AutoCAD LT vs. Autodesk Inventor vs. DraftSight

AutoCAD LT is suitable for engineers that uses DWG formats casually and don't rely on AutoCAD as the main tool to issue drawings in the workflow. AutoCAD LT is best suited for firms that do not use LISP functions in AutoCAD and do not care about 3D modeling. Although AutoCAD LT has other missing functions when compared to standard AutoCAD, these features are of less importance and can't be noticed.

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Autodesk Inventor is a great tool for students and faculty for engineering areas that don't require great precision or development of more thorough scientific results. Is you are conducting research, or deal with very intricate and complex systems I would recommend a more robust platform that complies more to industry standards.

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2D design work

3D design work

Large area (500m²+) analysis and assessment

From product design, including production drawings to lay out of large (10m x 1m footprint) layouts DraftSight is a cost effective solution providing all appropriate interfaces for BIM.

The level of detail during rendering (while it can be slow) is good for visualization and for use in installation and training materials

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• The library feature for all areas is to me AutoCAD LT's extra strong point, it makes it easier to find information within the program itself.
• The fast solutions and precise development of drawings and projects is also another strong point.
• I use the floor plans, elevations, sections and the hydraulic designs to work with my students on physics projects.
• The software allows you to scale model and remodel as many times as you need, from simple to more complex designs
• Importing and exporting files is also very simple to perform making corrections and quick feedback to students easy.

• The program is very good at simplicity. Each of the buttons, menus, and options has an explanation of exactly what the feature does, and even a more advanced description if you desire to learn more about what each one does.
• Autodesk Inventor is a very fast program. Everything renders extremely quickly and there are no delays when examining a 3D model, part, or assembly. This is especially useful when giving a presentation about a product or design, and you need to be able to show a concept to an audience in real time.
• The software has an extremely accurate simulation feature that lets users do stress analysis on a 3D model. It can calculate precisely where the stress concentrations are going to be in a particular model and even give you an accurate depiction of where the part could likely fracture and/or fracture during loading.

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• You can easily bring in a dwg format drawing into the programme and it will display the information just as well as AutoCAD.
• The programme supports shortcut features or one-click buttons for the most commonly used operations.
• Script files can be used which is a bonus.

Incentivized

• The differences between the Mac and PC versions are quite difficult to navigate. It would be better to have a more streamlined experience between the two platforms
• It would be nice to have feature like geolocation on the online or mac version and not just the PC version
• Make it more compatible with other AutoCAD formats so that I can at least view things when they are coming from Civil 3D

Incentivized

• most if it still runs on a single core. Please fix this
• Crashes. In our experience, too many crashes. We have high end machines and crashes are way too common.
• Autosave. I think it is simply unacceptable that Autodesk Inventor combines common crashes with no autosave functionality. We feel this pain all the time.

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• The text search and replace is very crude and barely works. Needs a major revamping.
• The layout tabs are very clunky and hard to use. Needs to be fixed.
• DraftSight will fix a problem in one version, mess it up in another version, then fix it again later on. And so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Very poor software update control.

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Inventor continues to meet our enterprise needs. I don't see a need to change unless we change our business model significantly.

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It has given us, a small startup, the ability to compete effectively with far larger competitors by evening the playing field at a low cost.

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It’s easy to use, easy to customize, easy to understand on the logic behind it and the guides provides everything to improve further. the buttons are well displaced and easy to use and remember. everything seems really well fought to make it easier to use. in a single word: polished.

Incentivized

It is quite user-friendly as long as you have the computing power to download and use it. However, this makes it quite inconvenient if you are trying to access files on different devices, as Inventor has to be loaded on all of those devices. While the program itself works just fine, it would be much better for my application if it, or a version, were web-based and allowed users to access and modify projects from anywhere.

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Easy if you know how to use CAD software. But is not very difficult to learn using DraftSight if this is your first CAD software. As soon as you get in to it the work flow will save you a lot of time and its simple interface is very nice.

