The Inventor of the Month (IOM) program began in 2006. Each month, Autodesk selects an Inventor of the Month from the more than 700,000 users of Autodesk Inventor software. Winners are chosen for engineering excellence and groundbreaking innovation.

Each year since the launch of the Inventor of the Month program, Autodesk has invited the manufacturing community to choose which of their favorite IOM recipients should be named Inventor of the Year.

This year, Dynamic Structures has been named as the Autodesk Inventor of the Year for 2009. Members of the Autodesk manufacturing community chose the Canada-based provider of dynamic, complex structures as the 2009 Inventor of the Year by voting on the Autodesk Manufacturing Community website.

Dynamic Structures—which designs all types of complex structures from ski jumps and bridges to astronomical observatories—was originally named Inventor of the Month in March 2009 for its work designing the enclosure that will house the world’s largest telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope. The company is also using Autodesk Inventor software to raise the bar on what consumers expect from theme parks by creating bigger and more thrilling rides.

“Our company motto is ‘Anything you can dream, we can build,’” said Craig Breckenridge, senior designer at Dynamic Structures. “Inventor software has played a big role in helping us make good on that promise, and we’re honored to have the innovative work that we do recognized with the Inventor of the Year award.”

Digital Prototyping Creates Next-Generation Thrills

The company has successfully been using Inventor software to expand the offerings of its entertainment division, which designs attractions for the multibillion-dollar international amusement ride industry.

Notably, Dynamic Structures specializes in adding robotics to entertainment rides. This takes the form of roller coasters that operate on articulated arms, so that riders experience more unexpected motion and positions than on a regular rollercoaster track; motion theaters whose seats have programmable pitch and heave, so that audiences feel the sensations that they are viewing on the movie screen; and automatically guided vehicles that can navigate indoor and outdoor attractions in a pre-programmed fashion, without requiring a track.

Since these large amusement rides are difficult to physically assemble and test during the prototype phase of product development, Dynamic Structures relies on digital prototypes created in Inventor software as well as collaboration with Autodesk reseller and training partner IMAGINiT Technologies. Digital Prototyping enables the company to put all the mechanical and structural components in motion to simulate performance.

For example, this dynamic analysis helps the company identify corners that are too sharp or drops that are too steep long before the ride is built. The company can even check to see that it is not exceeding the acceptable G-force that a passenger is subjected to on a ride, helping to allow thrills and safety to go hand in hand.

Additionally, Dynamic Structures participates in a mentoring program with the engineering departments of 17 universities as part of the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy’s involvement in the Thirty Meter Telescope project. As part of the program, Dynamic Structures provides student engineers with hands-on experience helping develop rides and structures.

“Dynamic Structures’ innovations are bringing a whole new level of entertainment to theme parks, and Inventor software is helping them design, visualize and simulate even the most audacious of ideas,” said Robert “Buzz” Kross, senior vice president, Manufacturing Industry Group at Autodesk.

For more information about Inventor of the Month and Inventor of the Year, visit the Autodesk Manufacturing Community:

http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com

Dominator III
Originally uploaded by Autodesk Manufacturing GalleryI received some images of Dominator III from the design engineer that used Autodesk Inventor to design the robot that competed in the BBC Robot Wars.

I've added these to the MFG Gallery on Flickr so you can all see what was done in Inventor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/autodeskmfggallery/

Make sure you're watching Channel 5 at 8pm on Monday 15th March as Autodesk Inventor will featured on The Gadget Show!!

Gadget Show presenters Jason Bradbury and Ortis Deeley have been set the challenge of designing a new robot to battle against the current Robot Wars European Champion Beauty 2.

The robot, named Satans Mutt, was developed specially for the challenge with the help of the shows dedicated designer John Reid from agency teamhurtz.com, and the choice of Autodesk Inventor to help create Satan’s Mutt was a straightforward one.

“Inventor supports Digital Prototyping and I see it as the industry standard software for this type of design,” John said. “I knew that using Autodesk Inventor for Satan’s Mutt would give the Gadget Show team the strongest possible chance of winning the challenge".

“The ability to integrate all the design data into a single digital model enables you to streamline the design process without compromising the quality of design,” he added.

