I use and teach EdgeCam, In the past I have used SurfCam, and also MasterCam. Those 3 are pretty similar. We do our solid modeling with both Autodesk Inventor and Solid works and then export the files. I have also used Pro-Engineer.

I love it when a woman talks like that

I am in a CNC shop, but on the Quality side of things, havent got a clue what we use

Now if Marc was asking for Staistical Process Control or Statistical Q.A. software, then i could help, but I dont think his shop is that big.... YET

I Use Pro-Engineer and Our CNC is Pro Machine. They seem to work very well togther. For someone new to CAD Solid works is about the easiest system to use.

Marc, After lenghty discussions we ended up with Feature Cam over Gibbs, something about the post processors or something. If you want to call, I will get our machine shop supervisor for the explaination.

I haven't used many of the CAM specific programs but....

Autocad will get you through most 2d.

For 3d, I would go Solidworks, Inventor, or Unigraphix. You can generate 2d from any of those programs as well.

I mostly just do CAD work though.

- Tom

First off, what are you using the software for? Reproducing parts? Fitting parts to something else? New design? And how do you get your data into the computer now?

I've used Unigrafix and AutoCAD, perfer AutoCAD as it seems easier to learn and use, but UG appears to be more powerful as it was developed by the old MacDonald-Douglas Aircraft company a while back and runs best on Sun Systems computers. Have seen UG solids "drawings" taken directly to rapid prototyping and results were good, but this was 14 years ago.

Pro/E is the best. You can take the model to rapid prototype, stuctural, manufacturing and just about anything else you can dream of.

What do you want to spend?

I am a CAD/CAM Systems Engineer. I support 150 seats of Unigraphics, 40 seats of Solidworks, 75 seats of Autocad. We do 4, 5 and 6 axis machining directly from our 3D UG and solidworks models. For UG we have UG CAM which produces tool path directly in the software. For solidworks we translate out to MasterCAM.

UG is at the top of the totem pole with solidworks falling in the middle and then AutoCAD at the bottom. Price range....

1 seat of UG (What they call a designer bundle which does not include CAM is roughly $12,000

1 seat of Solidworks with also no CAM is roughly $5000

1 seat of AutoCAD 2D is roughly $1800

Any other questions, let me know!

1 seat of Mastercam 2.5 D w/cam is $5K, 3D is $10K, and my head started swimming after that.

Does not sound so bad at this point.