodesk’s channel, to address my concerns in a serious manner or to provide me with information that would enable me to make informed and cost effective choices.  Information that as consumers we have every right too and should be provided with without hesitation. (More on this is to be found in other documents listed in the gallery.)

With Autodesk and its channel both incapable of or unwilling to provide the type of information requested the only other options left for a user is to run extensive tests or find other sources i.e.; other users willing to share their knowledge.  With Inventor this latter choice was not readily available.

Now to a greater or lesser degree doing your own assessment has and always will be necessary, but it comes at a cost and from my point of view the more testing and trials I have to do the less likely I am going to consider new software, and if I do, these additional costs must automatically be factored into the assessment process and obviously works against the vendors effort to sell new product.  Lost time and productivity costs small organisations like mine considerably and can neither be ignored or swept aside, by vendors, as irrelevant or automatically necessary. The time has long past, for many of us, to work as pioneers and CAD vendors quality control.  It may have been considered appropriate in the 1980’s and early 90’s but no more.

So, run my own shootout; my software, common hardware, with AutoCAD, MDT and Inventor the products on the blocks, applied to real and test projects chosen to fairly test the software, on the grounds of productivity, and therefore profitability, for me and my customers.

As these tests were not going to involve vendors or other persons (one exception is noted) I was able to exclude issues such as software ‘apples with apples vendor/version choices’, interface differences, numbers of mouse clicks and the plethora of other frills such as ‘x-ray ground shadows’ and ‘context sensitive’ (read constrictive) menus and command structures’ which give marketeers mouthfuls of pitch with no substance and do not improve the bottom line for an end-user, in our industries, by a single dollar.

Having followed and contributed, over the past months, to discussions relating to tests conducted by others comparing Inventor, PTC’s Wildfire and Solidworks I thought it may be of some use to others to see a portion of the comparisons I had made and to hear what my opinion about each test and whether or not there existed good reasons for me to change or not.

In summarising I would like to make a number of points.  All the examples you will see in the gallery have been done by me (the exception noted).  They reflect only a portion of what I have done but are a good indication of the variety of work that I and my customers are involved with.  It must also be said that much of what I do belongs to customers and as such the use of examples protects their proprietary rights.

You will also see that I have not shown any machinery this being much harder to disguise from knowing eyes but you will see that I comment on the functions applicable to these applications within the examples shown.

The comments found with each example are in the main brief and critical.  I have deliberately not attempted to fully explain each example and all the effort, and attempts, which went into each task in each of the software packages used.  Suffice to say that when a task could be easily done in one no more attempts were made.  However when the same job was done or attempted in the other(s) many differing ways were tried to assure fairness and a measure of thoroughness and visa versa.

You may agree or disagree with what I have said, in these comments.  Which ever of these two is applicable I extend an invitation to all persons who would like to rebuff or know more about what I have done to contact me with your questions or comments good or bad. (I would like to be able to add all responses to these web pages for others to see but will do so only if you indicate your willingness when you email me. Also the information I have generated in these pages is to assist end-users not vendors so conditions do apply.)

I ask also that you remember that I was looking for a reason to change from the software environment I was using to another and was prepared to do so if the productivity improvements made this a profitable decision, as it has turned out they didn’t.

In short, what I have found thus far in comparing AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop and Inventor can be summed up in these words;

“From my perspective the tests and projects I have done before October 2001 through to this point in time, show Inventor 5, 5.3 and 6 provided no improvement in usable functionality or productivity, and therefore profitability, that would convince me to commit to its use in a commercial modelling project in preference to Mechanical Desktop or AutoCAD”.

I must say this was a disappointment. But the reality was there to see and as far as I am concerned Autodesk could have simply put kinematic and development type functions into Mechanical Desktop 4 or 5 and we all would have been better off now than we are.

In closing, there has been a significant casualty in the CAD software market of recent years.  As the CAD vendors, on their steeds and in armoured hides, pursue the “Holy 3D Grail” they have failed to see that they have trampled something. That loss is a clue as to why Inventor (and other 3D CAD design software) is prevented from improving my situation.  That casualty is FLEXIBILITY; vertical products, context constrictive menus and command structures, interface cosmetics and marketing types (to name only a few) have all conspired to deprive CAD users of what they really need,  FLEXIBLE software that assists in extending our personal capabilities and creativity instead of…………………?

R. Paul Waddington.
Proprietor – cadWest.