Engineering software which one

[cbrgator]

+1 for solidworks
I work at an engineering firm that designs spinal implants and thats what we use here. I dont have any personal experience with it as I am in accounting but none of my engineering buddies have anything but good things to say.

 

[JohnL2]

Hmm. I remember watching a "This Old House" episode. They were visiting a toilet manufacturer and they showed a computer workstation with a 3D rendering of a new toilet design. The software actually showed how the "water" would flow out of the bowl down the drain. The engineers were actually trying to figure out maximum flow potential.
Little did I know that what I was looking at was most likely Solidworks. Engineering is hardly glamorous but I thought it was pretty neat.
I was slightly amused but totally impressed.

 

[carnaby]

-1 for solidworks. And for the record, it's MATLAB, not MATHLAB. MATLAB stands for "matrix laboratory," since Matlab's sole data type is a matrix.

I've always been a Pro/Engineer guy. I find it to be more intuitive, and it has superior freeform tools to Solidworks. I think it's academic version is cheaper AND you DO NOT have to be a student to get it.

When I used Solidworks last, a couple months ago, it hated my lack of a workstation graphics card. Never had any such problems with Pro/Engineer.

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=30134903

Pro/E also comes with a lightweight FEA program, but if you aren't a specialist in FEA, then anything more powerful will likely be beyond you anyway.

 

[fspitzdorf]

Solidworks can open and import quite a variety of file formats. For the most part, if a part is designed in one program, say Solidedge or Pro-E and then imported into Solidworks you may very well lose the design structure (not true in all cases). In most cases natives are transformed to a generic solid model in the form of a step or iges file which is easy to open in multiple packages. But again it'll be a form with no design information as to how it was built.

Most CAD development companies have tiers of software. Take Dassault Systems for example. Solidworks would be their mid-tier software whereas Catia is their top of the line powerhouse.

Last time I purchased a copy of Solidworks it was in the neighborhood of $7500 per seat w/ 1 year service (free upgrades, patches, phone support, etc) Add on packages such as COSMOS Works I believe tacked on another $5K per seat.

For the record, the reason I use Solidworks is not because it is "better" than Pro-E (Pro-E rocks IMO) but because 90% of my customers and vendors use Solidworks for their design software so it is very convenient for us to communicate design information.

 

[kragluver]

For what I think you are after, check out ADAM. We use it for a number of mechanical design/simulation applications. It ain't cheap, but its powerful software.