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.
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:
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:
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.
Autodesk recently puts the electronic documentation of its CAD software on the web. You can browse AutoCAD help files online in the same way as you do locally, the same applies to Revit and Civil 3D. All these resources are available on the web site docs.autodesk.com.
Unlike the other CAD products, Inventor documentation is downloadable only – you cannot browse it online. The CHM and PDF files which are normally in your Inventor Help folder can be downloaded by everyone.
Autodesk now officially supports Inventor (and AutoCAD and Revit and 3ds max) on Apple Mac. Great title, isn’t it?
And what about e.g. “Autodesk now officially supports Inventor on Acer computers“? Not so great? Any yet both these titles talk about the same thing.
The only support announced by Autodesk is the support for Inventor and AutoCAD running on Mac hardware, not on MacOS. And Intel Macs are just one brand of hundreds of IBM-PC-compatible computers. So if you forget Mac OS X, shell out some money for buying a Windows license, install and configure it on your Mac – yes, then you can run Inventor (plus there is the “Boot Camp” dual boot utility – it allows you to eventually return back to Mac OS).
If you take the fake Acer announcement, such announcement should make more fuss as there are definitely more users of Acer computers than Macs in the CAD area. But strange enough, the Mac-marketing sounds always so “sexy”.
Maybe you thought – like me – that a 3D printer which could produce 3D models by printing layers of plastics cost ten thousands of dollars. Well, not neccessarily.
A group of enthusiasts invented an “open source” 3D printer which you can build yourself. And it will cost you a mere 750 USD in parts (or 2.500 USD as a complete assembled version if you are lazy enough to not do it yourself). They call it “MakerBot“. This miracle uses the same technology – layered drops of melted plastic – as the commercial 3D printers. MakerBot can use the plastic materials ABS, HDPE or PLA. The maximum size of a 3D object it can print is 10 × 10 × 12 cm with the resolution of 0.085 mm.
From the software side, it understands the STL file format so you can directly use 3D parts from Inventor or AutoCAD.
And now an obvious question – if MakerBot can produce (“print”) really any 3D model, with its internal structures, can it also produce a … MakerBot?
The long awaited moment has arrived – Autodesk Inventor Fusion – is now available for download on the Autodesk Labs web (the original www.inventorfusion.com address is now redirected).
This technology preview version of Inventor Fusion is free and it is time-bombed to January 2010. It seems that it is not available for everyone – the download is limited to the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States (yes, Italy is there this time).
I am delighted that my blog posting Inventor Fusion – almost nuclear is listed as press coverage on the Fusion homepage. But back to the software.
The download is surprisingly small (178MB!, compare it to the 7GB of Inventor setup) and the installer runs smoothly. I have installed it on my Inventor machine but I think that Fusion does not require Inventor to be installed. In any case, Fusion is not an addon for Inventor, it is a separate piece of software which does not alter your existing Inventor installation (if any). I have tried the direct manipulation tools on some models and it seems to work right. The application interface is quite different, a little bit cryptic at the first glance, and you must change some of your habits to use it properly (e.g. mouse right press instead of click) but I agree that it allows to move forward very quickly. The transparent browser tree makes more space for your design on screen.
Full integration (“fusion”) of the parametric and direct modeling is still not there in this first version but the development is clearly going this way. A truly bi-directional fusion of these two methods will help a lot. I will be curious to test the combination of these methods on some larger and more complicated models. With the feature-free (history-free) editing methods working on any dumb solid, it also makes more sense now why Autodesk added all the import file formats to Inventor.
Inventor Fusion (developed for two years under the codename Freeway) is a very promising 3D CAD software which has good chances to change the way we use Inventor today. And I really hope Inventor Fusion functionality will eventually fuse into standard Inventor.
Yes, if you are a student, you can simply download the latest version of Inventor Professional 2010 (not any cracked version but an official license) from the Autodesk Student portal – students.autodesk.com.
This web offers not only Inventor but almost any Autodesk software for free. The only condition is to prove to be a student (have a university e-mail account or be invited from a school representative). I have not tested it myself (and my children are too small fo this) but it seems to work (as I have been told). It is good for technical students to have the latest versions of leading CAD software in their hands. It will be also easier for them to use the respective software in their first job.
In the United States, Autodesk now gives free licenses also to the unemployed designers. I don’t think the same program is available here in Italy (yet).
One of the new features of AutoCAD Inventor 2010 (still sounds oddly) is “dynamic licensing”. When you read the explanations, it appears to be a very complicated concept, especially in combination with the existing cascade licensing, but in fact it is not that complicated.
Basically, if you have network licenses of both Inventor Suite and Inventor Professional, you can start Inventor Professional and until you start the first “professional” function, your Inventor consumes only the plain “Suite” license. So this functionality simplifies the deployment of Inventor installations in your company (everyone can have InventorPro installed) and helps you save money on the more expensive “Pro” licenses. Of course all of that makes sense only if you are one of Autodesk’s big accounts with multiple Inventor and Inventor Professional network licenses.
The above mentioned “cascade licensing” works already in existing network installations – it applies to all “suite” licenses of Autodesk software and works like this: if you have e.g. AutoCAD Mechanical licenses and Autodesk Inventor licenses, starting AutoCAD Mechanical with no free Mechanical licenses will automatically pick the “next higher” free license – Inventor.
Posted by 3dcad 
Posted by 3dcad 
Posted by 3dcad 