Shortening the design cycle in this way allowed John to complete the whole development from concept to execution in just six weeks.

This isn't the first time that Autodesk Inventor has been used to design a Robot Wars robot. The robot Dominator which was featured in 4 series of BBC's Robot Wars was also designed using Inventor. Dominator was a semi-finalist in each of series they competed in and was one of the fastest and stongest robots in the contest due to the sleek design and powerful axe.

Have a watch of Dominator in action as it beats Wheely Big Cheese in series 5 of BBC's Robot Wars:



There's also some images of Dominator that were created using Autodesk Inventor in the MFG Gallery on Flickr.

So make sure you tune in to Channel 5 on Monday at 8pm to see Autodesk Inventor in action.

FARNBOROUGH, UK: 2 March 2010 - Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), a world leader in 2D and 3D design and engineering software, has announced the availability of the AutoCAD® Inventor LT™ Suite in the UK. AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite helps manufacturers compete more effectively by adding the benefits of 3D design to their development process by combining AutoCAD LT® and Autodesk® Inventor LT™ software in one affordable package.
The solution is available to end users at a recommended reseller price of £1,400.

AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite lets you choose the right tool for the job. Seamless DWG™ interoperability between AutoCAD LT and Inventor LT software allows you to leverage your 2D expertise and data to begin designing parts in 3D. Modelling your parts in 3D with Inventor LT enables you to create and update production-ready drawings faster than with manual 2D methods. Even manufacturers who are not themselves designing in 3D need to communicate in 3D with customers, partners, and suppliers. Inventor LT gives you the ability to import and export 3D part models in common file formats without relying on expensive file translation software, helping to improve communication with your extended supply chain. And it also enables you to work with most 3D CAD data formats.

“Autodesk believes that users need both 2D and 3D tools, and the popularity of the Autodesk® Inventor® family of products is a testament to the fact that many across the manufacturing space agree,” says Jaime Herrero-Velarde, EMEA retail industry manager, Autodesk. “With AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite, customers can design and collaborate in 3D at the part level with Inventor LT, and also use AutoCAD LT when the job calls for 2D design.”

“In the current economic climate, manufacturers are battling intense competition and are looking to boost productivity. But budgets are often tighter than ever before. The AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite offers a very cost-effective way to get the 2D productivity benefits of the latest version of AutoCAD LT and provides them with the opportunity to take their first steps towards 3D mechanical design at a pace that suits them,” he adds. “Introducing 3D with Inventor LT can help you compete more effectively today, while putting your organisation on a scalable path to the full power of Digital Prototyping tomorrow.”

For more information about the AutoCAD Inventor LT suite, please visit:

http://www.autodesk.co.uk/inventorltsuite

Happy Inventing!

The Autodesk Inventor product team is committed to delivering the best overall product experience and value for you and your company. Your answers to this quick survey will help us understand what matters most and guide our efforts to improve Inventor and its entire ecosystem of support, training, recruiting, etc.

We want Inventor to be the best product possible. Please let us know what matters most to you.

The survey will take about 10 minutes or less to complete.

Click here to begin the survey....
(the survey will open in a new tab/window)

Happy surveying!

When you create an Autodesk Inventor Project file (.ipj) it not only sets the working folders, template & content locations, style library access, it also sets the number of OldVersions to save of an Inventor file.

The Old Versions to Keep On Save option sets the number of versions to store in the OldVersions\ folder for each file saved. If you've noticed an OldVersions folder popping up in your workspace it's because the first time a file is saved in a project, an OldVersions\ folder for that file is created. When the file is saved, the prior version is moved automatically to its OldVersions\ folder. After the number of old versions reaches the maximum, the oldest version is deleted when a newer version is moved into the folder.

You can edit the number of OldVersion files to save in the folder before they get purged off. For example, you can set the value to 0 to save no Oldversions, or 10 to keep the last 10. You can also set the value to -1 which will save all OldVersions without purging any. All you have to do click the variable, and then change it to the maximum number of file versions to keep in all OldVersions\ folders in the project. You can also right mouse click and select Edit.

Happy Inventing!

