Unexpected gift from Autodesk

Instead of the expected usual upgrade to Inventor 2012 (Inventor Professional in our case) we have received a box with many new AutoCAD application we haven’t used or bought before – just a free gift. Thank you, Autodesk.

The new Inventor Suite is called “Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate” and it contains: Inventor Professional, Alias Design, AutoCAD Mechanical, Autodesk Showcase, Vault, 3ds Max Design, SketchBook Designer, Autodesk Mudbox. From these, I like the most the 3ds Max Design as I have always tried to make compelling presentations of my 3D models and Max has much more options than Inventor Studio.

Not all applications from the Design Suite are localized. The installation is performed from a USB key, not from usual DVDs. You can choose which applications do you need to install. E.g. I have skipped the Mudbox software.

And, BTW – Inventor 2012 is great! I like the “gesture” menus.

Inventor and Solidworks compared – who is the winner?

 

I have received a PDF document with a deep comparison study performed by TechniCom Group. This study is dated August 2010 so it must have been done quite recently.

The TechniCom whitepaper compares Inventor Professional 2011 and Solidworks Premium 2010 in 15 functional areas (161 individual questions), using a group of experts for each software product.

As an Inventor user and as a participant of frequent disputes with my school-mate Sergio (he is a Solidworks fan) I am very proud that Inventor has won this comparison in astonishing 15 cases (of 15)!

They were comparing the functions included in the following packages, with no third party add-ins – i.e. Inventor 2011 Professional Suite with Inventor Fusion, Autodesk Vault for Workgroups, AutoCAD Electrical, Inventor Publisher, and Showcase vs. SolidWorks 2010 Premium, SolidWorks Workgroup PDM, SolidWorks PhotoView 360, and 3DVIA.

The 15 key areas included in the comparison were (and the point score for Inventor vs. SWX):

1. Part Modeling (2.8 > 2.5)
2. Assembly Modeling (3.1 > 3.0)
3. Simulation (2.6 > 2.4)
4. Mixed Modeling – parametric+direct (3.2 > 2.7)
5. Plastic Part Design (3.6 > 2.3)
6. Sheet Metal Design (2.9 > 2.8)
7. Interoperability (3.4 > 2.6)
8. Documentation/Drawings (2.2 > 1.8)
9. Visualization (3.4 > 2.9)
10. Design Automation (3.4 > 2.9)
11. Mechanotronics (2.3 > 1.7)
12. Mold Design (3.0 > 2.1)
13. Routed Systems (3.0 > 2.1)
14. BIM – Building Information Modeling (2.3 > 0.8)
15. Data Management (3.0 > 2.7)

You preferences and weights for the individual areas may vary, so you can perform your own comparision, but this is what experts are saying.

Sergio, do you listen ?

Inventor file translators – overview

Autodesk Inventor is known for its open approach to foreign file formats. It includes translators for import and export of many popular file formats used in the mechanical industry – you don’t to buy any additional software to read and write STEP, IGES, Parasolid, Catia files, etc. Importing foreign 3D models is a rather common and frequent job – at least I do it almost daily.

Mark Flayler from Imaginit has published a clearly organized table of all translators available in the current versions of Inventor, including Inventor 2011. Download this PDF file from his blog.

Inventor 2011 with Fusion propulsion released

Inventor 2011

It’s here! The new Inventor 2011 has been released exactly one year and one day after the version 2010. The version 2011 looks like one of the bigger upgrades in the Inventor history – it is packed with very interesting new features.

I will mention some of the new functions which I most like.

If you have a good graphics card, you can work in a fully rendered 3D scene – all with shadows, bumps and reflections (see the picture above). Most editing operations can be performed with direct manipulations and small in-place menus which were probably taken from Alias. This has the potential for a single most productivity increase function in Inventor 2011. These direct manipulations do not mean the direct editing which is part of the Inventor Fusion – now included in Inventor 2011 and integrated into its part editor workflow. You can make smooth surface models with the NURBS editing functions of Alias Design for Inventor. Simulations now include frame constructions and mold forms. Inventor uses a common rendering material library with AutoCAD and Revit. You can work with CATIA V5 and V4 files in Inventor 2011. iLogic is a product configurator with very flexible functions for making similar models just by changing a couple of parameters.

You can find more new functions in the version 2011 in the What’s new document by Autodesk.

3D electronic parts for Inventor

If you design electronics or electromechanical assemblies, you might find usefull a library of free 3D electronic parts available for download at CADforum. Recently I have searched for a model of a TO39 package and found this rather large library of transistors, diodes, capacitors and IC packages. The models are clean and easy to modify.

See:
Electronic parts

Inventor Fusion in Inventor 2011

So it seems that the Fusion technology will be included in all versions of Inventor 2011. What I have heard (off the record), Inventor 2011 will be a pretty interesting version with lots of nice features. I can’t wait to test it – new versions come usually in March so it won’t take long hopefully.

Sikorsky is the new Inventor 2011

The new version of Autodesk Inventor – Inventor 2011 – is codenamed “Sikorsky”. Beta testing of Inventor 2011 is now open at beta.autodesk.com. You can take part on this testing by registering at the beta site. Version 2011 can be expected as usually in March/April term in the year 2010. It will be interesting to see if and how Autodesk includes Inventor Fusion in the Inventor version 2011.

If you want to influence future functions in Inventor, you can vote in the Inventor ballot on the AUGI site.

Subscription Advantage Pack for Inventor 2010

The recently introduced Subscription Advantage Pack for Inventor 2010 subscription users adds a couple of new tools and functions to your Inventor 2010. These new functions will be probably included directly in Inventor 2011. Do not install the Pack on a localized version of Inventor.

Among the new functions there are e.g. chain dimensions and dimensioning styles, text islands in hatches, the Block Browser, element suppression in simulations, global material assignments in simulations, etc.

See many of the news function in this Youtube video:

Add a language to your Inventor and AutoCAD

You may have noticed that AutoCAD 2010 and Inventor 2010 now offer language selection during the installation. I was never sure about the true purpose of this selection as it constantly shows Italian (or English in English versions) only.

It seems that this option is prepared for multiple language installations using installable “Language Packs” but these language packs were not introduced (yet?) in Europe.

You can learn lots of information from the following Autodesk “Language Pack” video:

Service Pack 1 for Inventor 2010

A little bit earlier this year – compared to version 2009 – Autodesk has released the first Service Pack for Inventor 2010. SP1 will patch any Inventor version (Suite or Professional) in any language. There is a separate SP1 for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Inventor 2010.

As always, read the README before you install the SP – e.g. it recommends to switch off Vista UAC for the installation.

You can download the SP1 for Inventor 2010 here.