That was something that was really weird to me, with how many features could only be done through command line and weren’t in the UI
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If your job requires the ability to precisely modify parts, and your employer uses SolidWorks, then learn to use SolidWorks. As far as getting a license, that is something you will obviously need to explore. SolidWorks is not cheap, but it is used by many. As for affordable CAD Apps, the next best possibility is Fusion 360, by Autodesk. I don’t think it can export NATIVE SolidWorks files, that might change someday but it seems like you can’t wait for that “unknown”.
My advice is to learn SolidWorks now. If in the future you no longer have access to SolidWorks, but need to make parts using an affordable CAD App, then many of the skills and concepts that you learned in SolidWorks can be used to make parts and assemblies in Fusion 360 and several other CAD apps. As far as retaining parametric features goes, often times I find that “direct-editing” tools can often overcome the lack of features in an imported, featureless Solid part. Good Luck!
@kevinduhe - I’m a long time Solidworks user, over a decade with it now, self taught - so I can definitely sympathise with the steep learning curve .
As mentioned by some others - I would recommend Onshape - it’s actually being built by the same guy who founded Solidworks; Jon Hirschtick (fun fact - he’s one of the guys they based the movie “21” on; MIT card counting students taking Vegas for millions - he used his winnings to start Solidworks) and Onshape uses the same concepts and hooks as Solidworks, but - - it’s CAD the solidworks way, being built from the ground up again, as though Solidworks was just a prototype. It’s much cleaner.
It’s not as fully featured just yet (the main lack afaik is proper surfacing tools, ie with splines), but they are updating it at a rapid pace using what I have to assume is a “continuous integration” methodology, since they’re releasing updates every week or two. This gives me faith in what they’re doing, since continuous integration is almost certainly the “correct” way to write software (software development is my formal background).
It’s also extremely well funded - $80M in their last round late last year. I think their momentum is going to make them “the” engineering CAD platform (ie the one used by the most universities in their engineering courses - which is currently solidworks afaik) within the next few years…
I’ve tried the auotcad side, including Inventor which I just could not get on with, and fusion 360 which I found almost unusable.
PS another fun fact on Jon Hirschtick, he’s one of the first investors in Formlabs - from memory he put 100k into it before they launched their kickstarter, which was the thing that tipped me over the edge into backing for a form1.
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Oh, another thought…it might also make sense to see if your local community college has a class…you’ll get a good start on the program…BUT…there are educational discounts on most CAD software that could help you get a legit copy more affordably. Of course, you’re not supposed to use that for commercial use, but it might give you access to a lower-priced upgrade later.
I used to teach woodworking design with SketchUp at a local college, and the $495 fee for the professional version came down to maybe $49…
@KevinHolmes, thanks so much for that information! I’ll take a look at that one. I believe 3M was using Solidworks in the Austin R&D center to do prototyping way back in the day (you didn’t happen to work at Apple and now live up in the Pacific Northwest, do you?)
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