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I have now written up the results of the Inventor versus CREO Elements/Pro (Pro/ENGINEER) test. It made sense to use the same test that I used to measure SolidWorks against CREO recently. You can download the full report (including previous tests) by filling in your email address at the top right hand side of this page or from the main menu, but if you just want a summary then here goes….
Inventor Vs Creo Elements/Pro
I used a pretty standard CAD workstation again which you will see detailed in the full report below. The machine was loaded with both Inventor 2010 and CREO Elements/Pro 5 – both current versions of the software. I wanted to make it a like for like comparison.
Inventor Vs Creo Elements/Pro Results
In a nutshell, CREO Elements/Pro outperformed Autodesk Inventor. Whilst Inventor was actually faster than CREO for the drawing element, the big difference was in the Modelling and Assembly Work which AutoDesk Inventor took a staggering 4 times longer to complete. It suprised me just how big the difference was. Inventor made up a bit of time when dealing with drawings which it was able to do in a little over half the time that it took in CREO. But still, when we take all tasks into account CREO finished up 12% faster than AutoDesk Inventor.
Some points of interest to me were that while AutoDesk inventor had an appealing interface (Microsoft Ribbon style), it had very limited assembly tools in comparison to CREO. For example, CREO’s ‘Geometry Rep’ method for choosing the most suitable representation has no match in AutoDesk Inventor. These are the kind of tools that really make life easier for the user and there were several other examples. I certainly dont like waiting around for models to load. Autodesk Inventor crashed twice during the copy/build part of the process and I did NOT include this downtime in the test results. But in real life these crashes would have caused a lot of waiting, frustration and possibly lost data. A point for concern.
In terms of other likes and dislikes, well it becomes a bit of a ‘beauty contest’ really and everyone will have there own preference. There is stuff in all three systems that I really like and other stuff that I found really irritating. But in terms of these timed tests and ability to complete a task without crashing then I must say CREO Elements/Pro is stacking up really nicely so far. And I’m getting used to calling it CREO now rather than Pro/ENGINEER.
I’ve had a few enquiries asking me more about the first test so THANKS for those showing an interest and I hope my responses have been helpful. They have also revealed a few other areas that might be worth putting to the test next. Food for thought as I ponder what CAD Stig can start timing and testing next….
A performance comparison between CREO Elements/Pro V5 and Autodesk Inventor 2010, to determine their ability to cope with large assemblies.
Coming Soon… Comparison using AutoDesk Inventor…
Comparing CAD/CAM systems is a bit like comparing cars. They all attempt to get you from A to B but in very different ways. Some do it fast and comfortably and some don’t even get you to B at all. But mostly they all do a pretty decent job. As Engineers we like to use the right one for the job though – and just recently I have had been using two of the leading systems on the market decided to put each one through its paces to see which would be ‘fastest around the track’.
I didn’t want this to be slanted one way or another and I certainly didn’t want to receive any hate mails from CAD enthusiasts – I wanted it to be unbiased and independent but not too serious. so CAD STIG was born!
It started with SolidWorks. (www.solidworks.com ) I’d used it for a couple of years to develop some automotive products. I liked it. It seems to do most things i needed but then I had nothing to compare it with. More recently I have changed companies and now work with CREO Elements/Pro (formerly Pro/ENGINEER) which I am still gaining experience with (www.ptc.com/products/creo-elements-pro) I was impressed with the way it handled large assemblies so I decided to put both systems to the test on this first. I discovered a benchmark that had been used by CAD vendors before to test performance – so I decided to use that rather than re-invent the wheel.
Aims of the Cube Test
December 2010 - The cube test was designed to test a CAD systems ability to construct and handle large assemblies. It’s an area that often gets overlooked in the CAD demo’s I have seen so I set about re-creating it in both SolidWorks and CREO Elements/Pro to see how they both performed on exactly the same hardware.
I used a pretty standard CAD workstation which you will see detailed in the full report below. I used SolidWorks 2010 and CREO Elements/Pro 5 – both current versions of the software.
Results of the Cube Test
In a nutshell, CREO Elements/Pro outperformed SolidWorks. And not just by a small margin. I liked using SolidWorks from the start and have heard people say PTC‘s products are harder to use but I was actually pleasantly surprised by CREO Elements/Pro. It was easy to use too. But ease of use and mouse clicks are one thing – what I am really interested in is exactly how long does it take me to get the job done.
If you would like me to send you a copy of the results please email me at cadstig@gmail.com
So, a few surprises so far - and it got my appetite going to extend the test to third biggest player in the market – AutoDesk Inventor (www.autodesk.com). Problem – I didn’t know how to use Inventor. But I knew a man who can – and he was keen to become CAD STIG for a couple of days and put it through its paces alongside my CREO Elements/Pro system. A couple of phone calls later and the race was on!!
Jan 2011 – A couple of weeks later… and the results are in… and I’m writing them up to post on CAD STIG in the next week or so…
See you then….
Looking forward to comparing the nuts and bolts of CAD/CAM Software and showing you the results.
The Cube Test