Autodesk Inventor, the Microsoft Windows-based mechanical design system from Autodesk, is fully I-enabled in line with the company's Internet-focused iDesign strategy. Autodesk Inventor is just one of many Autodesk design solutions that provide the technology to help design-centred companies to take advantage of intranets and the Internet - giving them the freedom to design without limits.

Due for release in South Africa in February 2001, easy-to-learn Autodesk Inventor 4 - which has been designed to make the transition from 2D to 3D painless - offers full AutoCAD DWG format compatibility on a platform created for collaboration in the Internet age. Designers can access the valuable electronic design resource, Point A, direct from Autodesk Inventor. They never have to leave their mechanical design software environment to access the portal. Services in Point A include easy access to industry resources detailing fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and vibration fundamentals and formulas. There are also news and discussion groups as well as access to the new I-drop facility, which allows users to drag designs of a component from a supplier's catalogue and drop it directly into their own design.

Further examples of Autodesk Inventor functionality that promote collaboration include its multi-user mode. It enables design teams to work concurrently on assemblies and because team members know - prior to making a change - if a design is in use, they avoid overwriting each other's data.

Project control in Autodesk Inventor allows users to break large design tasks into more manageable projects: each with a defined work-space, shared workgroup direc-tories and enterprise wide standard part libraries. Team members are able to explore design alternatives in the security of their private workspace, without affecting the ability of the system to resolve previously defined workgroup shared designs.

To help users capture and share nongeometric design data, Autodesk Inventor has an innovative Engineer's Notebook for detailing the rationale of design intent. It can capture text notes and associate them a 'snapshot' of the model. WAV and AVI files can be included in notes making the tool ideal for communicating with other design team members.

With Autodesk Inventor design management capabilities can even be extended to team members who do not have Autodesk Inventor software, empowering virtually anyone to track, edit attributes, or otherwise monitor the design process.

Autodesk

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