This is the very first time I am writing a review on a technical topic.
I had been using the very famous software AutoCad for 9 years.Since I started my career with this very software,I love it and also I respect it.Also my regards to AUTODESK the US based company that developed this software long back.
Very recently AUTODESK has launched a new software viz. INVENTOR. It has been there for around three years and I have beeb using it for last two years.
While Autocad is specially meant for drafting purpose regardless of the field it is used for.Inventor is a software specially designed for mechancal engineering.
You can make 2D as well as 3D draftings in AutoCad..
INVENTOR allows you many features alongwith 2D/3D solid modelling.Here you get n number of possibilities for designing a machine!It is very user friendly.
Each and every machine is an assembly of various components.Here you can first make such components first and then you can assemble them in a separate file which is an assembly file. It can manage thousands of components and mammoth assemblies.Multiple design view representations can be saved in an assembly file.
Flexibility and Adoptivity are two very salient features.Flexibility can give you different states of an assembly while adoptivity gives you the freedom to resize any part as per your need.
Let me give a simple example here.-
Driving and driven pulleys of different diameters are located at a certain distance among them in a machine..Belts or ropes are to be mounted on the pulleys.Now here if you apply adoptivity to the belts,they will change their total length according to the change in the center distance and the diameters of the pulleys !
This particular feature has saved our plenty of time in designing some parts in a machine.Thanks AutoDesk.
INVENTOR enables you to work in different modules like part,assembly,drawing and presentation.In order to place the components ( part files) in an assembly,constraints are used.In presentation you can animate the parts or sub-assemblies and record the file in avi or mpeg format.You can export INVENTORfiles to AutoCad as well as IGES and STEP formats.
Physical properties like mass,volume and surface area can be calculated after finishing an assembly.And the beautiful part is if any modifications are made,the properties update themselves ! !
These are only some tips of the iceberg.
For developing ,designing a machine AUTODESK INVENTOR is ultimate!
Right now I have been working on version 9 .Very soon we are going to install the latest version.
Once again thanks a lot….. AUTODESK!
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.