PRO-E vs SOLIDWORKS vs CATIA

Both Pro E or Creo, CATIA and SolidWorks are the most powerful 3D modeling softwares in the world today. They both give an engineer the edge of making a design which he can rotate to view in 3D and assemble many of these 3D models to make an assembly of your actual design allowing you to make a much more detailed and complex design. Knowing this you have by now realized that for an engineer(specially Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineers) it is a very powerful and useful tool ( Probably a plus point in your job interview).

All the 3 software's are top of the line then why are we arguing which one is better? Firstly because I just started working on Pro E (recommended by my university) and SolidWorks (my PC is a snail these days) and alot of companies require the prerequisite of CATIA. So which one should i choose to learn? Or why not learn all of them?

First of all, the user interfacing of Pro E, CATIA and SolidWorks is North, West and South from each other so if you are in the misconception that if you know one the other one comes naturally to you..... SNAP OUT OF IT! It will be hard and time consuming! Because of exactally this reason you have to choose which one of these software you would want to learn.



So how do you choose? Well it mainly depends on your application, the demand of the software and of course cost (for people who aren't already downloading its from Torrentz.com for free). Now that i have mentioned free software's here i might as well mention that these kind of softwares should be bought if you can afford it (I cant). Mainly due to the reason that these softwares update themselves for new add-ons (useful ones) and bug fixes (these are very complex softwares and with ever dynamic evolution of these softwares there is an ever dynamic increase in untested bugs).

Anyhow, coming back to which software should you be using, Well lets firstly recognize the fact that Pro E or now known as Creo is an ancient software and has been in use since the 90's and is the pioneer of 3D CAD and CAM softwares but this doesn't necessarily make it better than the other two. So i will give it to you stright, if your in a job interview where 3D modeling softwares are a prerequisite and there are 3 other interviewees sitting next to you, if the first one knows CATIA, the second one knows Creo and the third (You) know SolidWorks, you should quitely walk out of the room and the the second one can try his luck but im pretty sure the first one will get the job. My point is the CATIA in todays world is the most demanded and powerful 3D modeling software simply because of the tools and modeling capability it offers its users. This is why big automotive companies like Ferrari, Boeing etc require there engineers to know CATIA. But what about Creo/Pro E...Well factually speaking it is no less and has a less steeper learning curve compared to CATIA.... it will allow you to design an equally complicated design as you could have in CATIA within a lesser price range but it only lacks in the modeling tools which are inferior to that of CATIA. So now that we have established that CATIA is the best then comes Creo, what about solid works? Well SolidWorks is up to date the most user friendly 3D CAD and CAM software out there and for people who actually buy these softwares, its is the lowest costing software that can give you a high quality 3D CAD and CAM results. So for a student who is learning 3D CAD on his own and doesn't have enough time on his hands ... SolidWorks is for you.

Another thing I resently found out was the company that made CAITA i.e. DASSAULT SYSTEMES has SolidWorks listed as it own product.

If any of you require the technical details of these software i will post them up but as I myself am a starter wont been able to detail it.