Good CAD program for a good price

[dav]

According to the license terms, it is valid only for non-commercial use (eg, you are good if you only use it for educational or personal use). Any documents generated or printed will be overlaid with something like "Only for Student Use". Still sounds like a good deal for personal use.

[EricU]

I use the educational version, which might be a little better than the student version, not sure.  It doesn't play nice with any commercial versions.  But there are certainly ways around that.  Not sure about drawings, ours aren't marked up at all.

[bennybmn]

 From a pure woodworking perspective, what does Solidworks do that Google Sketchup can't do?

Sketchup seems to be geared towards woodworking, or maybe I only hear about it in the context of woodworking... From what I remember, it seems to be meant to design things from the top down. In other words, you draw up your entire project, then break out the individual pieces. Whereas high end 3D CAD programs are meant to design the individual pieces, and then put them into a larger assembly. 

I started using CAD in college almost 20 years ago with Pro-E, then Unigraphics at my first job, then Solidworks for a bunch of years, and I've been using Autodesk Inventor the last 4. Every time I've tried Sketchup I get frustrated. It's just so different I have a hard time wrapping my head around it... So take any learning curve comments with the grain of salt that they are coming from that person's perspective as to what they are familiar with. If you're a brand new CAD user, you'd probably pick it up a lot quicker than me!

That said, I also hate autocad. It's been around for eons, and guys who use it a lot seem to love it. But it's really a 2D thing at it's core. Frankly I avoid it like the plague, I can never get the darn grid to turn off lol. 

So to the OP, it depends what you're familiar with, but if price is your biggest concern, then let that drive. Youtube can help you after that.

To sum up and try to actually answer the quoted question, I bet if you know the right tricks either can accomplish anything the other can, save for maybe exporting to a CNC friendly format. Being that sketchup is geared toward the hobbyist, it may be easier to generate things like cut lists etc.  Then again, the guy who sells my company Inventor has his copy configured to generate complete cabinet cut lists and drawings down to the drawer boxes just by entering a few dimensions.

[ruffcutt]

Well Benny I wasn't recommending this to anyone. It's just kind of a PSA. It was just a post I found on another forum and though I'd pass it on. I don't care if anyone likes it or not, wants it or not,,,,,just passing it on.

OK now everybody lets kill the messenger.

[doobes]

I posted a bunch of information about 3D CAD systems in this thread

https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7145837

I've used Solidworks for over 20 years.  It's a powerful tool, but has a pretty steep learning curve.

PM if you want further info.

[dav]

Well Benny I wasn't recommending this to anyone. It's just kind of a PSA. It was just was just a post I found on another forum and though I'd pass it on. I don't care if anyone like it or not, wants it or not,,,,,just passing it on.

OK now everybody lets kill the messenger.

You get a big thumbs up from me for the PSA. Thanks much.
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[bennybmn]

Well Benny I wasn't recommending this to anyone. It's just kind of a PSA. It was just a post I found on another forum and though I'd pass it on. I don't care if anyone likes it or not, wants it or not,,,,,just passing it on.

OK now everybody lets kill the messenger.

Oh I definitely didn't mean any messenger killing! Sorry if it came off that way. Hopefully the OP takes a little something from everyone's advice to make their own decision. I just tried to show where my opinions were coming from, which is my own personal experience. I know people who have designed entire kitchens in sketchup, all depends on what you're comfortable with, and probably where you start too.

[Mr_Mike]

Thanks for the tip.  We use CATIA at work, with lots and lots of bells and whistles to perform aeronautics-peculiar analyses.  From a pure woodworking perspective, what does Solidworks do that Google Sketchup can't do?

Sketchup is not a solids modeler. It is a surface modeler. Being that, it doesn't do well things that need solid to solid interactions. Things like subtraction (i.e. intersect a pin with a block to create a hole.) It can do some stuff, but not near as elegantly as a solids modeler.

Skecthup doesn't understand part history. You can't dive into the steps that made the part and edit a part and then regenerate the resulting solid with new dimensions or features. Sketchup swallows up geometry as it is created and you can't go back and revise it except by "undo", backing up over all the steps.

Also, sketchup really doesn't have a sense of "parts" as individual objects. They are just pieces of the whole thing.

Sketchup can't make assemblies from files of parts. You can import parts, but they won't revise when the parent part file is revised.

Sketchup doesn't assemble "parts" to each other. If you change a dimension of part "A" that connects to part "B", part "B" doesn't move to accomodate.

I use sketchup quite a bit as I like its price for what it does. Its just fine for most woodworking projects. Heck, I even have my house built in sketchup and its real extensive and darned useful.

Sketchup won't output solids files to import into real CAD programs. There are some plug-ins, but they are elementary. Its hard to export a solid when you don't know what a solid is.

[Guest]

Not all of that is true but, whatever.

[Mr_Mike]

Not all of that is true but, whatever.

Well then, step up and explain where I might have not been particularly correct. You are the guru here, I'm just a user. A satisfied user, BTW.

Its just not a solids modeler, which is what us engineering types tend to like.