If you are using Vault Workgroup 2010, Vault Collaboration 2010 or Vault Manufacturing 2010 to manage your 2D, 3D and non-CAD data you will no doubt be using document lifecycle definitions.

Lifecycle definitions allow manufacturers to replicate their workflow\approval\release processes electronically so that documents can be managed and tracked as they move through the design engineering process. The security on each state can be configured as well as transition actions and transition security, ensuring that only the correct people are involved in the correct lifecycle processes.

We have heard a lot that many manufacturers already have their workflow documented as a flow diagram within Microsoft Visio, or that they would like to use Visio to document a new workflow. With this in mind, Doug Redmond from our Data Management team in the US has written a great utility that allows users of VW, VC or VM to import a Visio .vsd document to automatically create the lifecycle definitions in Vault!

Have a watch of this video for more details:





To get hold of the utility, and for more data management goodness, have a look on Dougs Blog - It's All Just Ones and Zeros

Happy lifecycle defining!

If you’ve not yet had chance to have a look at Autodesk Inventor Publisher, you need to get yourself over to Autodesk Labs to download the Technology Preview!

Autodesk Inventor Publisher allows manufacturers to produce installation guides, service documentation, assembly instructions etc quickly and easily using the native 3D Digital Prototype created by design engineers using Autodesk Inventor. Having the Digital Prototype associative with Autodesk Inventor Publisher means that work can begin on producing all of the required technical documentation before the design is completed. Should an update be made to the Digital Prototype, it will be automatically updated in Inventor Publisher – and the two applications don’t even need to be on the same workstation!

Inventor Publisher takes some of the great user interface tools that Inventor Fusion has to offer to make it really quick and easy to pick up and use. The marking menu that is accessed from the right click menu gives you everything you need right at your fingertips.

But the biggest benefit has to be that once you have created your exploded storyboards you can output them to various formats including MS Word, MS PowerPoint and also as a Flash embedded web page!

Have a watch of Autodesk Inventor Publisher in use:




And if you want to get your hands on this great new tool, download it from labs.autodesk.com

Happy Documenting!

Autodesk Inventor 2010 introduced the option to work in a clean screen environment, something has been popular with digital artists and desktop publishing for a number of years.

Using the Clean Screen option on the View ribbon, or by pressing CTRL + 0 (zero) on the keyboard, the Autodesk Inventor working environment will be ‘cleaned’ up and go from this:


To this:


You’ll notice that the ribbon bar has been minimised away, although you can still access all of the tools on the ribbon just by clicking on the name of the ribbon you want to access. When you have finished using the tool the ribbon will be minimised.

You can also access a lot of the required functionality via the context sensitive right-click menu to create new sketches, draw, add constraints, add dimensions, project geometry etc. And don’t forget that the right-mouse click menu will update with new commands depending on what you are doing at the time.

As well as using the context sensitive right-mouse click menu and the minimised ribbons, you can also use your keyboard to access a lot of required functionality. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts already set-up within Autodesk Inventor, a lot of which are the same as in AutoCAD. This makes it quick and easy for those who are making the move from AutoCAD to Inventor because you can use your existing knowledge and experience. For example; L = line, C = circle and D = dimension. You can download a list of the common keyboard shortcuts on this document I have put together:

• Autodesk Inventor 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts (PDF, 72kb)

You can also modify the default keyboard shortcuts and create your own by using the Tools > Customise > Keyboard...


When the Use default multi-character Command Aliases option is checked, the default multi-character Command Aliases are used e.g. CH = chamfer etc.

If working space is something what you crave you can set your dialogue boxes to AutoHide so that they don’t get in the way when on screen. To enable AutoHide just right mouse click on the dialogue header bar and select AutoHide.


As you move your mouse away from the dialogue it will automatically roll up. As you move your mouse over the header bar, the dialogue will re-appear. Neat!

Finally, one tool that I use all the time when working in a clean screen mode is 3D Grips. 3D grips allow us to work interactively with our models to push & pull on faces to make size changes. Just right click over a face to select 3D Grips where you will be able to select one of the arrows on a face to push and pull it.


So next time your working in Autodesk Inventor, why not give the Clean Screen mode a try and see how you get on. Even if you don't use the Clean Screen mode, all of the above still work in the normal Inventor environment too.

