Inventor 2010: Certified third party software
Published Mon 11 May 2009
Experience Manufacturing brings you a round-up of who's ready to work with Inventor 2010.
What is Inventor 2010 certification?
From CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) and simulation to data management and reverse engineering, products that bear the Autodesk Inventor Certified logo have demonstrated the highest level of interoperability with Autodesk Inventor. All partner product development is based on the Autodesk Inventor API (Application programming Interface). and adhere to strict guidelines and testing criteria supplied by Autodesk.
Ansys simulation tools
Ansys has five of its simulation products now certified for 32- and 64-bit Inventor 2010 including DesignSpace, Ansys Mechanical, Ansys Multiphysics, CFX and DesignXplorer. The combination of these products with Autodesk Inventor enables upfront simulation, evaluation of alternative designs and iterative modification of designs for products that require simulation and collaboration between different groups. They take advantage of the bi-directionally associative interface between the Ansys Workbench environment and Autodesk Inventor.
ASi-Profile 9.0 for Inventor 2010
ASi-Profile has been developed for machine designers and engineers to help design structural frameworks with profiles and typical connections. The software is designed to reduce the time required to create structural steelwork, support frames, maintenance stages and other structural framework assemblies with Inventor.
Functional examples of this include workframes, standard and user-defined profiles, manipulation of profiles and profile knots, plate joints, base and head plates, profile to profile connections, web angle joints, stiffeners, bolted connections, bracings, and staircases.
CFdesign V10 for Inventor 2010
CFdesign V10 for Autodesk Inventor 2010, from Blue Ridge Numerics, provides a fully integrated digital prototyping solution for solving CAD-driven fluid flow and heat transfer challenges within Inventor. According to its developers, with new capabilities in Inventor 2010, previous obstacles to simulation have been reduced, enabling design engineers to easily and quickly create precise flow and thermal simulations to optimise product design. Mechanical and electronics engineers with all levels of experience are said to benefit from new features in Inventor 2010 that help bring focus to the defined component or element of importance to be evaluated in CFdesign, allowing for faster meshing, analysis, and more accurate flow and thermal simulation results.
Comsol Multiphysics
Comsol Multiphysics is a scientific-software environment for the modelling and simulation of physics-based systems. According to the developers, a particular strength of the software is its ability to account for multiphysics phenomena. Optional modules add discipline-specific tools for electromagnetics, heat transfer, MEMS, and structural mechanics.
Delcam FeatureCAM
Featured in the Winter edition of Experience Manufacturing, Delcam’s FeatureCAM has been certified for Inventor 2010 and brings a combination of feature-based and knowledge-based CAM functionality designed to make it very easy to program. The software family offers a comprehensive range of programs for milling, turning, wire EDM and mill-turn, all with the same easy-to-use interface style to minimise training times.
Edgecam 2009 R2
Avoiding the need to translate files, Edgecam 2009 R2 from Planit is able to directly read native Autodesk Inventor 2010 digital prototype models and assemblies for process planning and NC toolpath generation. Modifications to part geometry and process parameters are accommodated by Edgecam’s full associativity across geometry, processes and toolpaths.
FX64 iCost
FX64 iCost is a production-oriented design tool which is built around a customisable knowledge database to help designers forecast the production and processing costs of the features in their component designs. Various methods are used to calculate the cost of individual processing tasks. When working with the system, the database grows and learns from empirical values and, according to the developers, every project conducted will make the anticipated costs more accurate. This information, combined with iCost’s target cost features, is designed to help exploit cost reduction potential in the early stages of the design process.
FX64 Plot 2010
FX64 Plot 2010 is designed to simplify the process of plotting and converting Inventor drawings. The program can automatically search file structures, Inventor projects and Autodesk Vault for drawing files. The drawings can be sent to various printing devices and/or the four format converters included in the program (PDF, TIFF, DWG, DXF). Due to the client/server design of the software the program can be used as a distributed network application as well as on a single workstation. FX64 Plot includes a toolbar in Inventor that allows users to directly convert/print opened drawings.
Geomagic Studio 11
The certification of Geomagic Studio 11 for Inventor 2010 enables Inventor users to create accurate 3D models and CAD surfaces from point-cloud data – a data type that is growing in importance for product design, reverse engineering and rapid prototyping as users want to bring physical objects such as clay models or existing parts into the digital realm.
InventorCAM 2010
InventorCAM is an integrated CAM solution for Inventor which features full associativity of toolpaths and related components. If fixtures or mould components have been built around a product, then if the product changes the fixtures and the mould components associatively change and following that the toolpath also associatively changes. Since the integrated CAM system is working on the CAD system’s original database, it has access to all of its data, including its features and all “additional” information defined in the parts and assemblies including dimension tolerances, GDTs, Datums, Surface Finish Symbols etc.
Inventor IDF Modeler
The Inventor IDF Modeler allows users to automatically create an assembly from a Circuit Board. It uses IDF data that can be generated from most PCB CAD tools. This assembly can then be placed into the product assembly to enable interference checks. The IDF Modeler also allows users to make design changes to the PCB in Inventor, create new IDF files and automatically communicate these changes back to the PCB design system. The Inventor IDF Modeler has been tested with Allegro, Altium Designer, Mentor, ORCAD, PADS, P-CAD, Protel, and Zuken. The product also includes an option for PADS users to read/write PADS ASCII files.
KISSsoft Certified For Inventor 2010
KISSsoft is a Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) package for the layout, analysis and optimisation of machine elements (such as gear sets, shafts, bearings, shaft-hub-connections, springs, bolts, chains, belts etc). According to Ivana Radmilovic at KISSsoft, “For our gear calculation software modules, we have developed an interface to Inventor. You can calculate your gears in KISSsoft and with the push of a button create and display them in Inventor. Due to the interface to Inventor it takes only a few mouse clicks to generate a 3D model of a gear designed in KISSsoft. Besides, from Inventor you may start all calculation modules of KISSsoft.”
MITCalc 2010
MITCalc is a multi-language set of engineering and technical calculations for many day-to-day routines. The solution contains both design and check calculations of common tasks, such as spur, bevel and worm gear, belts and chain drives, bearings, springs, beams, plates, shafts, bolt connections, shaft connections, pins, tolerances, tolerance analysis, welded connection and many others. All calculations support imperial and metric units and are processed according to ANSI, ISO, DIN, BS, CSN and Japanese standards. The software supports Autodesk Inventor 2010, AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.
PolyTrans|CAD & NuGraf
PolyTrans|CAD and NuGraf software products from Okino are cross industry standards which are designed to enable Autodesk Inventor users to take their 3D CAD files and repurpose them into all major downstream 3D file formats, digital content creation applications, visual simulation programs (such as MultiGen Creator, VRML+X3D programs, or any OpenFlight compatible program) and more. The software allows users to import from native disk-based Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD files when the native programs are not available, or import from a live running copy of Autodesk Inventor.
Radan 2009 R2
Developed by Planit as a total CAD/CAM solution for the sheet metal industry, the latest release of Radan, 2009 R2 is fully certified for Autodesk Inventor 2010. Radan extends Autodesk’s digital prototyping philosophy into manufacturing, enabling users to see how their prototypes will be machined to help identify any potential manufacturing problems before they happen on the shopfloor.
TraceParts 2010
The TraceParts catalogue is one of the largest parts libraries in the world, offering over 100 million 3D CAD models. Users can browse or search for products, configure product options, create dynamic 3D previews, and insert native Inventor 3D product models directly into their designs together with their Bill of Materials (BOM) attributes.
