Autodesk Inventor Update Will Make Everything and Everyone Play NiceAutodesk Inventor Update Will Make Everything and Everyone Play Nice

Starting Oct. 30, Autodesk Inventor subscribers will gain access to three new capabilities: Shape Generator, ForceEffect, and Electromechanical Workflow, all developed to extend 3D mechanical solid modeling capability.

The new update builds on Inventor 2016, which was released in April. That release introduced AnyCAD, a new technology from Autodesk that allows engineers to seamlessly introduce and incorporate components from other CAD systems -- but retaining the native formats.

Derrek Cooper, director of product management in Autodesk's Manufacturing Product Group, told Design News that the company is working to deepen Inventor's interoperability with other CAD systems -- including those of its competitors. Inventor now allows a designer "to bring in any geometry and work with it as if it were native," Cooper said, i.e., to reference a file from another system without having to translate it or alter the geometry.