Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) introduced its new 2D and 3D design and engineering software lineup for manufacturers of all sizes seeking to digitally design, visualise and simulate their products before they are built. The tight technology integration offered by Autodesk Inventor 2011 software and the complete Autodesk Digital Prototyping software portfolio helps enable designers and engineers to compete more effectively and do more work in house.
"Over the last several years, Digital Prototyping workflows have torn down historic barriers to innovation - time, money, distance, language - and helped foster manufacturing teams in which designers, engineers, marketers and end customers collaborate continuously from concept to production," said Robert "Buzz" Kross, senior vice president, Manufacturing Industry Group at Autodesk.
"Autodesk's 2011 product lineup makes huge strides in technology integration and productivity, extending the benefits of Digital Prototyping to even more small and large manufacturers seeking to make better products."
Autodesk enhanced its specialised tools for product development professionals focused on conceptual design, design visualisation, engineering and manufacturing disciplines, and at the same time, the company embedded key functionality from these tools within its core Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical design and engineering software.
New direct manipulation capabilities in Inventor 2011 software fundamentally improve the mechanical design process, helping accelerate design times as compared with Inventor 2010 software by approximately 40 percent on common tasks such as assembly modeling. Inventor 2011 software also incorporates Autodesk's leading design visualisation capabilities within the CAD application so users can better conceptualise and communicate designs with clients. New shading, lighting and material properties give users a photo-realistic representation of their designs, with Inventor software rendering designs as the user works.
"We have relied on Inventor software to create digital prototypes of our tooling and machinery products for nearly 10 years," said George Radcliffe, manufacturing engineer for Park Manufacturing.
"Inventor 2011 enhances our 3D design and engineering process on many fronts. The real-time performance of the new visualisation graphics engine gives us a surprising leap forward in output capability for design communication and marketing purposes. With 2011, we can easily create impressive rendered images with a combination of quality and speed that was impossible to achieve with Inventor 2010."
Other highlights of Inventor 2011 include:
- Simulation
With added frame analysis, users can test responses of frame models to gravity and other loads and record animations of displacement and stress results. The software guides users through the steps required to define the best testing scenario, making simulation more accessible to CAD users.
- Tooling
Inventor Tooling 2011 improves performance for a number of key operations by more than 50 percent, supports dynamic simulation of mold assemblies and helps enable users to automatically generate the mold core and cavity for a broader range of plastic parts, whether using native Inventor or imported files.
- Design Automation
Inventor iLogic technology is now fully integrated into Inventor 2011, dramatically simplifying rules-based design. The new iCopy feature enables customisation of commonly used assemblies by automating the process of copying and positioning similar components.
- Freeform Shape Modeling
Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor 2011 is a new product that integrates freeform shape-modeling capabilities in the Inventor parametric modeling environment.
Along with Inventor software, new applications within the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping offer powerful capabilities spanning conceptual design, engineering and manufacturing workflows.
- AutoCAD Electrical 2011 software helps electrical controls designers to quickly create control system designs and more easily access extensive catalog information for large electrical controls projects.
- AutoCAD Mechanical 2011 software's streamlined design environment gives users vastly improved access to power dimensioning functionality, which automatically aligns part dimensions with the rest of the drawing properties, without ever opening a dialog box.
- Autodesk Algor Simulation 2011 mechanical simulation tools now feature integration with Autodesk Moldflow 2011 software, allowing engineers to utilise Moldflow simulation results and the extensive Moldflow material database when performing structural simulations on plastic parts.
- Autodesk Alias 2011 family -- Alias Sketch, Alias Design, Alias Surface and Alias Automotive delivers surfacing capabilities supported by industry-leading sketching, modeling and visualisation tools. New Autodesk Alias Sketch software's unique hybrid paint and vector workflow helps creative professionals transform ideas into compelling design iterations more quickly.
- Autodesk Inventor Publisher makes its commercial debut after its recent Technology Preview on Autodesk Labs. The easy-to-use software for creating compelling product documentation helps enable manufacturers to provide their customers with clearer and more comprehensive technical instructions by leveraging the same digital model used in the design to manufacturing process.
- Autodesk Moldflow 2011 software helps users validate and optimise plastic part and injection mold designs before manufacturing begins. Users can now easily export their Moldflow simulation results.
- Autodesk Showcase 2011 visualisation software to expose defects and see how the part will look in real life, helping to assess part quality and make better design decisions.
- Autodesk Vault 2011 family, a workgroup solution for managing the complete digital prototype, now features a new visual experience for graphically mapping Vault information directly to Inventor models to streamline workflows, fundamentally improve the reporting and decision-making process, and accelerate model selection and interaction.
