CAD Package Recommendations

[ZzRadishzZ]

Before you say anything, yes, I did search.

I am currently a Mechanical Engineering Major. We use Pro/E Wildfire at my school (sometimes we get away with using Solidworks). I know that there is not a OS X version of Pro/E (they ignore my emails) or Solidworks (they claim to have been developing a OS X version since 2003). Are there any members in the studio audience that recommend CAD packages identical to Pro/E or Solidworks?

Thanks in Advance.

 

[Slumbercub]

Lots of apps here:

http://www.pure-mac.com/cad.html

For 2D I would recommend HighDesign and for 3D Vectorworks with the mechanical add on for your uses.

 

[klaxamazoo]

I don't know about mac 3D modeling packages, but the best package I have ever used is by a company called CoCreate. It is a dynamic modeling package that is a lot easier to work with than the parametric/history based system of ProE and SolidWorks.

http://www.cocreate.com/

They have a free "personal edition" that you can use for up to 60 parts which should be find for school work.

http://www.cocreate.com/products/ModelingPE-Overview.aspx

 

[QuantumLo0p]

Siemens UGS NX6 to be ported to OS-X

There is light at the end of the tunnel and, no, it isn't a train!

Siemens UGS is on track to release NX6 for OS-X when it gets to a production release. Currently NX6, for all supported platforms, is in beta testing.

There are a number of people using NX4 and NX5 on MacPros, usually booted into XP with Bootcamp. Virtualization, from any vendor, isn't quite up to par yet. Using Vista/Bootcamp isn't desirable either. Actually, Vista on PC hardware isn't desirable either.

You have to admit, this is very exciting news! There is nothing mid-range to compete with the likes of NX on OS-X.

Besides NX, formerly Unigraphics, Siemens UGS offers a total PLM solution from end to end.

I have used UG since version 10 and if NX were still on the UG version convention then NX6 would be UG version 24. At v19 they adopted the NX name because it was supposed to be a neutral name to the SDRC Ideas users they were supposed to have swallowed up by now. Hasn't happened yet but may still happen.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

BTW, I think there is a student version of NX available and I've heard rumors it's ridiculously inexpensive.

 

[Makosuke]

Might as well mention, since I've used it a reasonable amount, that VectorWorks isn't a bad option for a Solidworks work-alike, depending on what you're doing.

Problem is, I haven't used Solidworks enough to tell you quite what those things might actually be. In VectorWorks' favor, the initial learning curve is quite shallow--I was surprised how easy it was to get up and running, at least on the 2D end of things.

Against it, the interface is a little crusty--there are bits that STILL look like they're left over from MiniCAD 5 (predecessor to VW something like 6 versions ago).

The fact that their file format changes with every single incremental version is also rather annoying, even moreso because their bulk conversion tool absolutely sucks. Or has until V11, anyway--I haven't run any bulk conversions on 2007 yet. But then, that may be the same as SolidWorks. What is it with CAD packages and their "update once a year whether we need it or not" profit stream generation system?

None of that last part will matter so much to a student, I assume--I'm just bitter because every time we upgrade where I work I need to run through several thousand files that are suddenly "old" for very little apparent reason other than to force you to buy the latest version to be able to open files from anyone else.