Re: Alibre, Rhino, or Other for CAD?

I've been using Alibre 6 for about 2 months and have been very happy
with it, although I've almost no experience with mainstream CAD
applications. I started off with the 30-day trial version,
downloaded the tutorials available on the Alibre web site and
plunked down my personal cash for a full version about a week
later. The trial version is complete with no limitations other than
the 30-day time limit.

I presently use it to design small prototypes for work in an R&D
environment and for tooling in my home shop. I use it between 1 and
10 hours per week and it's already made me a lot more productive at
those tasks. The learning curve was pretty easy considering I could
never get the hang of Intellicad (2D only), which I purchased quite
a while back.

I've only touched the more basic features at present. My most non-
trival project so far (to me, anyway) was the design of a part with
a shallow spiral groove in one face. The spiral curve form was
generated in Excel and then imported into Alibre. The machinist we
used for the project was able to read a DXF export of the feature to
program his CNC mill to machine the groove, which saved us a few
bucks.

Alibre can read/write Step, IGES, and SAT files and there are a lot
of commercial parts available on the web in these formats (the
Thomas Register folks have an extensive on-line collection available
for free download) and I can see where that will save me a lot of
time for various projects. The Professional version of Alibre also
includes a parts library.

Mike

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "autom8_it" <engineer@s...>
wrote:

> I need a 3D CAD package and I would like to know your opinoins

about

> them. Just looking for some guidance from the vast experiance

here.

> I believe that using the demos will only scrape the surface and

not

> allow me to find out the true pros and cons of either.
>
> I appreciate all of your opinoins.
>
> Thanks,
> John