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Autodesk Releases Preview of Inventor Fusion for Mac

Don't get your hopes up for a native SW on OSX

Dassault Systemes is abandoning Parasolids for the CATIA kernel, and that is all because Siemens owns the Parasolids Kernel and uses it in NX and SolidEdge.

As a SW owner, I'd love to be wrong, but...
 
Pakaku said:
Semi-off-topic: I wish they'd release 3DS Max for OS X soon...
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completely with u, 3ds max will look beautiful on mac interface and it ll be a huge win on mac platform, i hope they are working for it, i use max all the time, its really good and i always wish it to be on mac platform.

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looks like people really love solidworks and tools like CATIA, i m not into manufacturing but solidworks n Catia are huge over here in India, virtually used in all manufacturing firms.

Inventor here has very small market. Dassault system has some great products in their portfolio yeah even i agree they shud port these products on mac, the mac interface itself is very good n beautiful, and os x is quite a stable platform at present.

os x has a pretty good roadmap of the future compared to windows, companies ought to pay attention to these factors. Times hav changed drastically.
 
Personally, I think this is awesome. I used inventor (professional) for about 5 years, and spent real time on the other major platforms as well. In my opinion the interface on newer ADesk products is far superior to major competitors (ProE, solid works). I havent used the latest release of solid works or creo though (new job focusing on project management).

Price isn't awful either, although I think they could drop it under $3k and attract a larger user base...
 
Disappointed with implementation

I just tried it, though superficially.

Nobody has pointed out that it requires X11. This probably slows it way down. I do doubt that the Windows version relies on X11.

Also, only knowing Inventor Professional, while I can load a moderately complex Inventor assembly into this Technology Preview version of Inventor Fusion, it behaves rather sluggishly. Also, the interface doesn't match that of Inventor Professional very much, in terms of layout. To be fair, it may match that of Fusion on Windows, but this means that it is not the software that allows me to ditch my Windows workstation at work.
 
DominikHoffmann said:
I just tried it, though superficially.

Nobody has pointed out that it requires X11. This probably slows it way down. I do doubt that the Windows version relies on X11.

Also, only knowing Inventor Professional, while I can load a moderately complex Inventor assembly into this Technology Preview version of Inventor Fusion, it behaves rather sluggishly. Also, the interface doesn't match that of Inventor Professional very much, in terms of layout. To be fair, it may match that of Fusion on Windows, but this means that it is not the software that allows me to ditch my Windows workstation at work.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that is disappointing. I do not have supporting hardware to try this myself. Thanks for the report.
 
Interesting. This is nearly exactly the app I envisioned Adesk making for the iPad. It'd be perfect. & if it didn't cost thousands of dollars, they'd sell a billion installs with zero competition, and put Inventor lite in the hands of a whole generation of users. Doooo iiiiiiit.

This is actually running quite smooth, but then I suppose it's on a '11 MBP, HR, quad, 8GB, w 1GBvram. I see it's a slimmed down essentials-only version of AI with a focus on the fundamental design tools. Very nice, though I'll be looking forward to seeing Loft join the lineup.

Ideally, there'd be an iPad app, with files sync'd between them via Apples seamless iCloud, so you could work on your files on either device without giving it a moments thought.

Anyway, it looks like it's off to a marvelous start.
 
Limboistik said:
Seriously.

What's the delay on all the mainstream pro software like 3DS Max and Revit architecture??

It's 2012. Jesus.
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Yes. It's 2012. The Mac still has an insignificant market share and Apple has turned itself into a pure consumer company.

Seriously. You still wonder why there still is a delay on all that mainstream pro software?
 
Comeagain? said:
From the autodesk website.
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Well, my quote came from the Autodesk website too - from the page *before* they give you the option of downloading for Windows or Mac. If they can't even get the information about expiry straight, I don't think the preview program will go smoothly...
 
Ryth said:
That's a huge difference in price.
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The huge price difference may be because the software is only half baked. Having worked with Autodesk software for years, I can tell you that any 1.0 release will be full of bugs, and not ready for a prodution environment.
 
This is for the older Windows version. The new OS X version is different.

GadgetGav said:
Don't know what makes MacRumors think it's good through January 2013...

"Please note: this version of Autodesk Inventor Fusion Technology Preview is programmed to expire on May 1, 2012."