Happy Inventing!

I've had a lot of contact from people asking how I built the iLogic web configurator and if they can have the dataset\details. Thanks to everyone who has forwarded the YouTube link and tweeted on Twitter by the way!

Fear not - all will be revealed in the near future. I am in the process of documenting how I did it and how it can be utilised so that it can be shared and used by manufacturers using Autodesk Inventor with iLogic.

If you've not subscribe to the blog as yet, click here to make sure you are notified about future additions and updates.

Happy inventing!

A question I get asked about a lot when working with manufacturers and engineers who are looking to make the move from 2D CAD to 3D Digital Prototyping is "how can we automate some of the tedious tasks we have to do?". There are usually a number of reasons why they want the tasks automated but most of the time it boils down to two - reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a design and reduce the number of errors and omissions that sometimes find their way into a design.

With the introduction of iLogic into Autodesk Inventor just over 12 months ago, this gave design engineers the ability to add rules based design automation to their parts, drawings and assemblies directly from within Inventor. Rules could be added quickly and easily so that they can be re-used as and when necessary helping to reduce time, effort and errors. And rules can be built so that design engineers can run them from the rules tree within Inventor or from a custom built dialogue\form that will trigger the rule (more of that to come in the future). Either way, it's quick, easy and very effective!

The next step on from a Design Engineer running the rules from within Autodesk Inventor is to allow access to outside the engineering department so that they can input specification\requirements information into a web page and then let Autodesk Inventor with iLogic rules do most of the work before passing it to an engineer to finish off.

It's all about Paretos Law - getting 80% of the repetitive, standard design work done in a very short space of time, allowing the engineers to then spend time being more innovative and finishing off the design.

Have a look at this quick video that shows an example of a web based part configurator that uses Autodesk Inventor with iLogic. The video shows the 'clients' screen as they input the requirements, let Inventor and iLogic do their thing (on another laptop in this example) and then give them the 2D & 3D DWF right back in the web page:



And don't forget that iLogic is free to Autodesk Inventor subscription customers!

Happy rules based design.

Wasim Younis the author of the recently released 'Up and Running with Autodesk Simulation 2010' book has just started a new analysis & simulation dedicated blog.

Wasim will be posting tips, tricks, information and tutorials all focussed on the simulation and analysis tools within Autodesk Inventor.

Make sure you head on over to get the latest info - http://vdssolutions.wordpress.com/

If you havn't had a chance to review Wasims book, it's deffinitley worth getting yourself a copy if you want to learn more about the analysis and simulation tools that Autodesk Inventor 2010 has to offer. Have a read of some of the reviews on Amazon of those who have bought it.

VOX Amplification recently used Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Showcase software, developed by Autodesk to help design four newly released guitar amplifiers — the AC30C2 and the AC15C1 Custom Series, as well as the AC15VR and the AC30VR. VOX products have been used by numerous influential bands and musicians, including “The Beatles” and Deep Purple’s Joe Satriani.

“In today’s economic climate, we need to react fast to market trends,” said Dave Clarke, product development manager, VOX R&D. “Creating digital prototypes with Inventor software and using Showcase for 3D visualization reduces costs and cuts development time in half.”

“Digital prototypes help save money by reducing the need for more costly physical prototypes,” explained Clarke. “With Showcase, we’re able to make real-time changes to a design and quickly reach a concept that the whole team is happy with. This significantly reduces time to market.”

VOX Design Goals:

VOX wanted to maintain the quality and iconic look of its AC30 amplifier, while adding modern design features, improving serviceability and lowering the price point. The result is the new AC30C2 Custom Series.

For the more affordable AC15VR and AC30VR amplifiers, it was important to keep manufacturing costs down while maintaining the renowned VOX sound quality. The economical amps also needed a look that distinguished them from the company’s premium Custom Series offering.

Digital Prototyping with Inventor Software:

Inventor software was used to help design and digitally prototype the new amplifiers, reducing the need for multiple costly physical prototypes. VOX also developed cost-effective manufacturing processes using Inventor software, enabling the company to achieve target price points.

