AutoCAD LT vs. Autodesk Inventor vs. TurboCAD

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

TurboCAD is well suited to a smaller budget, it is by no means the best there is but for the money, it fills the gap. Being an AutoCAD & DraftSight user I find the user interface a little old and the lack of common drafting industry shortcut keys a bit of a hindrance. However this product, TurboCAD gets the job done, other packages like DraftSight do not even come with an active 3D option on the cheaper end, standard license whereas TurboCAD does, even though it's a little clumsy to use.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Produces accurate drawings to scale, and with several ways to show the "views" to people in need of them at our factory.
• Relatively easy to use, once you understand the toolset. You can draw anything with it.
• Sending files to CNC machine shops to produce parts is easy with this program.
• Sending to mold making companies works out well. Just ask them what file format they want and TurboCAD can give it to them.

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.

Incentivized

• Some of the load times are lengthy is there a way to streamline this?
• Path Hatching and Object Trim could use a hot key
• More intuitive layer management system

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

TurboCAD does all of the things we need it to do and some. The wide variety of options to create specificity in each of our projects is a large plus. The reason it was given a 9 is because the learning curve can be a little steep and sometimes certain processes are not as intuitive as they could be

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

3DS Max is the one I use the most, the other two are good choices also. They have more online tutorials for helping learn them.

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

• Ability to render quotes.
• Ability to supply complete drawings.
• Easy to use interface provides a faster design time window.

Incentivized