Autodesk relayed their new Product Suites today on their special media webcast. Here is the breakdown of the Autodesk Product Design Suite which is geared toward the Manufacturing centric users.
Suite Software Workflows
The 2013 Product Design Suite focuses on adding in application tools as well as workflow launcher of specified design tasks. First introduced to the Autodesk Labs site, the Product Design Suite launcher has been included and can be customized depending on your type of work you do.
In application export commands for Showcase and 3Ds Max from Inventor have also been included under the Suite Workflow flyout in the Application Menu. Assembly constraints are now also supported in this software workflow.
Changes to the Suites - this year care was given to enhance the Product Designer and Large Assembly Designer's life. Focused tools were added for each persona of design.
Standard Suite Additions
Inventor!!! (Standard never had it before)
Premium Suite Additions
Inventor Routed Systems (Upgraded from Inventor Series), this subset of Inventor Professional focuses on only the Tube and Pipe and Cable and Harness portion of the Professional Suite to be in line with the addition of AutoCAD Electrical for interopability between the two programs. (video later in the post).
Ultimate Suite Addtions
Large Assembly Review
This is perhaps one of my favorit new additions to the suite, primarily because it just makes sense to have it here. With Navisworks Simulate, users can do VERY fast loading of large datasets for inspeciton and planning. You can even do 4D time studies for asset installtion in facilities and the Navisworks viewer (Navisworks Freedom) is a free download to share what you have done in this program with stakeholders outside the engineering department or even the company in a very fast light, and complete 3D model. More to come on this in the coming weeks on the blog. For now check out some YouTube goodness here (Naivsworks Simulate Intro)
Inventor / AutoCAD Electrical Interopability
Last year I reported on the demise of the Inventor Routed Systems package (as far as being sold, not on functionality which still resides in Professional). This year it seems to have made a comeback after its year long hiatus from licensing. Now, last year I put it on a tombstone to showcase this, so only fitting, I do it to show its rebirth. Behold, Zombie Routed Systems!
Now this part of the interopability is not new to 2013, in fact you have been able to do it for a couple years now. This is really a highlight though since now you don't have to purchase Electrical seperately anymore. Essentially you can share an XML file back and forth between the two softwares. Electrical will read the XML and run the point to point wiring to connectors automatically, and Inventor can read it to automatially run and route 3D wires to connectors all the while making sure Reference Designators, wiretypes, and components are accounted for. In fact I would argue that this was one of the first and best integrations of the Inventor product to and AutoCAD one, shame it wasn't in last years Suite.
In the coming weeks we will dig into the new products and Suite Workflows more and don't forget that if you want assistance in learning these new programs, we do have learning materials and public classes available at our network of training centers (largest amount in North America) as well as web based classes for those outside our normal areas for both Electrical, Navisworks, and the other suite products.
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