Used it quite a lot and it "can" be very good. In terms of what its capable of its very well featured (package dependant of course) and by adding a few libraries yourself (tube sizes for instance) it can be a very usefull tool. Its very easy to get into if you have ever done 3d modelling before (I came from Autocad 2d and 3d and Inventor and picked it up in my spare time once I worked the workflow out) and has loads of little tricks along the way to make drawing production easier or to incorporate some form of PLM.
However, I would also say its the single most annoying program I have ever used (shouldnt really say that as we got sponsored by them for a Uni project
). The main problem surrounds its complete lack of intelligence concerning the relations it uses and the way that it is soooo easy to make a model completely useless by making simple changes to either the part concerned or a related part in an assembly and the way that you can happily be drawing up sketches to base your parts/assemblies on only for one relation to either send the whole sketch mental (extending arcs is a favourite for this). Not so bad you might say but it can be VERY selective as to just how far you can undo things and normally picks this point to decide you cannot undo what sent the drawing/model mental in the first place. You do sort of learn to get around it (mainly by fixing points) but its a major problem that never goes away. The other main problem is how it deals with big assemblies, especially legacy assemblies from previous versions of the package. This is somethng I have never managed to sort out (though admittedly I have never had any backup from solidworks/a supplier and have never done any PLM courses) and they can be extremely unstable/prone to not rebuilding/updating unless you are extremely disciplined with file structures (I try to stay away from using standalone libraries of standard parts due to this, its just easier to save the same part again to reduce problems and fallovers), not to mention incredibly heavy on the hardware you are using (you REALLY do need to follow their specs or preferably improve on them if you intend on running large assemblies). The biggest problem in this area that I have found though is large legacy assemblies which appear to need you to open EVERY single part and save it in the latest version file format if you want to ensure you can reliably open and save any changes on such an assembly (I had a very large race car assembly to use for a project recently and it just plain fell over every single time I tried to save the sub and main assemblies unless I opened every part, saved it and then went and rebuilt the assemblies as half of the relations would dissapear although admittedly the filing system was bloody aweful!). The final problems I have with the package is the way it is so unhelpful when an error occurs (you can literally spend half an hour finding a relation that hasnt updated properly or has inadvertently (read hasnt actually but the program doesnt like it!) over defined the sketch as you just cant find it some times) and the way that some of the commands work which positively slow your workflow (the convert entities function is particularly irritating in this respect). Oh, one final point that I would make thats based purely on the fact that I learned to do drawings on Autocad is that its quite stifling what you can actually do with production drawings and various issues surround the parametrics system that it uses for BOM's etc but from my experience thats something common to all 3d packages. And a final point while I think of it, the way the standard parts system works (fasteners etc) is crap, plain and simple as it saves these in a single folder and then gets awkward if you want to use the same fastener in a different assembly. Not a major problem as you can save it in a folder local to the project assembly but it never gives you the option to do that so you have to go round the houses opening the part and saving it elsewhere. Either that or Im doing something severely wrong.
So, sounds like a pap program and it really is the beign of my life when I use it but I must admit, the number of features it has and its capabilities over Autocad are pretty amazing and growing and as much as I hate it, I would be lost without a copy of it (though I always have Autocad handy for some work as its just the daddy lol). Add in the way that it seems to have matured into quite a stable product compared to its previously terrible stability problems (I still save EVERY TIME I do something interesting with a model though just in case
) and its actually an incredibly usefull product thats relatively cheap. Wether its better than Rhino, I cant tell you but I would struggle to justify any package other than Solidworks at the price point unless Inventor has moved on a lot since I last used it (5 years ago so it probably has!). One point that I do have to make in its favour though is the fact that quite a lot of Uni's seem to be using it so its probably easier to find people who have it come recruiting time although my recent experience with Uni students is that they are bloody hopeless at CAD and the methods used to make sure parts are modelled properly and file structures are maintained full stop so maybe not the be all and end all, just something to consider. HTH.
OOh, since someone mentioned it, there seem to be a lot of compatibility problems with it concerning importing parts from other packages and even standard compatibility file types like step, sat and iges. Basically it will frequently throw up errors within the parts you import that, without knowing what the base parts should be like in great detail can be incredibly hard to remove/fix despite the programs inbuilt repair function. Its not a major problem if you dont mind putting up with the odd error in an assembly (I hate errors with a passion so this really riles me lol) but it can be very frustrating if the part in question goes completely tits up.
