3D software for Mac os

November 29, 2005 3:55 PM

3D Mechanical Design software for Mac OS?

Are there any decent 3D mechanical design parametric model programs out there that run on a Mac OS? I'm looking for the Mac equivalent to something similar to Solid Works, or Autodesk Inventor. Also if there is a better suited forum for this question.

posted by retro88 to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

This is a question that comes up a lot in core77.com's forums. Might want to check there for alternatives.

We're mostly mac-heads in our shop but the biggest reason the engineers run windows is for solidworks. Some have windows boxes dedicated just for that.
posted by Tacodog at 4:17 PM on November 29, 2005

Forgot to say, as far as we know there is no direct Solidworks competitor for the mac. We are hoping the new mactels next year will allow some sort of native windows emulation thing in os x, per the rumors flying about.
posted by Tacodog at 4:19 PM on November 29, 2005

Yeah, I have been looking for this too. I just finished writing a proposal to purchase a 3D cad package at work, and the first question to each supplier was "Are you planning a mac version?" (We run both windows and mac machines).

The short answer is there are none.

The longer answer is:

• Ashlar Vellum's Cobalt isn't too bad, though not up to the level of Solidworks.
• UGS has ported the Parasolid kernel that powers Solid Edge and Solidworks to the Mac. Same with the Pro/Engineer kernel. And Solidworks now offers a Mac native Viewer. Of course there's no mac version of Solidworks or Pro/E now, but it shows the companies might be planning one in the future.

posted by Popular Ethics at 9:07 PM on November 29, 2005