Likelihood to Recommend I think AutoCAD is great for creating precise site plans that show the layout of buildings, roads, parking lots, and other features on a piece of land. you can use it for designing roads and highways, including lane configurations, intersections, signage, and pavement markings, as well as for designing utility systems like water, sewer, and stormwater drainage. Engineers can create detailed layouts and profiles for these systems. However, I think it is less appropriate for advanced 3D modelling tasks compared to dedicated 3D modelling software, BIM (Building Information Modelling), advanced geospatial analysis.
Read full review Autodesk MeshMixer is best for repairing STL files and basic modifications toward 3D printing. It is excellent for hollowing out models and adding escape holes for SLA printing or lost-wax casting. Its CSG (Boolean) functions to combine different meshes are good too and seldom cause the program to crash. There is even an integrated algorithm to optimize the layout of multiple files on a print bed in case of small-batch production. Autodesk MeshMixer's sculpting tools are there yet limited and there are a few better alternatives. Best of all, it is completely free.
Read full review Pros The tools are easy to use and the learning curve is fairly minimal to be able to create blueprints. The 3D application is very fun to use and it is nice to be able to see your product instead of having to imagine what it will look like. The speed and accuracy in which students can create plans is a huge bonus. Students can plan their industrial art projects out and use their own set of plans to build them. Read full review Auto-repair function works fast, and if it does not completely cover all problem areas, manual fixes will work 99.5% of the time. Remeshing algorithm is fairly slow but does a wonderful job in creating meshes with homogeneous or adaptive triangulation. It contains a comprehensive set of tools to optimize and prepare STL files for 3D printing, such as hollowing and support generation. Read full review Cons It needs more help in 3D world, eventually some parametric support Better connection with Revit or Inventor Dynamic blocks could get some updates Parameters can be more developed; excel capabilities could be added Sheet set could be more evolved to support a workflow involving data management Read full review The remeshing tool needs to be faster, as in some cases it takes up to a day of waiting time. The sculpting tools need the addition of a proper brush for creating sharp creases and ridges. The standard shape library is rather limited. It would be nice to have this connected to online repositories such as Thingiverse, MyMiniFactory, or Cults3D. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Because rarely we [would] rather wait for a whole year to update, sometimes the new updates don't bring many new features and we are still ok with the current version. Also the change of interface is always something that takes time for every partner in the company to get comfortable with. So those are the main reasons we may want to keep the same version.
Read full review Usability Is an extremely usefull and accurate software , yo certainly can do almost every task requiered to document a project drawings and specifications , the only is that to be confortable with it you need a little of practice and to be familiarized with the commands and the core functioning to get expected results.
Read full review Support Rating AutoCAD has the issue of crashing or slowing down the design procedure once a heavy design that includes several disciplines or multiple families/blocks is involved. Customer services gets the feedback from the crash reports but this issue seems like it has never been addressed in the software updates past several years.
Read full review Implementation Rating the implementation was realy easy , to set up our workstation we pay for the licenses we are about to use , there was a little bit of delay to get the payment processed to receive the serial but after that the install runs without any problem , so you can fell secure there will be not issue with the implementation.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have experience with
Autodesk Maya , and am familiar with their user interface with creating 3D objects. AutoCAD while from the same family, requires a steeper learning curve and more in-depth knowledge of the software.
I have experience with this software because it is the industry standard in the jobs that I applied to, and was required to the company that I interviewed for. Part of the interview process was a proof-of-work test to create a mock solution for a client, which would demonstrate knowledge and skill with using AutoCAD.
I have little experience with
CorelCAD , but I found AutoCAD to be more in-depth with your options and what you could create.
Read full review Using
Blender for STL file preparation is like swatting a mosquito with a wrecking ball, plus its boolean functionalities can be glitchy. ZBrushCoreMini proved too limiting as a sculpting tool, but so did Autodesk MeshMixer, so I am sticking to Sculptris. Materialise Magics and Netfabb are somewhat better at STL file repair and offer more advanced functionalities. But Magics does not remesh as well and Autodesk MeshMixer is far more compact and faster than Netfabb, so remains my weapon of choice.
Read full review Return on Investment AutoCAD has helped our smaller firm produce lots of finished products matching that of a much larger size firm. With its many features, we have been able to do so much more and meet deadlines that much faster. Since we do use AutoCAD, we're able to work with many other engineering firms to collaborate together to complete various building projects. We have many clients now who expect us to provide for them at the end of a project not just printed construction drawings but also the digital AutoCAD drawing so they can in turn use it for future modifications themselves. Read full review It speeds up projects by streamlining the CAD-to-3D-printing workflow As an advanced user, I have written a few tutorials about it as well Read full review ScreenShots