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Other than a bug created by a VAR tech support that didn't get resolved until I installed the next version, DraftSight has worked fine.

In general it's very quick to load drawings...now it depends a lot on the file we're opening or working on.

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I think the support for Autodesk Inventor is very good. The staff at our reseller were very knowledgable and able to walk us through problems pretty easily. The training we received was very good also. I will say that there were a couple of times we reached out to support with a question or challenge we had, and the support agent was not able to resolve our problem, and after touching base back we found out that there was not a solution for the problems we were experiencing. One of them was just how Inventor represents colors inconsistently at times, all things being equal. Another was that Inventor would not let decals on parts transcend to the assembly level. they just would not show up.

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Technical support seems to be overseas with broken English and difficulty to read English. I asked for a trial license to try the fix but it was declined. Ask pratiksha.dahotre and gayatri.keskar for details. In summary, they released a broken version, I helped to fix by providing feedback and error logs. They claimed it is fixed but I can't test it.

I got the training during college, so mostly i learned on my own

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Based on some knowledge of AutoCad, using Draftsight took a short time before I felt comfortable using it.

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Take time to get used to where commands are and how the interface can be customized to suit your needs and work style. The keyboard commands are very helpful and can make work more efficient if time is taken to learn them.

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Although AutoCAD LT is the lite software when compared to standard AutoCAD, it does all the work when it comes to 2D modeling and issuing design drawings. When comparing it to BricsCAD, AutoCAD LT shines, as it works without freezing and is usually more responsive than BricsCAD, it just outclasses it.

Incentivized

When it comes to solid modeling, the bad choices died out years ago. So we looked at the total ecosystem and chose Autodesk Inventor because of the integration with Nastran, HSM (machining), Autodesk CFD, MoldFlow, and AutoCAD. This means our legacy data (2D) is still a valid part of our design methodologies going forward, and we have the full breadth of engineering tools at our disposal. Other solutions in this space have similar offerings but not nearly as potent of a portfolio in total. It's worth saying that we do not consider Inventor in the same space as CATIA or NX, but that the entire Autodesk portfolio (e.g. Alias, PowerMill, etc) includes a total toolset that exceeds these industry giants.

Incentivized

While SketchUp is free, DraftSights cost is minimal and its abilities are much greater. It is so much easier to layout and modifies a system design. Since DraftSight is compatible with all versions of CAD, it makes it easy to collaborate with customers on their specific system design. We spend less time and see greater sales on our projects.

It's a typical contract for cad software. It was inexpensive at the time I started. But now the more useful features are on the more premium (priced) version.

As a startup, we really appreciate scalable software or tools, and because we use it for diverse types of projects, flexibility is key.

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Quite responsive when I have an issue, and with little to no delay in responding. They are professional and know the software so have been able to solve all of the issues that I have had with both using the software and also with making revisions as required. Non-technical issues like invoices have also been resolved quickly.

Incentivized

• The impact is always positive in my case when I use AutoCAD LT, because I provide intelligent lessons with few resources
• The negative impact usually happens with professionals who don't like to innovate, study, or put a little more effort into their work. AutoCAD LT enables the enchantment at the end of the project by the public and at the beginning by the students that are delighted with so many tools

• Working on a project designed with Inventor provides a modular design platform that can quickly be configured or changed as required. This allows for the quick turn around time for the design and revision of drawings.
• We've used Inventor over the years (since 2013) and the updates and newly released versions of Inventor do not require re-training or restrict use.
• Autodesk follows an intuitive approach and users or designers who have worked on other design platforms like SolidWorks can transition easily to Inventor.

Incentivized

• Draftsight has been very cost effective, it was free a few years ago then £79 a year, which it still is if you have the standard version. Now the minium level is Profession edition at £159+ VAT per year. Which is still very good value for money, just more that what we currently pay with the standard licences we have.

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