IronCAD vs.Traditional CAD Software: Why Engineers Choose IronCAD (And Why You Should Too)
Sep 30, 2019 |
Globally, many users rely on the intuitive computer-aided design (CAD) software from IronCAD, and it’s innovative design methodologies for maximum design flexibility over traditional CAD software.
As a pioneering design software, IronCAD accelerates the design-to-production process and provides designers and engineers with a continually expanding range of features, functions, and capabilities that enable them to bring their designs to life.
From concept to final design, IronCAD simplifies the design process to get to the market faster and allows users to take a modern, more flexible, and far more productive approach to 3D design. In addition, this CAD software enables the user to execute changes to designs quickly, solve design problems without delay, and economically deliver designs faster than any other traditional CAD Software available today.
Now, when compared to other traditional design software for CAD, it is important to keep in mind the key benefits that make IronCAD, the 3D modeling software of choice today.
Flexible History Tree
Make design changes in seconds, without worrying about how the model was made or if you’ll break the history tree. The amount of time and money spent making late design changes is simply crazy, and IronCAD changes that by letting you model with or without history dependency. Making a change to your model is as simple as doing it.
Traditional software is history-dependent, this means that almost everything you do is dependent on the things and features that came before it. So if you delete or change one of those features, you can very easily “break” your model, which can take a long time to fix.
IronCAD works differently, you choose when, where, and if you want to have history dependency. This means you can just grab a feature or part and delete it, while the rest of your design remains untouched. With a flexible history tree, you have the option to move features up and down the tree, you still have feature history, it’s just not history-dependent. If (in a very rare case) you want history-dependency, there is the option turn it on.
In addition to this, IronCAD provides a range of direct editing tools that even work for imported data from other systems, meaning you can directly edit faces to make large changes to a model.
“We use about 20 seats of IronCAD. You can design in 3D way faster than normal programs, and it’s so easy that even a 15-year-old boy learns it within 2 days… ” – Johannes Schreiber – Robotunits
Manage Just One File
IronCAD lets you model an entire assembly in one file. This means you’re designing every part in the context of its assembly, sizing and positioning in relative to other parts so that everything fits perfectly the first time.
Design everything in one file, all your components are already in the right place fitting perfectly. There’s no need to mate components unless you’d like them to have movement, in which case just mate the ones with movement and leave the rest.
Award-Winning TriBallTM
The TriBall is one of the most powerful and useful CAD tools in the world. Move, copy, pattern, and link features, parts, and assemblies all in 3D with a few clicks. Push and pull to make precise changes in seconds, and create an entire assembly in one file. It’s 3D modeling the way it should be. Get to know the award-winning TriBall and see why it’s one of the most loved tools in the mechanical engineering CAD industry.
Stay in 3D Longer
In traditional CAD software, you usually start a model by creating or selecting a plane, then creating a sketch on that plane, and then creating a 3D shape from that sketch (like an extrude, spin, sweep, loft, etc.).
IronCAD lets you stay in 3D longer, giving you a better overall perspective on your design. There’s far less need to go into 2D sketches, which keeps you designing and working in 3D. You still have the option to go into a 2D sketch whenever you like, but staying in 3D helps you keep your mind on the design.
In IronCAD, you skip these steps. They are still available for you if you want them, but you don’t need them. For example, simply drag and drop a shape into place, it now has a sketch plane and cross-section already drawn for you, you can edit them at any stage, but you skipped the boring (and unnecessary) process of individually creating them.
No Constraints
There’s no need to mate/constrain every part — they’re designed together, so they’re already in the right place. When you have a moving part, simply apply the constraint to that part of the model, skipping all the other constraints necessary in traditional 3D CAD. But if you want to design that way, IronCAD CAD Software is all about flexibility — you still have the option to save files externally if you need to.
The only parts that need to be constrained are ones that have specified movement (like a wheel or lever). For everything else, you can completely skip the mates and constraints, which saves a considerable amount of time compared to traditional methods.
Save Time With 3D Catalogs
Using the IronCAD 3D catalogs, you can model fast. This means getting ahead of your competitors and getting to market more quickly with tools that skip many of the tedious steps in traditional 3D CAD. IronCAD’s drag and drop catalog system is your 3D palette for useful CAD data. Whether it’s useful parts, features, tools, materials, animations, and more, you can drag and drop them in to save them and out to use them at any time. Get far more return on investment for every minute you spend designing.
Experience the IronCAD CAD Software difference today by trying a free, fully-functional trial of the IronCAD Design Collaboration Suite, including IRONCAD, IRONCAD INOVATE, IRONCAD DRAFT, and IRONCAD COMPOSE, as well as IronCAD’s powerful Design Extensions and catalogs.