Another key focus for this release is the design and manufacture of plastic parts, specifically, injection moulded parts. Development work has been split into two fronts – plastic parts and mould design.

Autodesk Labs has had the plastic part design technology preview for some time. This is based on a development done at Autodesk by Attilio Rimoldi (founder of ImpactXoft) to offer an intelligent method of creating plastic parts. This intelligence is not only in terms of how a history-based system handles and maintains a constant wall thickness, but also in terms of adding an impressive range of plastic part features (such as mounting bosses, grills, ribs, lips/grooves etc) that support the industry’s language and geometry types, as well as some standard features that might prove mighty difficult to model manually.

Alongside the core design tools, 2010 sees the long awaited release of Inventor’s mould design tools. Autodesk has been developing these tools for a couple of years now extensively testing the code via beta testers in China and Brazil. After all, if you’re going to have a mould design tool tested to destruction, then where better than the world’s tooling hot houses? From what I saw the toolset looks really quite well developed and we’ll be covering it in-depth in a forthcoming issue, but all of the usual suspects are there, from split line and shut-off creation, to core and cavity splitting, and into the realms of mould base design, ejector and gating location, slides, lifters and cooling channels.

The toolset looks very interesting, giving a range of process-driven tools that combine a workflow with the ability to dive in and work manually (something that’s essential). If there’s one thing that’s screamingly obvious in its absence, it would be electrode design, or at least the ability to extract spark forms and create surface shut-offs in their place, so you have a truly complete core/cavity. That aside, it’s a well rounded offering for a first general release.

The Alias acquisition gave Autodesk a boost and a fresh perspective on the industries it has traditionally served. Alias has always been primarily aimed at Industrial Design and Automotive Design. Its interface doesn’t look like any other 3D design system and from that, you can learn a great deal. Alias grew out of various organisations and platforms (the SGI ownership still leaves its mark on the user interface to this day), but what it lacks in Windows-standardisation, it more than makes up for in sheer capability and tuning for a very specific workflow.

What’s interesting is that the development team has been consistently improving its usability and while it may look odd to those schooled in Windows, it’s unparalleled in its ability to create and manipulate surface geometry.

The 2010 release sees the UI work continue to strip back the toolbars (referred to as Shelves) and dialogs, add in helpers like the ViewCube (that’s common across all Autodesk products these days) and to generally provide a much greater level of direct geometry manipulation and feedback. There’s also been some repackaging of the various forms of Alias and you’ll now find three core offerings: AliasDesign, Alias Surface and Alias Automotive.

AliasDesign provides NURBS-based modelling, digital sketching and all the basics you’ll need to get working on for any concept design. Alias Surface builds on this, adding greater surface control, a mix of both NURBS and Bezier surfacing technology, reverse engineering (in terms of point cloud and poly-mesh handling) and realtime visualisation. At the top end of the tree is Alias Automotive, which has the ultimate in surface control and fine-tuning for those looking for complexity and utter perfection.

While there are numerous updates to the core capability in the system, one of the big things for the 2010 release cycle is the massively improved associativity between Alias and Inventor. While the last couple of releases saw some basic interoperability, 2010 looks to reset the benchmark for how these things should work. Essentially, links between these two, quite different, systems have been made much more intelligent and full. Changes can be propagated and fed through the process in the manner that you require.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I saw in Portland, so I’ll be looking at each product in its own right over the coming months, starting with Inventor next issue.

While I came away from the event with a head-full of information, perhaps the lasting impression I had was one of a company that has acquired a huge amount of technology in recent years and has obviously been executing to a very big plan. The integration of in-house developed tools with acquired technology (from the likes of Plassotech and Moldflow which I’ve not even mentioned) is breathtaking. Inventor looks incredible for the 2010 release cycle and should set the groundwork for a good few years of work to come.

The thing that really struck me was how well integrated the Inventor Suite is and much of that comes down to a switch in UI design for this release. When you’re trying build new tech into an existing system, it’s always a struggle to fit it in properly. By switching to the ribbon while building in all of these tools for plastic part design, tooling, analysis and simulation, Autodesk has given Inventor an incredibly well thought-out interface that supports a much wider remit than it has ever done. It’s truly elegant to see it in action.

Alias remains the different looking system out of the offering - and it probably will continue to be for quite some time. The Alias users have a very different set of requirements in terms of workflow and functionality. Yes, changes can be made to make it more interactive and more dynamic, but the system remains usable and ultimately very powerful. It’ll never be shoe-horned into Inventor, because the workflows are so different, but the development done to make the two systems work together should see it gain more traction outside of its traditional market. And this last point is worth thinking about. Alias is commonly connected with Pro/E in the industrial design world - a read through any of our users stories will back that up. But with the new tools within Inventor, for plastic part design, for tooling and such, then the potential for Inventor to take on Pro/E is there.

All in all, Autodesk is at the top of its game at the moment and the product set is looking good - very good indeed. Inventor looks amazingly well integrated and has a feeling of cohesiveness that you don’t find in many systems, where knowledge and experience can be transferred between tasks with ease. Alias is moving along nicely and there is an interesting range of tools built around Moldflow, Showcase and SketchBook. Those add-ons aside, consider that almost everything I’ve mentioned (design, tooling, plastic part, simulation), is available within Inventor Professional, and it represents a mind boggling bang for buck.

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Al Dean is editor of Develop3D magazine (London, UK). This story originally appeared in the April 2009 print edition of Develop3D magazine.

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