Released in South Africa in October this year, Autodesk Inventor 6 boasts parametric surface modelling capabilities seamlessly integrated with the adaptive solids modelling. Suitable for large assemblies, there are also significant advances in the areas of weldments and routing.

Drawing enhancements

New features and improvements include:

* Facilitating easier laying out of drawing: Autodesk Inventor 6 includes a complete set of layout drawing tools such as breakout views, perspective views, weldment views, visibility of model sketches in drawing views, visibility of work geometry in views, and improved update control for drawings and bill of materials (BOM).

* Flexible annotation tools - such as custom hole notes, automatic centerlines, nested BOM, revision block, cosmetic weld annotations, improved balloons, improved hole tables, improved dimension styles, improved dual dimensioning, and improved user symbols for scale and rotate - help customers complete the entire drawing and annotation process.

Productivity enhancements

To help customers improve productivity and get their jobs done faster, Autodesk Inventor software includes:

* Improved constraints to give the designer more information about the 3D design. This information allows faster decisions to be made about the design and helps speed the editing of complex large assemblies commonly built with Autodesk Inventor.

* An improved 3D content library supports more than 18 international standards. The library features standard parts that customers use most - screws and bolts, nuts, washers, adjusting rings, bearings, pins, rivets and shaft seals. Innovative shape description tools unified shape technology - is a new capability that allows both parametric surface modelling tools and advanced solid modelling tools to be used seamlessly together. With this enhanced technology, designs can now be converted from solid to surface at any time and maintain their parametric history for fast and easy design changes.

For more information contact Autodesk, 012 664 8115, geo-south-africa@autodesk.com