Autodesk Helps Engineers Go Green

What company isn’t thinking more seriously about sustainable design these days? With that in mind, Autodesk is experimenting with a new tool that can help manufacturers make more responsible materials decisions.

As part of its digital prototyping story, Autodesk has released the Sustainable Materials Assistant, a software add-in that works with Autodesk Inventor 2009. The tool helps manufacturers incorporate environmental design considerations early into their product design initiatives with the goal being to help reduce their product’s environmental impact while still meeting performance requirements.

With new property fields provided in the Sustainable Materials Assistant add-in, Inventor users can highlight information about the toxicity, recyclability, carbon footprint and regulatory compliance issues associated with the various materials they choose. There are also reporting capabilities that analyze and aggregate the properties of a particular material base so an extended design chain can compare and communicate around issues of sustainability.

The Sustainable Materials Assistant is available as a free technology preview download on Autodesk Labs.