Inventor 2010 family
Autodesk has announced the new version of its flagship MCAD program Inventor 2010. Besides a couple of usual functional enhancements there are several surprises in the new release.
- The name – all “Suite” versions of Inventor 2010 are now called “AutoCAD Inventor”. This should indicate the inclusion of AutoCAD Mechanical in the Suite packages and many common features of AutoCAD and Inventor (DWG data format compatibility, user interface, the same parametrics…).
- The UI – the most noticeable change for existing users will be the new user interface – the context ribbon. You should be able to switch back to the old UI but do not condemn the ribbon before you try it – after all it seems to be really more effective and simple to use. In any case it looks much nicer. I like the no-document-open version of the ribbon with help and tutorial functions.
- New family members – Inventor Tooling Suite (Mold, for plastics) and Inventor LT Suite (with AutoCAD LT) are the new members of the AutoCAD Inventor 2010 family. Mold functions will be part of the Professional Suite. I don’t know what other “professional” functions (FEM, dynamics?) will be part of the Tooling Suite.
- Language packs – Inventor 2010 should be localizable by downloading additional language packs (e.g. like Vista). So we might be able to get the English Inventor and just download the Italian language pack for it.
Inventor 2010 should be available in April 2009.
