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Macworld 2012: Autodesk Inventor Fusion for Mac Coming

I wonder if the Mac OS X version will be (significantly) slower than the Windows version, like so much other 'ported' software.

I tried Rhino for Mac, and compared to running the Windows version natively, it's painfully slow, so I reboot into Windows to actually do stuff. It's good enough to _look_ at a model, but forget about working on it.

I've had the same experience with games that have been ported from Windows. The native Windows 'version' always runs much better than the supposed 'native' Mac OS X version. Maybe it's partly the grpahics drivers on Mac OS X or maybe the developers just don't bother optimising. I suspect both.

Guess we'll see.
 
Got a copy of the Fusion with Autocad Simulation FEA. They work pretty well together. Fusion isn't a full on Inventor, but still pretty good.

This was on windows 7.
 
Guy... said:
Got a copy of the Fusion with Autocad Simulation FEA. They work pretty well together. Fusion isn't a full on Inventor, but still pretty good.
Click to expand...

So far I've read that Fusion both does and doesn't allow you to build multipart assemblies. Does this mean it can do multiple fixed solid bodies in a single part, but not true .iam's of consisting of individual .ipt's and constraints?

Man am I going to be bummed out if they finally did something awesome, but only did it 50%. I mean, the whole point of inventor...

Hm.
 
Assembly support

There is assembly support. You can build multi-body parts and and you can build parts and assemblies. You can restructure these at will. There are joints to connect them together to design mechanisms.

What Inventor Fusion can not is reference or link to other external files. Assemblies are all in one file.

You can import other parts and you can export parts for sharing but these are not links they are import and export operations.

-Kevin Schneider
Autodesk
 
This Thingy

Is very bad looking. I hope it does not come here to Mac. I mean what is going on here anyway nowadays?
 
Lone Deranger said:
Softimage please Autodesk. And 3DSMax while you’re at it. :eek:
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Softimage, sure, 3DS Max, don't even bother to ask for - that program is in such a mess you really don't want it on a Mac. The Max team have completely lost their way.

Besides which, it's tied intimately to DirectX, and is preloaded with tons of legacy code which the current team doesn't seem to be able to extricate itself from. Even if they attempted to make a pure OpenGL version, it would just make a messy application even messier (the current abstraction layer, Nitrous, is fast but awful). Max needs re-writing from the ground up, and that's never going to happen.
 
Revit!

Looks like Autodesk will include more and more of its products for OSX. Revit would be just great!

I like that Inventor is coming to OSX since its one of the best tools I have ever used as an engineer. Catia is perhaps even stronger with all the extra modules but Inventor is just great for easy and fast modelling of complex structures.

Inventor is parts orientated, meaning its designed for engineers who think "part by part" to make an assembly/machine/production line.
It seems to me that Fusion will not include the possibility to use spreadsheets for parametric design. Can anyone confirm this? If so, its a big bummer, since many use spreadsheets for calculations and then let inventor import the datas for the design. This is a really powerful way to work with standard designs which are modified for the end client.
 
oivindwaa said:
Looks like Autodesk will include more and more of its products for OSX. Revit would be just great!

I like that Inventor is coming to OSX since its one of the best tools I have ever used as an engineer. Catia is perhaps even stronger with all the extra modules but Inventor is just great for easy and fast modelling of complex structures.

Inventor is parts orientated, meaning its designed for engineers who think "part by part" to make an assembly/machine/production line.
It seems to me that Fusion will not include the possibility to use spreadsheets for parametric design. Can anyone confirm this? If so, its a big bummer, since many use spreadsheets for calculations and then let inventor import the datas for the design. This is a really powerful way to work with standard designs which are modified for the end client.
Click to expand...

I've not used Fusion, but from what I gather from a friend with the Design Suite, it's like a cut-down version of Inventor (kind of like what Sketchbook Pro is to Sketchbook Designer). Fairly limited editing, and static geometry only, and nope you can't create sheets. Bearing in mind of course, all I have is here-say... I guess it stands to reason they'd port the simpler app first, testing the waters so to speak.
 
auhlixer said:
Autodesk is notorious for having buggy software. I think after a few more releases it will be solid and w/ only having to support the few gpu apple uses + a few aftermarket gpus it should be really nice.
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That's completely unacceptable for a product that costs $3995. buggy is one thing... constantly crashing is quite another.
 
Yvan256 said:
AFAIK the only thing missing from Google Sketchup is the ability to have pivot points when attaching objects together. Of course it's not in the same league as Autodesk but for things like personal projects, Sketchup is hard to beat especially with its price tag of free.
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JacaByte said:
Autodesk Inventor includes the ability to rotate sketched profiles of objects around 3D axises, as well as the ability to "sweep," create coils, loft between two coplanar profiles, (useful for making an object with a rectangular base and a circular top) and pretty much anything in between.

The free version of Google Sketchup is only able to do extrusions, and only additive extrusions at that AFAIK. Inventor can extrude in addition to the features I mentioned above, and can also perform boolean union, difference and intersection operations on solids generated using any method. This makes Inventor a million times more powerful than Sketchup IMHO.

Inventor also includes some stress, shear and aerodynamic simulations on objects which almost nobody is ever going to use unless they're a) a mechanical engineer and b) working on a part/mechanism whose failure-free operation is critical.

So in the end you get what you pay for, you're just discounting the stuff you're never going to use and then claiming that Inventor is overpriced. (It isn't as long as people are still buying it.)
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Where did I say that "Inventor is overpriced"? You're putting words in my mouth there.

It's just hard to beat "free", I don't even have an idea of the price range for Autodesk products.

I was talking about using Google Sketchup for personal projects with basic requirements, not production work which may requires incredible precision.

Most people at forums.arcadecontrols.com use Sketchup, only a handful have access and know how to use Autodesk products. I was just saying that if Sketchup had those pivot points in addition to what it currently does, it would be great to have as a feature.

I'm not saying Inventor is overpriced or "only a bit better" than Sketchup, I said it wasn't even in the same league (i.e. it's a far superior, professional product but also more costly and more complex to learn and use).
 
schneik80 said:
There is assembly support. You can build multi-body parts and and you can build parts and assemblies. You can restructure these at will. There are joints to connect them together to design mechanisms.

What Inventor Fusion can not is reference or link to other external files. Assemblies are all in one file.

You can import other parts and you can export parts for sharing but these are not links they are import and export operations.

-Kevin Schneider
Autodesk
Click to expand...

Nice, thanks for the reply! I'm sure I can find some way of making this work then. We primarily use AIPro for complex machined components rotating on welded structures. I'll bet 90% of our projects can be done in Fusion, & FEA done in AIP in a later phase. We'll pick up a couple seats of this Fusion to eval when it's ready.

The day the iPad can handle running AI, this powerful minimalist toolkit will be perfect for an in-field touch-based drawing application. Fingers crossed. :)
 
I dont know of any free modeling software but Dassault Systèmes(Makers of Solidworks) offer DraftSight which is basically AutoCAD, but its entirely free. It uses many of the same commands as AutoCAD too.

And just my $.02, I really wish Mastercam would come to Mac or at least fix all the damn bugs in their software. I dont really consider myself a power user of it, but when you release a damn thousand dollar update yearly and still have bugs with stock setup and selection...you have problems. They keep adding crap like Full Machine Simulation that require a degree in itself to work but dont fix simple issues... :confused:
 
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