“We wanted a more accessible price point for the AC30C2 Custom Series, but there was no way we would sacrifice quality,” said Clarke. “Using Inventor for the mechanical design of the Custom Series, we were able to more quickly prototype construction techniques that achieved the best possible quality and value. We did the same thing with the AC15VR and AC30VR amps.”

3D Visualization with Autodesk Showcase Software:

VOX used Autodesk Showcase software for real-time 3D visualization, creating highly realistic digital imagery of the new products before they were built. 3D visualization helped VOX to more quickly refine and finalize aesthetic decisions, before physical prototypes were built.

“The biggest challenge we faced when launching the new AC30 was adding cool features while remaining true to our roots,” said Clarke. “We used Showcase to help make and finalize cosmetic decisions at the earliest possible stage of the design process. Creating near photo-realistic visualizations also helped eliminate the need for small but costly changes further down the line, which saved a lot of time and money.”

“We also used Showcase from the start of the conceptual design phase for the AC15VR and AC30VR amps,” added Clarke. “The software’s real-time visualization capabilities helped us determine the precise differences between the VR Series and the premium Custom Series.”

VOX also used Inventor and Showcase software to help design the VOX Night Train amp and the Big Bad Wah pedal, which was developed with musician Joe Satriani.

Right at the start of the design process when you've got ideas forming that you want to sketch out and record for future reference and development, usually involves a finely sharpened pencil and whatever paper based media you can get your hands on. Napkins, business cards, newspaper are all used within the design process to get those initial ideas down quickly.

If you have an Apple iPhone though you will no doubt have heard of, and maybe even downloaded and used Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile. Over 1,000,000 people have downloaded and used Sketchbook Mobile to be creative on the iPhone and sketch their designs and ideas for future reference. This is great whilst you're on the move as you just never know when an idea is going to pop into your head.

For those out there using AutoCAD and want to be creative and sketch out ideas digitally or manipulate digital images you can now do this directly inside of AutoCAD using Alias Sketch for AutoCAD which has recently been added to Autodesk Labs.

Alias Sketch for AutoCAD will allow users to:

• Leverage freehand drawing techniques with pen based interaction
• Create blank screen illustrations
• Create artwork or import images to graphically express the context of designs, something previously requiring multiple applications to achieve
• Manipulate and composite images to quickly create variations for design exploration
• Free-hand mark-up (annotate) directly on top of AutoCAD geometry

For more information and to download the software and view videos of it in action please visit:

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/alias_sketch_for_autocad/

Autodesk Inventor Studio Render
Originally uploaded by Autodesk Manufacturing GalleryJust been having a look through some stats for the Autodesk Manufacturing Gallery on Flickr and the images produced using Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk Alias etc have been viewed over 10,000 times!

The most popular image so far is this radial engine that was designed and visualised using Autodesk Inventor.

We'll be adding more images and examples of what the Autodesk Digital Prototyping solutions are used for so make sure you visit regularly:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/autodeskmfggallery/

Happy New Year!

How quickly the holiday period passed by and things are now well and truly back into the swing of things. It was a good break, time to re-charge the batteries and spend time in the snow with family. We’ve had about 12 inches of snow in all since just before Christmas but the thaw has arrived and the snow has all quickly melted away this weekend.

As 2010 starts to pick up momentum we want to make sure that the NE Manufacturing Blog is providing you with the kinds of tips, tricks and information you want.

To help, I did some research using the ever popular Google Analytics to get some stats about the blog to find out what is most popular, what people are reading etc. Here’s some of the stats from when we first launched the blog in August:

• We’ve posted 54 articles in 22 weeks
• There have been 3,137 unique visitors to the blog
• Totalling 7,389 page views
• By visitors from 85 different countries, with most visitors coming from the UK, then the United States, then Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
• The busiest day for the site was on 2 December whilst we were at Autodesk University attending classes and blogging about the event.
• The most read article is Using Autodesk Inventor Content that was the 10th article published on the blog in August.
• Most users view the blog using Internet Explorer, with Firefox in second place with the new Google Chrome browser coming in third.
• Most visitors find their way to the blog directly but the site that sends most people this way is the Autodesk Vault blog Cracking the Vault followed by Twitter, InventorFAQ and then deelip.com.
• The most watched video is the Introduction to Autodesk Inventor iLogic that was blogged in December

Now we’ve had a look at some of the stats and trends from 2009, we really want to hear from you on we can make this blog better for you. What do you want us post on the blog? Are there any specific topics, industries, software etc that you would like us to write about?

