I just send a STEP file with my 2D drawings (in PDF format), and that seems to be standard practice. Do I enjoy SpaceClaim? Yes! Good luck, and let us know what you find out. I would think that once you learn it, it should be easy to use also? Would it be nice to use the software that everyone uses? Yes. I would suggest trying to get some insight from SolidWorks users, and ask if they find SolidWorks easy to use and productive. SolidWorks would probably look better on a resume if that's a consideration. I don't know how SolidWorks has changed since then, but I believe it was supposed to get better direct modelling capability. The SpaceClaim and SolidWorks sales reps will tell you the same thing, both have their pros and cons. Price was an issue, SolidWorks being way more money, especially after SpaceClaim discounted their price further. I was also more productive in SpaceClaim. I trialed SolidWorks and SpaceClaim at the same time (among others). I basically had a very similar experience to you. What's your experience dealing with the metal shop using SpaceClaim? Do you think the ease of use is worthwhile over the universality of SW? So I'd really like to save up and invest in a license but I'm worried that I'd be better off just sucking it up and spending $5k on SolidWorks since it's the de facto standard. Plus it has native import/export of SketchUp files so that's great for pulling in all those computer models that are out there. It was by far my favorite of the ones I tried out. A few months ago I tested out SpaceClaim, Solid Edge, IronCAD, Bricsys, and some other program and felt immediately at home and somewhat productive in SpaceClaim. SpaceClaim is cheaper, but it's still a large chunk of money so I've been debating on which to invest in. However, pretty much every shop I've run into uses SolidWorks and there's a huge ecosystem of 3rd party tools that only integrate with it.

I've been using SketchUp off and on since 2006 so I'm pretty ingrained in the direct modeling mindset so I've really been liking Spaceclaim.

Spaceclaim price list