Autodesk Inventor vs. Vectorworks Landmark

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

Vectorworks is just as useful for perfectly measured, hard-line CAD drawing as it is for making beautiful presentation drawings and renderings. Tools in the application allow you to transition between working drawings and presentation drawings without modifying the underlying geometry. DWG exchange with other design team members works very well

Incentivized

• 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

• I tell people that Vectorworks is CAD for people who know how to draw. You can control the appearance of all the objects on a layer, or you can tweak the way a single object looks. Most of the barriers to producing good-looking, legible drawings are removed.
• Vectorworks Landmark is made for landscape architects.Creating hardscape, planting, and irrigation plans is pretty straightforward.

Incentivized

• Inventor demonstrates a lack of fluidity in the process of transferring data between programs.
• Inventor shows some lack of sophistication that certain features that are readily available in other design software packages are limited in use in Inventor.
• Inventor can often have difficulty in creating models that show true color, as in blacks can come out as dark grays in certain renders, even when the material and appearance settings are the same from part to part.

Incentivized

• There's a bit of inconsistency in the operation of some tools that would appear to the user to be more similar.
• Importing complex Revit models takes a long time and, if the model has a lot of symbols in it, the import might not finish.

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 and very good for mechanical design

Incentivized

I'm giving the overall support rating a 5 only because I rarely have to use it. Trying to find the answer on the help pages hardly ever helps me because any problem I have is usually too deep for what the help offers. Given the popularity of Autodesk, I have always been able to find an answer online after doing enough looking!

Incentivized

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

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

I was an AutoCAD user before switching to Vectorworks when coming to work with my current firm. Vectorworks Landmark includes tools specifically designed for landscape architects - it's not an AutoCAD add-on. The initial investment for a new seat is much less than AutoCAD, and the Service Select program pushes down the annual upgrade cost even more

Incentivized

• 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

• There is a learning curve for new employees, as regionally Vectorworks is not in wide use and generally not introduced in the academies
• However, because it is more intuitive as far as WYSIWYG drawing, most people pick up the basics pretty quickly.
• It's a really powerful suite of tools. Sometimes it's good to spend some time afforded by a larger project to explore ways to use the software more efficiently (e.g., improving worksheets, using different smart object tools, etc.)

Incentivized