Comment by areoform
3 days ago
I have a SolidWorks Students License™©® and it's the most frustrating piece of software I have ever used. Links to tutorials don't work. And when you do manage to get one, the tutorials are designed for older versions of solidworks and point to buttons that have been moved / don't exist where the tutorial tells you to look in the 2025 version.
The UI is the inverse of whatever intuitive is. It's built on convention after convention after convention. If you understand the shibboleths (and I'm guessing most people take a certified course by a trainer for it?), then it's great, but if you don't, it really sucks to be you (i.e. me).
I would LOVE to try out what you've built, but I am afraid that if the model misinterprets me or makes a mistake, it'll take me longer to debug / correct it than it would to just build it from scratch.
The kinds of things I want to make in solidworks are apparently hard to make in solidworks (arbitrarily / continuously + asymmetrically curved surfaces). I'm assuming that there won't be too many projects like this in the training dataset? How does the LLM handle something that's so out of pocket?
If it helps, I switched from SOLIDWORKS to Onshape many years ago and the latter has only improved since. The multi-user editing is first class and personally I find the user interface more intuitive (plus, web based = Linux support). I don't need the advanced simulation, analysis, etc. features that SW has over Onshape... yet.
Personally not familiar with curved models, but my understanding is that surface modelling with lofts guided by spline contours might be the way to go. Not sure if SW has those features.
I like Plasticity (I paid for a studio license), but it doesn't have any sort of lossless editing or timeline features, etc.
I love SW and think it's one of the better parametric solid modeling CAD packages out there. It is tough to learn, though. I recommend taking a class or finding a mentor to guide you and answer your questions.
FWIW, back in the day I tried solidworks, inventor, pro e, catia, solid edge, anything I could get my hands on. I struggled to find something that would click with me, thinking it was the software that's the problem. It really wasn't -- the mechanical design problem space is vast and the requirements are demanding, which makes for solutions with a certain level of complexity. I had entered with a lot of hidden assumptions and found it frustrating when the software required me to address them, and on top of that, there's just a lot of stuff to figure out. It helps to have someone around to help when you get stuck.. that was what got me over the hump. At this point I've been using solidworks almost every day for about 15 years, and it only fills me with blind rage every few days, which I think is pretty good for professional software.
Solidworks and a lot of CAD software is just a GIANT amalgamation of the original software and the work of all of the tiny companies they keep acquiring (basically whosoever built a plugin/competitor for their stuff).
It's most likely so poorly set up that I finch considering working in that domain now.
Source: I've had friends who've worked there. Background: we studied computational engineering, but I got a non-domain software job. Sometimes I feel I learnt more being away from that sort of work.
Welcome... To The Club!
And yea, you should find a course from a training firm rather than official documentation. It sucks and theres a reason Fusion360 seems to be really eating into the market after 5-10yrs.
Long time SolidWorks user here with experience in other programs. Frankly, SolidWorks is one of the easiest pieces of CAD software to use, being much more flexible in how things are done compared to a lot of other programs. That said, it is incredibly powerful software, and while someone can learn how to use it in a week, it takes months or years to be actually proficient.
My big tip if you can't find a button there is always the search bar. Just search the command you are looking for, it will even show you where the button is located for next time. That said, they don't move things around that much from year to year, I'm surprised if you can't find a command in a tutorial made in the last 10 years.
The features you are talking about sound like you want to be doing surfacing, which is definitely a more advanced modeling technique that I only recommend trying to learn once you understand the basics and can predict how the software wants you to model something.
Not the OP but is Solidworks similar to other professional software in that keyboard shortcuts give you a big leg up vs point and click ? I would imagine learning those would be better long term than a GUI that might change
Would you be willing to teach me? Or, take 30 minutes to walk through what I'm not getting?
Would you be willing to bake me some cookies? Or, spend 30 minutes making cookies for my consumption?
1 reply →
Solidworks is not even close to the least intuitive CAD program out there. My preference is Autodesk Inventor, which I find to be far easier for beginners to pick up. Fusion 360 is supposedly excellent these days as well. For a real nightmare, try Siemens NX.
as someone who made their living on f360 for many years I urge newcomers to avoid it. Vendor lock-in as much as possible, along with constant rug-pulls and price-increases. DLC-ification of once-included features, and just shit corporate maneuvers abound.
If your work allows for it, go for freecad or better yet openscad if you're pursuing this new concept of LLM design. onshape is nice feature-wise but then you're just trusting a different group that has an even tighter grip around your unmentionables due to the saas nature.
To be fair : the constant betrayal of tech companies in my life has just pushed me a bit further towards local-only than most; I don't really condemn the -as-a-service industry, they've just been the first to pull rugs and then shrug their shoulders when their (usually already dwindling) customer base is screwed.
I genuinely envy everyone who thinks SolidWorks is frustrating to use.
I had the pleasure to use both SolidWorks and Vivado professionally over the last decade and boy was solidworks fun in comparison.
Every time you put in a query, LAD takes a snapshot of the current model and stores it, so you can revert whatever changes the LLM makes if it messes up.
> I have a SolidWorks Students License and it's the most frustrating piece of software I have ever used.
Yeah, you need to invest time to learn it. I do understand the frustration when learning something new. I get it. However, your sentiment on this isn't leading to the correct conclusion. A piano or or a guitar are frustrating instruments until you get past a certain level of mastery.
Engineering tools do carry with them a degree of complexity. There are reasons for this. Some are, of course, better than others. I started in the dark ages with AutoCAD, then, over time, learned used ACAD 3D, Inventor, Pro-E, Solidworks, Fusion 360, Onshape, Siemens NX and CAM tools like Camworks and Mastercam; all in professional commercial, industrial or aerospace (NX) settings. I would rank Solidworks way up there in usability and functionality.
Of course, this isn't to say that there are lots of things that could be improved in Solidworks (and all of the CAD/CAM programs I mentioned).
Sometimes online resources like YouTube can feel (and actually be) really disjointed. Get yourself a good book on Solidworks and go through it front to back. At some point it will click. From that point forward it will feel like an extension of your brain. This is no different from learning to play the piano. When I use Solidworks I don't think about the UI, I just work on my designs.
This is good advice:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SolidWorks/comments/1gjfbwz/comment...
Good PDF course to start with:
https://my.solidworks.com/solidworks/guide/SOLIDWORKS_Introd...
And, of course, you can buy a full course for less than $10:
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?src=ukw&q=solidworks