Mini-reviews Cad software

I recently encountered some software at some friends’ that was an eye
opener, and got to tinker with it a bit, so I thought I’d share it
with the Orchid world. Realize that these are only impressions, it’s
not like I’m qualified with them. There are 3 programs: NX3, UGS
SolidEdge, and Catia. People tend to talk here about Rhino, Autocad,
and the other stuff we can buy at COMPUSA, these are an entirely
different breed. Actually, I won’t talk much about NX3, just for
those of you trying to learn - you can check it out, It’s by
Unigraphics. All of these programs are 5 figures and up, though. I
found NX3 to be so complex that it’s difficult to figure out what to
do from the opening screen. Catia is used by Boeing, Lockheed, and
Sanyo, to name a few. What a cool program that is. Nowhere online
could I find a price, but I figure it’s probably 100k or something.
It is blazingly fast, ridiculously easy to use, and completely
modular. Included in the basic program is plant design, NC machine
design, and all the usual tools, but then you can add about 100
modules - sheet metal, stress analysis, modeling (as in animation)
HVAC, many others that are way technical. Again, I have just toyed
with it, but if you all want to drool over CAD software you might take
a look. The last is my favorite because it’s more acessable -
Solidedge by UGS (actually NX3 is also UGS) It also is blazingly
fast, very user friendly, fairly intuitive and easy to use. To me, it
was the one a person could learn without taking a college course in
it. This is not SolidWorks, realize, which is a completely different
program. Anyway, not really reviews, but for those of you looking to
widen your horizons, you might look into them - they are all top end
programs, and all a huge sum of money, but very enlightening as to
the world of CAD-CAM.