Less than a month to try it out. Hardly worth the effort to learn it.


+1 for SolidWorks on the Mac. Are you listening Dassault Systems??
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X11

dxm113 said:
Hmm, that is disappointing. I do not have supporting hardware to try this myself. Thanks for the report.
Click to expand...

X11 is only required for the Autodesk Inventor Translator (.ipt and .iam).

-Kevin Schneider
(Autodesk)

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dxm113 said:
Personally, I think this is awesome. I used inventor (professional) for about 5 years, and spent real time on the other major platforms as well. In my opinion the interface on newer ADesk products is far superior to major competitors (ProE, solid works). I havent used the latest release of solid works or creo though (new job focusing on project management).

Price isn't awful either, although I think they could drop it under $3k and attract a larger user base...
Click to expand...

To be clear there is not price announced. this Tech Preview is FREE to use.
All references to price in this thread refer to other software.

Kevin Schneider
(Autodesk)
 
Too bad everyone will have to work on iMacs and Laptops (for crying out loud!) as soon as the axe for the MacPro finally comes. If I was Autodesk, I´d be seriously worried about future hardware that´s up to the task.

However, optimistic me hopes that the fine folks at ADesk have asked Apple about the future of the MacPro (...or other powerful hardware that doesn´t act as a mirror all the time) and decided that it´s worth developing workstation software for OS X. Let´s hope they´re well informed about Apples future hardware plans.
 
After evaluating this application taking only 3 hours to sleep, I'm pretty amazed at how efficient and capable this application actually is. A lot of what initially looks missing from inventor pro has actually been reworked into a pretty ingenious workflow. I love the modular but self-contained nature of the file heirarchy and browser functionality. Really slick. Joints instead of myriad constraints everywhere... very thoughtful. And, it has run smoothly and stable, & not crashed once.

Honestly, for 90% of what our designers do, this "preview" as-is pretty much suffices.

I look forward to seeing loft and possibly some improvements toward a more AIP-like intelligent workplane command(s).

Really though, very nice stuff!
 
Winni said:
Yes. It's 2012. The Mac still has an insignificant market share and Apple has turned itself into a pure consumer company.

Seriously. You still wonder why there still is a delay on all that mainstream pro software?
Click to expand...

Regardless of the Mac marketshare, it has traditionally been the platform of choice for design professionals, which is why the entire Adobe suite, and C4D, etc are mac compatible. With the exception of the construction industry and now BIM, is generally on Windows. Hopefully that will change as OS X is really the superior platform for workflow.

Granted, Pro hardware has been lagging, but Autodesk would be naive to simply ignore that segment of the market just because of it.
 
Not to mention, the vast, vast overwhelming majority of the architecture firms in the US are NOT on state of the art Pro hardware. We often keep an eye on what other firms in San Diego & around the country are using as we collaborate on projects. Nearly every firm in town operates on "if it ain't broke don't fix or upgrade it". Offices full of 2002-2005 celeron processor/xp home & pro machines running cad software from that year or even earlier. The construction trades are horribly slow at updating equipment. Nearly every consultant we talk to has to check when asked what version of acad they're using. Many are still on 2000 or some decade-old version of LT. ...whatever they were using when they got out of school. It could take a generational turnover, the retiring of the old farts, to see BIM fully replace vanilla acad. Most of the civil engineers in town still prefer table drafting, and don't know what to do with a .pdf unless it's printed and handed to them.

When Snow Leopard hit, I filled our architecture dept with base model 21" iMacs, running virtualized XPP installs. Even splitting the resources of those systems in half, they were the fastest computers anyone who came in ever saw run cad. The hardware is more than sufficient to run it with ease.

I thought Inventor would be much more of a resource sink, so I went nuts and tried out an 8 core mac pro with 16gb ram and 4 30" ACDisplays for the ID's and ME's to try out. It's smooth, but doesn't really do anything their 27" iMacs don't do, or do it noticeably faster. It's not like they sit around waiting for their iMacs to catch up like cheaper hdw in the old days. ...but then we don't do multipart assemblies in the tens of thousands of parts. ...just really, really, complex ones.

I'm just not sure the Mac Pro's are going to be as missed by Pros as suspected should they go.
 
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