On Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:29:52 -0400, Wes
wrote:

Ned Simmons wrote:


You must be doing large assemblies. At work we have Solidworks 2007 and it seems to work
okay on limited platforms. I don't do much with it other than look at models of machines I
work on. The company runs some software called smart team which seems to limit how quick
we upgrade our solidworks software.

It's the delays in loading commands, opening dialogs, etc., more than
the time it takes to update big assy's that's annoying me. Inventor
was very snappy on this machine. I get the feeling that SW has lot
more going on in the background.


What is the difference between Inventor and Mechanical Desktop? I believe both come from
Autodesk?

I'm fighting with a step file from MD2009 that shows features about 25.4x too small. I've
run the file though Alibre, SW 2007 and a trial version of CoCreate.

Mechanical Desktop is a kluge built on top of Autocad, Inventor was
built from the ground up as a 3D modeler. Autocad doesn't keep track
of units like most other CAD programs, and it seems likely that's the
root of your problem. Is there perhaps a default unit of length
setting in Alibre that, lacking specific units in the Desktop export,
is importing one unit of length as one mm rather than one inch?

What sort of file are you trying to import? (.dwg, .sat, .step, .iges,
etc.) Do you have Desktop available?

--
Ned Simmons