One of the things we have already started working on and will be added to on a regular basis is a new YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/manufacturingarea. We’ve already been using this YouTube channel to post the tips & tricks videos but we want to use it in its own right and post more video tips, tricks etc about the Autodesk Manufacturing solutions. Make sure you visit to have a look at the videos that are currently available.

So please feel free to get in touch to let us know what you think of the Autodesk Northern Europe Manufacturing Blog with any suggestions of what you would like to see added during 2010.

Thanks for reading, happy Inventing!

From all here in the Northern Europe Manufacturing team we'd like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and all the very best for the New Year.


Thanks for reading the Autodesk Manufacturing Northern Europe Blog, we hope it has been useful and informative since we launched in August this year. We plan to continue with the tips, tricks, news and updates in 2010 on this blog and have a few other projects on the go to keep everyone up to date on what's going on in Northern Europe (and beyond).

Have a great break - see you in 2010!

iLogic for Autodesk Inventor 2010 provides powerful rules based design automation built directly into the application. What’s even better is that for Subscription customers, iLogic is available as a free download from the Autodesk Subscription Centre.

Using iLogic as part of your design engineering process will allow engineers to automate tasks that would have to be done be done manually as well as build rules into designs to avoid making errors. iLogic uis built directly into Autodesk Inventor and allows a design engineer to work with new or existing designs to build rules within the easy to use and intuitive interface. You don’t have to be a programming genius to build the rules, just have a basic understanding of If, Else statements and then use the tools within iLogic to build the rules you want.

iLogic provides help all the way along the process by providing easy access to parameters and features so that they can be included within the rules to change the size, suppression etc. iLogic rules can also be used on assemblies so that when inserted into an assembly they can be quickly and easily updated using the rules based automation. This is a great way to automate standards based design or health and safety requirements within the design to ensure they don’t get missed.

Have a watch of this Introduction to iLogic for Autodesk Inventor which goes through the creation of some rules within a part design to control size, features and material:



If you are an Autodesk Inventor user on subscription you can download iLogic free of charge from the Autodesk Subscription Centre.

Keep reading as we'll be adding more iLogic videos and articles in the near future.

Happy Automating!

Theres a real buzz at the moment around BIM, Building Information Modeling and DP, Digital Prototyping - whats the buzz all about I hear you ask?

Many architects are seeing the benefits of moving to 3D and in-particular using BIM as a way of creating complete projects in one model. Just like Digital Prototyping for manufacturers where everything (2D, 3D, controls, analysis, simulation, visualisation etc) is included within the 3D digital prototype; architects are able to include everything they need for the project inside one Building Information Model. All of the required geometry, MEP, structure, schedules, reports, analysis etc is contained within the one model.

Manufacturers that work within the architectural industry providing things like lighting, HVAC, furniture, staircases, fabrications, window frames, curtain walls, hardware etc need an easy way to share their Digital Prototype so it can be used within the Building Information Model.

Autodesk Industry Solution Evangelist Rob Cohee has put together a 10 part YouTube video series that shows exaclty how a manufacturer working within the architectural industry can quickly and easily share their 3D Digital Prototypes so that they can be included by the architect in the Building Information Model. Using tools like Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Revit makes this collaboration quick and easy.

Head on over to Robs YouTube channel to see exactly how this process is benefiting manufacturers and architects across the globe and bring BIM and DP even closer togetether.

http://www.youtube.com/user/robcohee#g/c/F2963991059B2ABB

Happy Collaborating!

Have you ever wondered what powers the world's fastest and most expensive production car to produce the reported 1020bhp with a top speed of 253.8mph?

A student from HBO Autotechniek Rotterdam in Holland has modelled and visualised a Bugatti Veyron 8-litre W16 engine using Autodesk Inventor! All 16 cylinders in two rows of eight have been modelled and then visualised using Inventor Studio to show it in action.





Very impressive!