Alibre's permanent transferable licences are a big deal in this subsciption-heavy market. FreeCAD's workbench system took me a while to get used to, but having both MCAD and BIM functionality for free is pretty remarkble.
Sorry for getting the names of the products wrong. The primary purpose of the article was to highlight differences between the four CAD programs, but then I was limited by the editor of 'Design Engineering' magazine to 1,400 words, so there wasn't room for lots more details.
As for pricing, the IronCAD site doesn't seem to list any, but I did find pricing at an IronCAD reseller, which listed only permanent license prices.
Thanks for highlighting the additional differences!
Thanks for the article mention. While some of the content on IronCAD is correct, there are some incorrect items. IronCAD, LLC is the company and the main product is IronCAD (not the IronCAD Inovate as listed). IronCAD is the full featured product that includes all capabilities in 3D along with 2D Detailing and the integrated Mechanical Draft environment (similar to AutoCAD but also include view creation from the 3D and associations to that data). Inovate is our Collaboration tool that is only 3D and has limited functionality (no sheet metal creation, no external links, and limited Intellishape options). IronCAD has both perpetual licensing and term/subscription licensing available.
In terms of the modeling, yes we have the Drag & Drop catalog's but it also has your normal sketch to 3D feature creation capabilities. The catalogs provide users to use predefined shapes to quickly build and allows users to store features, parts, assemblies, materials, etc in the catalog for reuse.
For Import/Export, we import/export many facet formats like STL, VRML, OBJ and the standard CAD formats IGES, Step, ACIS, Parasolid and Catia V4 as part of the base package. Note: We use both modeling kernels so the ACIS and Parasolid are native imports with less errors and we can use both on import of the others for more accurate imports. We offer a Native Translator add-on for formats such as Catia V5, Pro/E (Creo) UG/NX, Inventor, Solidworks, Solidedge, Rhino, IFC, JT, and 3D DXF/DWG. There is another add-on for Architectural formats for import and export of Revit and IFC.
A couple of additional notes: IronCAD uses an Innovative Part Design and Structured Part design approach. The Structured Part design is similar to standard MCAD with datum planes/point/axis, sketch, and relations in a history-bound order when you need that level of control. Innovative design uses the feature history but is not bound by that history and users can make flexible changes along the way and predictable changes can be made by the system. We default to Innovative design when you use IronCAD but users can enable Structure parts and mix both together in the single scene environment you mentioned. That is another key item with IronCAD that we can have a single scene that can contain thousands of parts/assemblies. Users can selectively set external reference when and where needed (not forced). In addition, IronCAD offers direct modeling approaches for each part mode. In structured, it is similar to others where it is another feature in the tree. In Innovative, it is unique where we can insert, combine into the structure where needed to make the change and handle more complex cases. Both work on native files and imported geometry. Another key item in IronCAD is the Smart Behaviors where users can quickly and easily add intelligence to features/parts/and assemblies that can control position, orientation, sizing, and connect to other business processes. This is a big advantage when using with our catalogs and Bulk View Creation that can quickly layout hundreds of sheets of parts for going from the 3D into a 2D Production drawing set.
On the Pricing, Synergy has discounts for user that are on the subscription support of IronCAD. The primary IronCAD product is sold throughout the world through resellers as you mentioned. https://www.ironcad.com/locate-a-reseller/
Alibre's permanent transferable licences are a big deal in this subsciption-heavy market. FreeCAD's workbench system took me a while to get used to, but having both MCAD and BIM functionality for free is pretty remarkble.
Sorry for getting the names of the products wrong. The primary purpose of the article was to highlight differences between the four CAD programs, but then I was limited by the editor of 'Design Engineering' magazine to 1,400 words, so there wasn't room for lots more details.
As for pricing, the IronCAD site doesn't seem to list any, but I did find pricing at an IronCAD reseller, which listed only permanent license prices.
Thanks for highlighting the additional differences!
Hi Ralph,
Thanks for the article mention. While some of the content on IronCAD is correct, there are some incorrect items. IronCAD, LLC is the company and the main product is IronCAD (not the IronCAD Inovate as listed). IronCAD is the full featured product that includes all capabilities in 3D along with 2D Detailing and the integrated Mechanical Draft environment (similar to AutoCAD but also include view creation from the 3D and associations to that data). Inovate is our Collaboration tool that is only 3D and has limited functionality (no sheet metal creation, no external links, and limited Intellishape options). IronCAD has both perpetual licensing and term/subscription licensing available.
In terms of the modeling, yes we have the Drag & Drop catalog's but it also has your normal sketch to 3D feature creation capabilities. The catalogs provide users to use predefined shapes to quickly build and allows users to store features, parts, assemblies, materials, etc in the catalog for reuse.
For Import/Export, we import/export many facet formats like STL, VRML, OBJ and the standard CAD formats IGES, Step, ACIS, Parasolid and Catia V4 as part of the base package. Note: We use both modeling kernels so the ACIS and Parasolid are native imports with less errors and we can use both on import of the others for more accurate imports. We offer a Native Translator add-on for formats such as Catia V5, Pro/E (Creo) UG/NX, Inventor, Solidworks, Solidedge, Rhino, IFC, JT, and 3D DXF/DWG. There is another add-on for Architectural formats for import and export of Revit and IFC.
A couple of additional notes: IronCAD uses an Innovative Part Design and Structured Part design approach. The Structured Part design is similar to standard MCAD with datum planes/point/axis, sketch, and relations in a history-bound order when you need that level of control. Innovative design uses the feature history but is not bound by that history and users can make flexible changes along the way and predictable changes can be made by the system. We default to Innovative design when you use IronCAD but users can enable Structure parts and mix both together in the single scene environment you mentioned. That is another key item with IronCAD that we can have a single scene that can contain thousands of parts/assemblies. Users can selectively set external reference when and where needed (not forced). In addition, IronCAD offers direct modeling approaches for each part mode. In structured, it is similar to others where it is another feature in the tree. In Innovative, it is unique where we can insert, combine into the structure where needed to make the change and handle more complex cases. Both work on native files and imported geometry. Another key item in IronCAD is the Smart Behaviors where users can quickly and easily add intelligence to features/parts/and assemblies that can control position, orientation, sizing, and connect to other business processes. This is a big advantage when using with our catalogs and Bulk View Creation that can quickly layout hundreds of sheets of parts for going from the 3D into a 2D Production drawing set.
On the Pricing, Synergy has discounts for user that are on the subscription support of IronCAD. The primary IronCAD product is sold throughout the world through resellers as you mentioned. https://www.ironcad.com/locate-a-reseller/