Review

From CAD User Mechanical Magazine  Vol 12 No 08 - SEPTEMBER 1999

Jonathan Richardson crosses the Rubicon to snatch an early look at Inventor, the upcoming Adaptive Modeler from Autodesk, and notes a host of engineering pros

It is not every day that Autodesk announces a completely new product, but with Autodesk Inventor (formerly known as Rubicon) that is exactly what it has done. Inventor is a new mechanical solid modeling application that moves Autodesk away from its existing products, since it does not use AutoCAD at all. At this point, it is worth noting that Inventor is not intended as a competitor or replacement for Mechanical Desktop. Inventor is aimed squarely at the Pro Engineer market and should not affect sales of Mechanical Desktop. This being said, though, there are features in Inventor which will make some users consider changing platforms. Inventor has been designed on top of the ACSI 5 kernel and compatibility with Mechanical Desktop is a very high priority. Many people will ask why it is that Autodesk are moving away from the AutoCAD platform and why — with Mechanical Desktop selling so well —do they want to bring yet another product to market. The answer lies, at least partly, in the perception of AutoCAD as a very old piece of software. Many people overlook the fact that AutoCAD 2000 is virtually new. The other aspect is that Autodesk needs to use a new platform, if they are to leapfrog the competition and come out with something which is significantly different. With Inventor, Autodesk have wiped the slate clean and genuinely started from scratch (no doubt taking inspiration from the best features in competitive products, though). The interface of Inventor is significantly different from Mechanical Desktop and moves away from the UCS type construction plane design.The main emphasis of Inventor is the adaptive design technology. This technology is completely new and is unique to Autodesk. Adaptive design helps the software work in a way that is closer to the way we think. As a designer, I tend to sketch concepts that consist of positions, locations and movements well before ever thinking about what form those links and components will take.Adaptive design allows the user to attach parametric constraints to just about anything. It is therefore quite possible to assemble a complete suspension system when all you have is a couple of points representing the mounting points and a circle representing the wheel. From here, you can then look at the movement required and start to piece together the form of the components needed to link the pieces together. Another aspect of adaptive design is to enable the form of a component to change within predefined boundaries as the assembly conditions of the component change. On first sighting, this process looks very intuitive in Inventor and really does seem to address the definition of function before form. Inventor has been designed from the ground up to address issues of collaboration. Apart from the API interface to EDM/PDM systems, there is a Design Element feature which enables designers to package components so that only valid dimensions and constraints can be changed. This will enable companies to ensure that products work within the confines of design constraints. On top of this, an Engineering notebook allows any type of data to be associated with a feature or model. This capability can be used to attach rough calculations, rules of thumb or assembly notes to the model for later use.The speed need
The Inventor interface and data store has been designed for speed. Users should see productive work being performed from day one. The Adaptive data engine makes Inventor capable of handling extremely large assemblies, with many thousands of components. A major part of the performance improvement can be attributed to the work done by the Kinetix/Discreet programming team in passing on information which ensures that Inventor can take full advantage of multiple processor systems.Inventor is a fresh product with new features and a new way of working which may seem confusing to the die-hard AutoCAD user, but the feature set will impress. The change from form-based to function-based design moves a stage closer to true concept design with CAD. From this early vantage point, Inventor looks impressive, but we will have to wait until the product ships to gauge its true impact.As with most first-generation software products, it may well be the second version that will really impress, as it will address the true design issues, rather than the things programmers thought designers wanted. In any event, I for one can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and put it through its paces. CU

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