 |
|
Digital-Prototyping Software a Highlight at Autodesk Confab
04/13/2009
by Leslie Gordon,
Sr Editor, Machine Design Of the major CAD developers,
Autodesk is probably best known for supporting the
so-called “digital prototype” approach to product development. So it
was no surprise that a main theme of the recent Autodesk
Manufacturing Tech Day event in Lake Oswego, Oregon was that of
interoperability. According to the developer, the 2010 versions of
software such as Inventor, AutoCAD, Alias, and Navisworks allow
almost seamless data transfer between the programs as well as with
other CAD tools. This is important because the complete digital
prototype — a true digital representation of the end product —
provides a mechanism for teams to design, visualize, and simulate
how a product will work under real-world conditions before
it is built.
The 2010 software supports interoperability in
different ways. For example, Inventor for 3D modeling
and Revit for architectural design can now work closely
together thanks to the new Autodesk exchange file format
.adsk along with a new feature in Inventor called
Shrinkwrap. Users can, for instance, design equipment
such as furniture in Inventor and then use it in Revit
Architecture to do furniture layout. Shrinkwrap
essentially makes a lightweight surface representation
of an assembly that eliminates holes while preserving
its shape.
In addition, a new program called Navisworks lets
extended product teams combine large assemblies
consisting of machinery, tooling, layout, and facilities
data from multiple CAD vendors to generate a single,
lightweight 3D model of a factory or a manufacturing
plant. Interestingly, the software also supports
point-cloud data. Users can thereby scan a real-world
plant and overlay a 3D model from some other tool to
check for potential collisions between machinery and
building elements. A free viewer lets anyone in the
supply chain see the factory.
Also, AutoCAD now includes parametrics so users can
apply geometric constraints to drawings. Users can
control parametrics in the Block Editor (blocks in
Autodesk parlance are geometries that have been saved as
symbols so they can be used over and over) and even
select things such as standard I-beams from tables.
Needless to say, drawings seamlessly import into
Inventor, giving designers a big head start in the
creation of a 3D model. See Also
 |
Article reprinted by permission of Penton Media,
publisher of Machine Design |
|
