OK. You didn't specify a price point before. Extremely im****tant
information. I have been a Turbocad user since version 6. I may be a
Vectorworks user before to long. I do mechanical design. This is not a
full
time thing for me. I run a machine shop. I use turbocad because it is the
most program you can get for the money. There are a few reasons I'm
considering dumping it. Since version 6, three of the releases have been
worthless. On each of these three, I went back to using the previous
version. They always introduced patches for these lousy versions but never
did they really fix it nor did they try that hard. More of making a show
and
then concentrating their efforts on bringing out a new version. It has
always been very obvious that they never had a true draftsman on staff.
Many
of their "improvements" in new versions have been aimed more at the
artist.
More realistic rendering, more materials, ect while ignoring those things
that are essential for producing working prints. Several months ago, the
parent company, IMSI, decided to get out of the software business. The
company that is now known as IMSI Design is made up of former IMSI
employees
and the actual owners are some investment group. Version 12 has been a
real
flop. Bugs and constant instability have plagued it from the outset. They
have released three maintenance patches so far that have not fixed it. In
fact, the patches have actually broken things that previously worked. Tech
sup****t is nearly non existent. Very hard to get through to the company
and,
when you do, their most common explanation for why the program isn't
working
right is that you don't know what you are doing or your computer is messed
up. If you keep calling, they will often just quit taking your calls,
relagating you to leaving pointless and never answered voicemails. They
also
(company wide) have a long standing reputation of ignoring their user
base.
This investment group acquired IMSI at the release of verson 12. It has
been
such a failure that I'm wondering how long they will put up with such a
looser before they cut their losses and run. At this point, I wouldn't bet
on the company being around for long. I have no personal experience with
Alibre but, of what I've heard, it is quite capable and is along the lines
of Inventor or Solidworks. It is primarily a 3D design software. 2D prints
are generated directly off the 3D model. This works fine but, if it is
like
Inventor, if you want to do any extensive 2D drafting, it's capabilities
in
that are limited. Also, Of what I've heard, the price is a bit deceptive.
They sell you the base program and then, to get added features, they will
sell you ad ons. The last user that I talked to said that, to get the
program up to a really useful level was several thousand dollars. There is
a
company that was founded on selling training materials for Turbocad. They
have recently seen the writing on the wall and have switched their focus
to
Vectorworks and Alibre. Many long time Turbocad users have been going to
Vectorworks. The advantages, they tell me, are that it is more capable
than
Turbocad,sup****ts both 3D and 2D work and the company really cares about
what they are doing. I haven't tried it yet but plan to.
"Scott Kelley" <scottk@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:jbGdnZKh0990bDTYnZ2dnUVZ_qarnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Of what I have seen so far, TurboCAD and Alibre are the only things ones
> that are affordable (up to $1,500).
>
> What is it about TurboCAD that is not good? I didn'nt like the
interface
> with v10, but v12 has some changes that should make it possible to set
up
> the interface to work very much like what I consider the ideal. I would
> certainly like to know if there is something about the underlying
program
> that would warrant my taking it off my list.
>
> Any thoughts about Alibre?
>
> > Intellicad is out. It's 3D capabilities are far short of your needs.
The
> > version of Turbocad you have is one of the worst they have produced
> > (though
> > the newest one sucks pretty bad). If I were in your position, I would
look
> > at Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks. Both do solids well, do sheet
metal
> > unfolding and produced 2D prints from the 3D quite well.
>
>
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