In the Machine

The New York Times discuses 3D Printing with Autodesk CEO

The other day New York Times carried a front page story titled "3-D Printing Spurs a Manufacturing Revolution"  by Ashlee Vance. Ashlee's visit to the Autodesk Gallery in San Fransisco and interview with Carl earlier this year. There is a brief mention of Autodesk in the final story, but the article is accompanied by a 3 minute online feature video which was primary shot in the Gallery and features interviews with Carl Bass and Brian Pene demoing Autodesk software and explaining the 3D printing process. Its worth a quick read and better yet the video is pretty cool.

 
 

Do you want 3D Annotaion in Inventor?

A prototype of 3DA is now available for all users in all countries as the Autodesk labs application, 3D Annotation for Inventor.

What can 3DA do?

Some of you are exploring methods to streamline communication between Engineers and Drafters by adding important information ON THE 3D Model.  3D Annotation for Inventor gives you this ability in an Inventor environment! 

This 3DA Prototype allows you to create and attach engineering annotations, such as dimensions, a variety of notes, datum identifiers, and feature control frames, (everything an Engineer might care about) to the Inventor model which are then displayed in the 3D graphics window.

 

Head on over to Autodesk Labs and check it out.

New Review of Inventor 2011

As most of you know, Inventor 2011 has been out for since March of this year and many of you are already using. I still get questions from some of you that are thinking of upgrading and haven't done so yet so vor various reasons. David Cohn wrote a great review on Desktop Engineering that I think is well worth reading - even if you are already using Inventor 2011.

Inventor Service Pack 1 is here

For those of you using Inventor 2011, Service Pack 1 was released Friday (Aug. 27). Head over to our Services & Support page to download the Service Pack and read the Readme to see all the issues that have been addressed by this service pack.

Welcome to Mesh Enabler for Inventor

Our good friends from Autodesk Labs have released a new technology preview tool called Mesh Enabler for Inventor. With this great little tool you can now import mesh data from Catia V4 and V5 files including CGR. The Mesh Enabler adds the ability to convert selected mesh features to Base features. The resulting base features can then be used for further operations including drawings and measurements. If you ever have a need to import Catia mesh models, head on over to Autodesk Labs and pull down Mesh Enabler for Inventor.

Inventor 2011 Review

Its always interesting to hear what people are saying about the latest versions of Inventor. As many of you are probably already aware, Inventor 2011 was released in March of this year and the guys over at DEVELOP3D recently released a review of Inventor 2011. If you are interested to hear what the digital and print editors of DEVELOP3D are saying about Inventor 2011 check out one of their latest posts concerning Inventor. 

Inventor 2011 is here!!!

That's right, today Autodesk is launching our 2011 design software products including Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk 3ds Max and more.

So whats new you ask? Well here are just a few of the new enhancements in Inventor 2011.

Dramatic Ease of Use Improvements

• Direct Manipulation with real-time previews
• Dynamic Input for Sketching
• New Assemble Tool

 

Design Automation / Design Efficiency

• Integration of iLogic
• Interoperable with Inventor Fusion
• Many new drawing enhancements

Enhanced Visualization

• Realistic rendering in the modeling environment
• New display modes
• Consistent materials when sharing models with Showcase, AutoCAD, Revit and 3ds Max 

There is a whole lot more than this in Autodesk Inventor 2011 to take a look at the following PDF for a deeper dive.

Enjoy!

 

Alias Sketch for AutoCAD is here!

Today the labs team announced a new utility that adds Alias Sketching to AutoCAD. You may first wonder what you would do with something like this but take a look at the YouTube videos and I think you will find some interesting things you can do with it. I think it opens up interesting opportunities for using your 3D model and sketching over the top of it.

 

Head on over to Labs.Autodesk.com to download and play with Alias Sketch for AutoCAD.

Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for Inventor 2010 is here!

The Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for Inventor® 2010 is now available in English with more languages to follow shortly. This set of enhancements offer new productivity tools, improved support for architectural fabrication, and easier-to-use simulation capabilities. 

New and improved tools simplify common tasks, such as dimensioning, inserting blocks, and multi-view creation, helping to boost everyday productivity. With more architecturally relevant content, annotations, and drawing options for designing architectural elements, Subscription customers can more easily share designs and documentation with clients and suppliers in the architectural, engineering, and construction industries.

In addition, the powerful simulation tools in Autodesk® Inventor® software have been enhanced to make it easier for users create and validate multiple design iterations. Simulation scenario setups have been streamlined, and the visual feedback and simulation results are now clearer and more customizable.

If you have an active subscription account, head over to the Subscription Center and pull down the Advantage Pack for Inventor 2010.

To see it in action, check out the YouTube video of our own infomercial king (Rob Cohee).

What would you like to tell us?

For those of you that will be attending Autodesk University (AU) this year, the Inventor Product Management team will be hosting a listening session and need your feedback. This session will be held Monday Nov. 30 at 1:00 and we are looking for several more Inventor users to attend.

We will be selecting 15 individuals to present future concepts to and ask for your feedback to help guide the direction of future Inventor development. If you will be attending AU 2009 and will be in Las Vegas Nov 30, please create / update your profile on the Customer Feedback Portal and complete the short AU Listening Session survey.

To access the survey, click on the link below. If you have previously registered with the Autodesk Feedback Community, simply login using your username and password to be directed to the survey. If you have not already registered, you must first create a user account.

https://beta.autodesk.com/callout/apply.html?callid={C5E83117-6722-4C12-A737-411CA3958F95}

I hope to see you there!