TurboCad vs Solidworks – Which is the Better 3D Program

If you want to start creating designs for 3D models or drawings for various items, Turbocad and Solidworks are two popular choices.

These are two popular computer-aided design pieces of software but if you are stuck trying to figure out which one to use, this comparison blog can help. Here, we’re going to go over the different features of each product, how easy they are to use, and what support is available and show you which one is better.

Finding the Best 3D Modeling Software

3D modeling software is now an essential tool for a lot of industries. Engineers and designers are actually making the most of these advanced software tools, useful for many applications, from simulation to manufacturing. We have already made CAD software selections for many diverse applications on the blog. In this blog post, we are going to focus on the best design software that will help you to give shape to your technical parts for mechanical engineering projects. We will also see all the benefits of 3D visualization and 3D printing for engineering projects.

The benefits of 3D printing for your projects

If you read our blog, you should know it now: 3D printing is an amazing manufacturing method for both production and prototyping. 3D printing for mechanical engineering projects will allow you to make many modifications and iterations quite quickly and at a lower cost, which is very convenient for a prototyping process. Indeed, you will only have to use 3D modeling software and make all the modifications that you need to improve your 3D models step by step.

Using mechanical engineering software could allow you to work directly for production. You could even use various materials to design really complex parts. You could even use metal 3D printing as it is allowing to create really accurate, heat resistant and well-designed parts. It is for example used in the automotive industry but also for aeronautics and aerospace.  Additive manufacturing has a lot to offer to your company. To do so, modeling and simulating are essential and you will need 3D CAD software with advanced features.

3D visualization: An essential tool

Some 3D software solutions really have amazing rendering tools. Using visualization software or 3D modeling software with great visualization options can help you to get a better overview of your project. Indeed, getting a good and precise overview of a technical project before the manufacturing process will allow you to adjust and improve your parts efficiently. It is also a good method to correct the last errors that you have maybe missed while 3D designing.

You need to find the best way to design a concept and show it to your customers? 3D visualization is certainly the best method you could find! You can easily modify your model with your ideas, and the customer’s inputs. If you are working on mechanical projects, you certainly know that design and analysis are essential. That is why we recommend you to use software with great analysis features, or another software tool, entirely dedicated to simulation and analysis, such as ANSYS.

TurboCAD vs Solidworks

SolidWorks

SolidWorks is the perfect 3D modeling software for engineers and 3D designers. SolidWorks is a powerful and complete tool that will help designers and engineers to build innovative mechanical models. This 3D software has a user friendly interface and can be used for design, or to create machinery parts, for example. It will perfectly fit engineering students looking for a great tool to make mechanical drawings! We already saw in a previous post about car design programs that SolidWorks is used by automotive manufacturers and designers such as Automotive Performance Solutions–Roaring Forties and Trakka Pty. Limited.

Features Include:

• 3D Solid Modeling
• Large Assembly Design
• Sheet Metal Design
• Weldments
• Plastic and Cast Part Design
• Mold Design
• Electrical Cable Harness and Conduit Design
• Piping and Tubing Design
• CAD Impot/Export
• Conceptual Design
• Direct Model Editing
• Advanced Surface Design
• CAD Productivity Tools – Solidworks Utilities
• Automatic Drawing View Ceation and Update
  CAD Dimensioning, Tolerancing, and Annotations
• Bill of Materials (BOM)
• CAD Standards Checking and Drawing Comparison
• Revision Control
• CAD Search
• Advanced Surface Flattening
• Routing of Rectangular and Other Sections

TurboCAD Deluxe

 

This engineering software offers a lot of different features. It has an easy learning curve, but at the same time, is quite powerful. You will be able to work in both 2D and 3D, customize UI, and use tailored mechanical tools for engineering projects. Product designers will also benefit from rendering options available in TurboCAD Deluxe such as different materials and lighting. They will be able to produce photorealistic visualizations. Additionally, you will be able to easily share your work with other 3D software such as AutoCAD or SketchUp. Also, your 3D models can be prepared for 3D printing with TurboCAD Deluxe.

Features:

• Advanced Handle-Based Editing – Save time and draw more accurately, more quickly. TurboCAD provides handles for scaling, but also for rotating, moving and aligning objects. Plus, the totally flexible design of the Conceptual Selector allows users to customize any visual and editing parameters available in the application (eg. Move, scale, or rotate).
• Snaps & Geometric Alignment Aids – Draw lines quickly and let snap tools automatically align them with the closest center point, end point, or dozens of points you choose. Geometric alignment aids improve snap indicators.
• Window or Crossing Selection – Users can select objects with a mouse by using the Window or Crossing methods similar to AutoCAD®. Drag the mouse from left to right to invoke Window mode and select only objects that are entirely within the blue window. Drag the mouse from right to left to invoke Crossing mode and select only objects that touch the green Crossing window.
• 2D & 3D Text Editing – Create and edit text without leaving your drawing. Plus, choose from thousands of colors for text and background.
• Floating and Shaped Viewports – Create viewports of Model space in multiple Paper spaces. Edit your viewports by changing their shape or the layers that they display, with the ability to turn on/off layers per viewport. You can even render within a viewport.
• 3D Printer Optimized Optimized for 3D Printing – TurboCAD Deluxe both reads and writes STL files, the standard in 3D Printing world. TurboCAD Deluxe 3D printing features include surface simplification controls and a 3D Print button for 3D Systems printers.
• Multiple Drawings/Multiple Paper Space – Build multiple drawings, each with multiple paper spaces, with independent settings (grid units, etc.); then use tabs to quickly switch between paper spaces.
• Convert to Arcs Polyline – Convert a Bezier or Spline curve into a polyline composed entirely of circular arcs, or entirely of circular arcs and linear segments.
• Stellated Polygon – Create star-shaped polygon objects in two clicks! Adjust properties for a variety of starred shapes.
• Table Objects – Create a table on the fly, or import a table from DWG/DXF files.
• Fill Schedule Wizard – Create and fill the schedule table with drawing information.

ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES

• House Wizard – This big, time-saving tool creates a preliminary room-by-room design of a home, complete with closets, doors, garage and even decks!
• Intelligent Walls – Self-healing walls automatically join and intersect as you design in 2D or 3D. View wall dimensions with a single-click.
• Automatic Wall Openings – “Slide” doors, windows, arches or any shape to create “openings” in walls with linked 2D and 3D views. Even set vertical alignment properties. Dimensions display as doors and windows are inserted, showing the distance to and from the wall ends for easier, more precise placement. Plus, corresponding offset fields display in the Inspector Bar.
• Parametric Doors & Windows – Window and Door dimensions can be scaled to meet your design needs. Further customize with materials and colors.
• Hatch Patterns and Fills – Choose from over 70 hatch patterns (including colors) to visually identify various components of your drawing. Bitmaps, like your company logo, or gradient fills may also be used with transparency.
• Fractional Dimensions – Display fractions in stacked, diagonal, or in-line layout to accommodate your personal preferences.
• Point Marker Tool – Automatically number objects such as rooms, doors or windows. Great for creating legends, call outs, or simply mapping points and adding notes to your drawings.

MECHANICAL / 3D MODELING FEATURES

• 2D & 3D Boolean operations – Use two existing objects and combined, subtracted, intersected, or sliced to create a new object. Select multiple entities for addition or subtraction.
• Revolve – Move a 2D object around a revolution axis to create a 3D object.
• Extrude – Pull complex 3D models from simple 2D shapes.
• Sweeps – Extrude shapes along a path, perfect for drafting irregular objects.
• Chain Polyline – Chain Polyline allows for faster design by allowing you to connect intersecting objects or portions of objects into a single polyline which can be then extruded, revolved or swept.
• 3D Slice – TurboCAD makes it easy to slice, or divide, one or more 3D objects into new objects, by specifying the slicing plane. The 3D slice tool offers the ability to slice by line, by plane, by workplane, by surface, and by facet.
• Color Transparency – Screen back the color of an object in the foreground to display or emphasize hidden details in the background.
• Slot Tools – Three new slot tools for inventors, woodworking and furniture design include slot, circular slot, and circular slot by center and radius.

RENDERING

• GPU Accelerated Drawing & Rendering Engine – TurboCAD Deluxe uses the Redway3d Redsdk drawing and rendering engine to speed design work and create stunning presentations. This drawing engine utilizes the power of supported on-board GPU or graphics boards for faster panning, zooming, and orbiting. It also provides photorealistic and artistic rendering capabilities for presenting your designs.
• Lights and Luminances – Redsdk acts as both a real-time and a photo-realistic rendering engine. Therefore, it contains many lights and luminances used for different needs. Real-time draft mode rendering typically uses ‘centric lights’ point based light sources because the lighting cast is easy to calculate on graphics hardware. In the real world, these lights don’t exist at all. All real lights (luminances) have an emitting geometry such as a lamp filament or a neon tube. These are called ‘physical’ lights, or luminances.
• Physical lights produce smoother lighting than the one produced by centric lights.
• Design Director – Organize, access, and explore design alternatives easily in the Design Director Palette. Create layer templates, light templates, camera templates and powerful layers for use on different designs. Layer filters, that are .dwg compatible, help you manage large, complex drawings with ease. TurboCAD Deluxe layers are AutoCAD compatible, including a layers dialog based upon ‘Design Center’.
• Floating and Shaped Viewports – Create viewports of Model space in multiple Paper spaces. Edit your viewports by changing their shape or the layers that they display, with the ability to turn on/off layers per viewport. You can even render within a viewport.
• Multiple Drawings/Multiple Paper Space – Build multiple drawings, each with multiple paper spaces, with independent settings (grid units, etc.); then use tabs to quickly switch between paper spaces.
• Colors, Brushes, Bitmap and Gradient Fills, and Transparency – TurboCAD allows for hatch patterns and gradients to be layered with transparency. Custom bitmaps, such as your company logo, may be used as well. This empowers you to much more clearly and precisely communicate construction or assembly details.

INTEROPERABILITY

• Industry Standard Files Supported – TurboCAD Deluxe nearly 30 industry-standard formats making it easy to share your work or as a companion product.
• Improved AutoCAD DWG/DXF Read/Write filters – TurboCAD has always offered excellent compatibility with native AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT files. Filter enhancements offers improved file sharing with AutoCAD 2016.
• Xref Manager – Manage external references (Xrefs) like a parts catalog in your TurboCAD drawing. Xrefs can also be exported with DWG or DXF drawings for greater AutoCAD® file compatibility.
• SketchUp SKP Read/Write Filters – TurboCAD 2017 offers both Read and Write file filters based on the latest SketchUp APIs. Import detailed information from your SketchUp model into TurboCAD. Supplemental rendering, lighting and materials information is also imported. You can also convert your TurboCAD models into native SketchUp (.SKP) files for seamless import into Google SketchUp.
• 3D Printer Support – Export 3D models to STL file format for rapid prototyping with 3D printers.
• PDF Publishing – Save your drawing as PDF documents for easy sharing. Plus, export paper spaces, customize your fonts and define your paper widths and heights.

Final Words

If you compare various CAD Software services you shouldn’t just study their list of features and provided pricing plans. Consider that the software must be adjusted to your requirements and business so the more flexible their offer the better. Check TurboCAD Professional as another option for you 3D modeling tasks.