Hey everyone. Been here for a while and I have a solid question for the mechanical engineering wizards in here. I want to do some fairly basic calculation of statics. Mainly for a car I'm designing in my spare time, but also just for fun and kicks. I don't know of any software that does statics and dynamics calculation in or from a Cad file. The software package I'm currently using is Rhinoceros 3D, a NURBS modeler, which supports VB-net and as far as I can tell I can setup basic mathematic functions. I cannot, as is, define weight in my material properties. Not unless I make a function for it. Hence my problem. Is there anything out there that can be used in conjunction with NURBS to calculate all this or am I better off using a spreadsheet? I know of a few CAD programs that can to the simulation. And I can get Solidworks from my brother. But I would rather prefer using Rhino as it is more "me" than Solid is. Grew up on AutoCAD sort of, but found it woefully lacking when it came to 3D. Solidworks is missing a lot of custom commands, and where is the command prompt? Rhino can "chain" commands which means I can for example paste and rotate with a keyword of pm and so on. 3 point arcs is just a3. So until I can get my grubby hands on a Solidworks licence. (Which by the way cost an arm and a leg.) I need something to tide me over. If I can make it work I'll post some results. Any help is appreciated. Stefan
I soon as I read the first few sentences I instanly thought of SolidWorks I have it, but I didn't buy it (it was a gift from a teacher for being his top student) you can get it cheaper if you're a student or know someone who is
I've used AutoCAD, Inventor, Rhino3D, SolidEdge, and SolidWorks. SolidWorks is by far my favorite. Though I also use 3ds Max for prettier renders. SolidWorks is also extremely capable easily able to do anything you need it to, especially if you start looking at it's FEA addons like COSMOS Motion. I have to agree though, it's lacking in hot keys.
Abyss.. the lack of shortcut keys is the only reason I haven't changed to Solidworks, but I guess it's time for a change then. Cue Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Importing into Solidworks works most of the time. Tested it together with my brother who works solely with Solidworks. There are some problems with polysurfaces that I am going to have to look into. I'm going to keep fiddling with it until I break the model. Now I just need a copy of Solidworks.. :/
yeah solidworks, best by far. Dynamic loading isn't possible (at least im sure its not), thats a pretty complex subject on its own alot of industry use matlab or mathcad to generate the results. Dont think i could live without solidworks now. On the side topic of rendering Maxwell render is pretty cool, i tend to use photoworks for quick renders and maxwell for scene rendering. Unless the internet can sign a NDA i cant show anything! lol!
Wow only 3 member of the forums use SolidWorks (that sucks that there's no database like there is for SketchUp) Everyone else uses SketchUp or other similar freeware
This website is only a few months old and isn't likely to have anything you're looking for, but it's worth keeping in the back of your mind: http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/default.aspx I found out about it through a student project team. Hopefully with time it will grow to be rich with content.
have you tried powershape? it's totally free, and is CAD/CAM oriented, so prob would fullfill some of the things you'd want to do
