Drawing and drafting have an important role in human development from the very beginning of civilizations, it makes concepts easier to understand through pictorial representation, and this led to the development of the “art of engineering”. Drafting is a way of using pictures and symbols to present concepts, ideas or views while drawing is a pictorial representational of any real-world object or thing. To ease drawing and drafting in digital form, many organizations launched different software and the two most famous software are CATIA and AutoCAD. Let’s compare these two and find out the best for users according to their needs.
CATIA can be understood as an all in one computer-aided design (CAD) software to build models and structures of different objects. It was developed by Dassault Systemes. Initially, it was released in 1982 and its stable version came on the market in 2020. It is available for Windows and Unix Operating systems. It is used in different fields like aerospace, mechanical, electrical, automotive, electronics, shipbuilding etc.
Advantages of CATIA
- It has advanced tools for surfacing and 3d modelling.
- It has the functionalities to perform simulations of any product.
- It allows the calculation of life cycle management.
- It allows customization using a C++ programming language.
Disadvantages of CATIA
- It does not support Mac operating systems.
- The price of CATIA is higher compared to AutoCAD.
- It does not have multilingual capabilities.
AutoCAD is computer software which helps in drafting and designing different types of computer applications. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design. It was developed by Autodesk. It is compatible with different operating systems like Windows, MacOS, iOS etc. It was first released in 1982 and its stable version was released in 2021. It is available in many languages. It provides robust tools for easing the work of designing.
Advantages of AutoCAD
- It comes with advanced features which help in the accurate and precise designing of civil infrastructures.
- It allows importing files from other platforms to work on pre-built designs.
- It allows to easily share files without any data loss to multiple parties simultaneously.
- Calculation of Area, Center of Gravity, Mass, Volume etc is very easy.
- It provides enhanced image tracing functionality which helps in converting handmade designs to digital designs.
Disadvantages of AutoCAD
- It is not suitable for Building Information Modelling (BIM).
- It supports limited file formats to import into this software.
- It is heavy software which requires high memory and disk storage.
Following is a table of differences between CATIA and AutoCAD:
|
CATIA |
AutoCAD |
|
| 1. | It can be understood as computer software which is used for drafting, surfacing, 3d modelling etc in different industries. | It can be understood as computer-aided design software which is used in construction, designing, and drafting 3d models. |
| 2. | It was developed by Dassault Systemes. | It was developed by Autodesk. |
| 3. | It supports Windows but does not support Mac operating systems. | It supports Windows as well as Mac operating systems. |
| 4. | It is expensive as compared to AutoCAD. | It is a cheaper software as compared to CATIA. |
| 5. | It is not available for mobile platforms. | It is available for mobile devices also. |
| 6. | It supports only the English language. | It supports many languages like English, Polish, Dutch etc. |
| 7. | It has a white user interface by default which can be customized. | By default, it has a black user interface. |
| 8. | It comes with advanced mould design tools. | It lacks mould designing tools. |