Autodesk Inventor 5 Now Shipping, Delivering Innovative Capabilities for the Global Manufacturing Industry

Business Wire, Sept 17, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 2001

New Product Release to Offer Greater Ease of Use, Exceptional

Large-Assembly Performance, and Seamless Transition From 2D to 3D

Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), the world's leading design and digital content creation company, today announced shipment of Autodesk Inventor(TM) 5, the newest version of its award-winning 3D mechanical design software and the cornerstone of Autodesk's manufacturing solution. With the ability to maximize the value of existing AutoCAD(R) and Autodesk(R) Mechanical Desktop(R) data, Autodesk Inventor 5 offers manufacturing companies the easiest path from 2D to 3D. With this release, Autodesk now offers customers a complete manufacturing solution through its design products, collaboration services, business partners, and consulting services, resulting in better communication and increased efficiencies for customers.

With more than 200 new enhancements in this release, customers will benefit from enhanced drawing annotation, innovative Adaptive Technology, exceptional large-assembly performance, single-day productivity, and integration with the Autodesk Streamline(TM) service, allowing them to derive benefit from digital design data outside the design department.

Customers Foresee Significant Benefits of New Release

"Autodesk Inventor has completely changed the design process at my company. Before I began using (Autodesk) Inventor, I was making 15 to 20 different prototypes for each speaker. The prototypes were used throughout the company to gather feedback on the product's mechanics and cosmetics," said Bill Hasbrook, acoustics engineer at Phoenix Gold, a leading producer of car audio electronics and accessories in Portland, Ore. "Using Autodesk Inventor software has eliminated the need for costly prototyping. I'm able to model all of the parts both cosmetically and mechanically before ever spending a penny on tooling, which is a huge cost savings."

"I've worked on Autodesk Inventor since its initial release and appreciate the new features and continuous enhancements that come with every new release," said Jeffrey F. Theut, CAD applications engineer at leading design and engineering firm J.S. McNamara Co. "Autodesk Inventor 5 has a lot of user upgrades that were very well thought out. The most compelling new features are some of the things we needed most and asked for including Associative Sketch Projection, Hole Chart, and a more open API. All of the new features of (Autodesk) Inventor 5 make things easier on users."

Making the Transition from 2D to 3D Painless

Autodesk Inventor 5 software provides industry-leading DWG compatibility from the source. DWG, one of the world's most popular drawing formats, is used by architects, engineers, mechanical designers, and others, and allows them to share documents of all types. The AutoCAD DWG import and export wizard helps users read and write AutoCAD-compatible files to and from Autodesk Inventor quickly and easily. It provides an interactive preview of the drawing file selected for translation, allows custom import/export of AutoCAD layers, and provides special tools to help users convert this data to title blocks, borders, symbols, or new 3D designs. In addition, customers who are moving from Autodesk Mechanical Desktop software can migrate their 3D feature-based designs and drawings into Autodesk Inventor software and keep their 2D drawings. With this latest release, Autodesk Inventor software is the only product that provides a complete, safe, and simple 3D transition for AutoCAD and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop customers.

Autodesk Inventor continues to evolve its ease of use and ability to offer single-day productivity with optimized workflow, leading-edge graphics, and expanded Design Support System with context-sensitive tutorials, and direct access to industry experts through its online portal, Autodesk(R) Point A, and Autodesk's online learning and training resources.

Enhanced Drawing Annotation

To further ease customer migration from 2D to 3D design, Autodesk built upon its expertise in 2D from its successful AutoCAD(R) Mechanical product and applied it to Autodesk Inventor software to give users 2D productivity tools that no other mechanical design software in its class offers. New features such as Broken Views, Dual Dimensions, Auto Dimension, and Hole Charts, and improvements explicit to the 2D drafting environment significantly reduces the time it typically takes to create production drawings.

Innovation in Design for Large Assemblies, Machines, Sheet Metal, and Sketching

Based on its innovative adaptive technology, Autodesk Inventor 5 also includes many new assembly-modeling capabilities that extend the software's large-assembly performance and ease of use. Knowledge Vault technology -- a set of intelligent tools that lets users capture, store, and reuse embedded design knowledge -- has been enhanced with Composite iMates, allowing users to automate repetitive tasks by collecting individual iMates into a single composite entity. A new Associative Sketch Projection feature allows designers to associatively copy an edge or a connected loop of edges from another part model in the assembly, providing a simple workflow to capture a common relationship between parts.