IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Autodesk MFG Tech Day in Lake Oswego, OR - Reception

Yesterday I arrived for the Autodesk Manufacturing Tech Day press event in Lake Oswego, OR just outside of Portland. There myself and a select group of technical media and bloggers will have the opportunity to participate in:  

• Detailed technical briefings on 2011 products including Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Alias family, Autodesk Moldflow, Autodesk Algor Simulation software and more;
• Autodesk Manufacturing’s 2011 product review program;
• Conversations with the product managers responsible for the development of the industry-leading applications constituting the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping

At the event reception, Chris Bradshaw and Buzz Kross talked about the impact of the FY11 products on the market in the way of interoperability.  He mentioned for the last three years Autodesk has been working under the hood of Inventor, Revit, 3ds Max, and AutoCAD to really streamline the interfaces and work flows for the interchange of data.Buzz mentioned that since his time at Autodesk when his company was acquired 15 years ago that this one "feels distinctly different" with the power and range of the FY11 products encompassing everything from concept design to the plastic analysis of the final molded products and the marketing and technical documentation of the design.  Here is a quick video clip of Buzz talking about another large aspect of the new product lines especially found in Inventor:

Autodesk Inventor vs AutoCAD Inventor Suite

Autodesk has announced a little while ago that they will now offer Autodesk Inventor as a standard Suite which they have done for years as well as now by itself without the AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical components.

Now why the new offering?  Well, it is a slightly lower cost than the standard AutoCAD Inventor Suite and is designed for the markets that really don't utilize ACAD in their standard processes.  Oddly enough I still come in contact with a lot of users that don't understand that when you get AutoCAD Inventor Suite you DO get AutoCAD.  Hence the renaming they did in 2010 from Inventor Suite to AutoCAD Inventor Suite.

This fact alone is a HUGE benefit over other 3D software considering most other software yearly fees are more expensive and you have to add AutoCAD on top that yearly cost to subscription as well to perform standard duties.  All in all, this new offering has the potential to lower that impact further if no ACAD component is involved and give Autodesk clients more options when it comes to their 3D software.

For those keeping track here are the current offerings: Autodesk Matrix

• AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite (comes with AutoCAD LT)
• Autodesk Inventor LT
• Autodesk Inventor (New Offering)
• AutoCAD Inventor Suite (AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical)
• AutoCAD Inventor Simulation (FEA and Dynamic Simulation)
• AutoCAD Inventor Routed Systems (Cable and Rigid Systems)
• AutoCAD Inventor Tooling (Plastic Part and Complete Molds)
• AutoCAD Inventor Professional (includes Sim, RS, and Tooling)

iPad: Thumbs Down for Engineers... Thumbs Up for Concept Artists

I am perhaps the last person in the CAD world to blog about this because I haven't been as excited about the iPad.  I would have to say that I am not alone in this thinking though.  I for one really see the iPad as a new way to consume media rather than actually create it and in general I think that is very solid thinking.  Now I say that because I am not a great artist, sketcher, or fluidly creative person.  I am trained to follow rules of physics, science, programming, and my wife.  I have dabbled with the iPod Touch version of Sketchbook and see that as a very, very helpful tool for quick napkin paper sketches of what my engineering mind is trying to spit out.  I really can't see myself lugging an iPad around for this use.

Having said all this...I took a step back and asked myself "What if I was an artistic person rather than a experienced Mechanical Engineer?"  I found myself in a mysterious world full of imagination and wonderment after all this and had the hankering for an Apple iPad.  What I really see being the large benefit to this technology is the convention artist, the animation story boarder, the graphics artist in general.  And the fact that this product would not be worth anything without good studios creating software for these purposes.  Otherwise, hey it is a larger iPod Touch with just as many drawbacks.  I can go on and on about the reasons why this is a worthless product to me but this article sums it up pretty well.  If you are an engineer at work, then this is a pass.  If you are an artist at home, this may be quite worthwhile with an added purchase of...Sketchbook Pro for iPad.

The upgraded Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk seems to be a very HOT topic with the iPad at the moment though as it is being deemed a Wacom/Photoshop killer in some respects and rightfully so with the new 7.99 iPad version of the app.

Key Highlights Include:

• Full-screen 1024 x 768 work space with support for any device orientation
• An innovative Multi-Touch interface 
• 75 brushes with customizable settings, including synthetic pressure sensitivity and brush modes for both freehand sketching and creating straight lines, ellipses and rectangle
• Six full-resolution layers per sketch with complete control over layer order, visibility and opacity
  
• A built-in, live news page that alerts artists to upcoming news, events, featured artists, etc.

The only other possible benefit I can see for an Engineer in the sense of design and artistry is the usage of the Sketchbook Pro image as a backdrop for part design in Inventor.  Those users are out there, but this is not necessarily the work flow for the masses.