The Inventor LT program (a limited version of Autodesk Inventor) come to its end as a free technology preview software. See the Autodesk Labs blog post.
The “graduated” commercial version of Inventor LT 2010 will be available only to customers in USA+Canada (plus Australia). There will be two options: AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite 2010 (notice the name; bundled with AutoCAD LT) and Autodesk Inventor LT 2010 (standalone). There should be special purchase options for those who have participated in the Technology Preview phase. Unfortunately only for those in North America and the Aussies.
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.
There is a new and amazing information announced publicly to the Inventor Fusion project.
The official Inventor Fusion web site now lists the functionality of the upcoming Inventor Fusion application. The important feature of this tool is the integration (fusion) of the direct history-less modelling with the classic feature- and history-based parametric modelling. So you should able to start a parametric model, perform some quick changes using the quick and intuitive direct modelling, and put the resulting model back to the parametric state.
This sounds very promising, especially with all the 3D CAD formats supported in Inventor. Autodesk Inventor and the Inventor Fusion technology preview should eventually merge into a single product.
There are also several videos presenting the Inventor Fusion functionality. Worth watching.
One of the new technologies just introduced on the annual Autodesk University 2008 is the Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview. The more complicated name, the less complicated user interface used in the Inventor Fusion. The new user interface used for object selection and direct modeling seems to be really minimal and could speed up working in Inventor. It will also use photorealistic visualization in the editing mode. It is about time for such functions in high-end CAD software as every 3D computer game can already do so.
Using the new CATIA 5 Translator module from Autodesk Labs you can directly read CATIA V5 models into Inventor 2009.
There are several general-use translators available on the market. But all these translators are very expensive to buy, or quite inconvenient to use as a web service. And in all these translators, the CATIA translator is the most expensive – probably for licensing reasons.
Autodesk has probably found a way around the licensing limitations. The CATIA V5 Translator is available for free for all Inventor and Inventor LT users. You can install and use the CATIA translator to open .CADPart and .CADProduct files in Inventor 2009 – either in the 32-bit or in the 64-bit version.
Yesterday, one of my collegues had problems importing his old 3D DWG model into Inventor 2009 on his new workstation. He was sure this or similar model went fine before.
The reason of the problem was simple. This DWG file originated in Mechanical Desktop. And for importing MDT models into Inventor you need Mechanical Desktop installed on the same PC. As he did not installed MDT with new Inventor 2009 (it is not a part of the installation), MDT files could not be imported. Simple installation of MDT has fixed the problem.
It is important Autodesk will keep Mecanical Desktop (even when it is no longer developed) available for future Inventor versions.
Last weekend I have met my school-mate Sergio who is currently working with Solidworks. It was a good opportunity to play a favourite “who is better” game. He proudly presented the new Solidworks 2009 (“SWX 2009″ as he writes) but I have seen amazingly many similarities to the Inventor 2009 version.
Performance – I cannot judge as he was using a different hardware configuration than me, but Sergio has admitted that the promised performance gain is not that great
New icons – same as in Inventor: not that much important for us users
64-bit version – Inventor has it already
SpeedPak – assembly simplification – looked interesting, in Inventor we are using LOD and other similar functions
Geometry sensors in assemblies – it is called AutoLimits in Inventor (already there)
BOM in assemblies – Inventor has it for many releases
Filters in BOM – Inventor has it
Dual dimensions – Inventor has it
Assemblies larger than 1000m – I doubt many designers will need it but I have tried it in Inventor and it works there, no problems
CircuitWorks – electrical functionality – some of the functions are there in Inventor Pro, much more is in AutoCAD Electrical
Ribbon cables – already there in Inventor Pro 2009
There seems to be nothing new about the DWG. DWG file format compatibility is still very limited in Solidworks. And although Sergio claimed it works for him in most cases, we have digged out a couple of DWG files which were loaded incompletely into Solidworks’ DWG Editor but loaded smoothly into Inventor.
As published earlier, Autodesk was developing a “plastic” version of Inventor. Now the first semi-official information about Autodesk Inventor Mold is being published.
The Autodesk LA Forum blog on Inventor (by Jeferson Stutz, in Portugese) reveals the information - see the original post. It is not clear whether Inventor Mold will come only to Latin America or whether it will be released worldwide. The Mold version will probably by a new, separate version of Inventor – not an additional part of any existing Suite pack (Inventor Professional).
Autodesk Labs has published a new application – Advanced Simulation Technology Preview. It extends the possibilities of the analysis functionality in Inventor 2009. This program is based on the PlassoTech technology acquired by Autodesk.
The Advanced Simulation application reads Inventor 3D models and performs linear and modal analysis of these models. You can change geometrical parameters of the model. The contacts in Inventor assemblies are automatically detected.
You can specify load forces for your models (Structural Constraint, Structural Load and Body Force). The simulation then calculates the output 3D mesh and displays the results.
Posted by 3dcad 
Posted by 3dcad 
Posted by 3dcad 
