Strap on your chaps, slide on your shades, and assume the motorcycle rider position as your co-workers push you around the office. All custom bike heeeeeck is about to break loose.
Wild West Motors, outfitter of wicked custom motorcycles, based in San Diego, California, has decided to replace SolidWorks with AutoDesk Inventor. Why? They just so happen to use some other AutoDesk products. Was it a good decision? Is it a column knocked from the SolidWorks cool customer foundation? Read on.
Inventor software’s interoperability with Alias and Showcase means that Wild West has an unbroken digital pipeline for all stages of the design process. Wild West is currently at work on a new high-end motorcycle model, every element of which–from the assembly to the molding–will be accomplished using Autodesk software. TenLinks Press Release
You can read a little more about Wild West’s use of Alias Studio Tools on their Media page – the same page where there’s another article that talks about “…[has] direct modeling capability and the ability to interact with SolidWorks, its mechanical design software… in Alias StudioTools.” I love this industry. Please, keep the drama alive.
Oh, and just to make it more interesting? If your we’re around a couple years ago, or have been to SolidWorks World or their headquarters, you’ll know Orange County Choppers uses SolidWorks to design their custom cycles. I’m thinking a Wild West vs. Orange County knock-down, drag-out “Design and Ride” contest is in order. You?
*Update!!*
We asked Jim Winn, senior partner at Wild West:
How does the inter-program compatibility aid in the design and build process?
“We expect to use the inter-program compatibility in all the software the same way we would use the different tools and experienced people to build a physical prototype. However by using virtual tools we are able to complete the design and prepare for manufacturing much faster. Plus, once the virtual model is ready, we can present it to new dealers and customers anywhere in the world for review by Internet.
Maybe not a whole lot of insight into going from Alias to Inventor, but of course the virtual model will help each stage. We also received some renderings of their Durego line of motorcycles. If you want a different bike, this is 120 HP of different.
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This is one or the rare SW dumped for Autodesk products. 9 times out of 10, I always see Autodesk being dumped for SW. It will be interesting to see if in a couple of years we see them migrate back to SW.
I wrote about Wild West back in the MCAD days and they've always been absolutely key focussed on design using AliasStudio, with the 'engineering' part backing that up. Makes sense for them completely.
if they mostly use Autodesk products I can see the logic, especially if they're getting big package discounts (which I've come up before working with resellers). But yeah, would be interesting to see the conversion matrix.
That's a sweet ride, don't know much about SW so can't really tell which is best as I have seen some amazing work come out of both software packages.
In all honesty, SolidWorks and Inventor are like potato and pototo, right now.
So sure – if they heavily use Alias then I don't see why they wouldn't. Unfortunately.
I'm sorry but that is an ugly bike.
Kevin makes an interesting comment about SWX vs Inventor being like potato and pototo. I'm a SWX user, but always curious what other packages have to offer. I watched a bunch of Inventor 2010 videos on you tube and have to say that I saw a lot of functionality similar if not identical to SWX. Although I have not used Inventor 2010, I really like the user interface and how they implemented the ribbon. I do use AutoCAD with the same ribbon style interface and really like it now that I got used to it.
Maybe it's time to evaluate Inventor.
We have Inventor 2010 at our office as well, and yeah, it…works – haha
But if I have a choice on which one we do a project, I'll choose Solidworks.
Solidworks is still simply more thought-out about the little things, you do a lot.
But they're definitely very close. In fact, closer than any software I've ever seen.
Hey Kevin, thanks. seems where they find it benefiting them is in the transfer of data from Alias to Inventor. If Inventor makes working between the two easier, I see the logic. but yeah, from using bith, even though I'm way more proficient in SolidWorks, I'd pick SolidWorks. surprise, surprise
That worries me too, because this way they'll kind of lock everything down into their products. I mean, they've got a piece of software for just about anything these days, so it's tempting for a lot of people. Very often it's not just one but many different applications across the various development stages.
Let's just say it's safe to say, Alias will now forever be biased towards working best with “Inventor” and the open ballpark that it had before, is now gone.
I just hope there will never be an Autodesk Modo, or Autodesk Rhino
or…no way… Autodesk Solidworks! despite the fact, it very nearly was way back if I'm not mistaking.
ha! ya know what. I totally agree. at first I thought, maybe it looks better in real life. I look at it here and am still like, nope, ugly. now if they made a more akira style bike…
My feeling (as a Solidworks user ) is that Solidworks jsut isn't advancing enough. Sure, the usability gets better and better, but Inventor seems to offer far better top down design tools (skeleton parts, copy geometry etc) similar to Pro-e and other high end packages. I wonder if the fundamental design of Solidworks is holding it back. In particular the mating system which is “democratic” (as opposed to the heirachical system of say, Pro-e) combined with a laissez-faire handling of circular references seems to be a root cause of slowness and instability in large assys. I haven't seem any change in this having used Sworks since 2001.
“Name”…
Not sure what you've seen, and this has been in SW for quite some time, Top Down, Skeleton, mirroring w/mates are all there. If anything having the Mate Hierarchical system, when it breaks, IT BREAKS. And you have to go back and fix it before moving forward. It's Apples and Oranges.
If anything SW doesn't have a direct answer to Alias. If AutoDesk truly gets it right with making IV and Alias seamless, THAT would be a hard package to beat.
Absolutely ugly!
And these renders look like cheap high-school stuff.
“If anything having the Mate Hierarchical system, when it breaks, IT BREAKS. And you have to go back and fix it before moving forward. It's Apples and Oranges”
Yes, and when it breaks in solidworks you just can't open the assy and are left wondering why. There is no way to fix it.
The problem is solidworks allows circular references, but once a certian level of complexity is reached it just falls over. It can't actually handle what it allows the user to do. The user is none the wiser. In my experience, people who have only ever used solidworks don't even understand what circular references are let alone that what they are doing may break their assy. Yes I know solidworks has top down design, it just doesn't have the tools and stability to make it usable for large assys. If you have used, for example Pro-e, you would know this.
I do some rather large assemblies and where I run into a roadblock is on the hardware side. I'm familiar with Pro/E enough to know it gives you feedback on the Circular References. SolidWorks could use this, actually could use something better and could probably do something better. For the features though and flexibility I'd choose solidworks and get some better hardware that can support large assemblies better.
Can you imagine the fool that spends so many inflated $ grand tobuy and later be seen on something like that ? Like the emperor with no clothes; I'm sure they'll sell a few
Can you imagine the fool that spends so many inflated $ grand tobuy and later be seen on something like that ? Like the emperor with no clothes; I'm sure they'll sell a few
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