Inventor versus CREO Elements/Pro (Pro/ENGINEER)

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….

The Hardware/Software Used

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.

The Results

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….