Sheet Metal Part Design
Simplify the design of complex sheet metal parts and improve your productivity with Digital Prototyping. Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical engineering software combines manufacturing information—such as punch tool parameters and custom bend tables—with an accurate 3D model of sheet metal folding. Manufacturing engineers can also use the flat-pattern editing environment to tweak flat patterns to help minimize manufacturing costs.

 Sheet metal part design features include:

• Sheet metal styles
• Sheet metal flanges
• Roll-formed parts
• Transitional shapes
• Punch libraries
• Sheet metal fasteners
• Flat-pattern modification
• Sheet metal manufacturing drawings

Assembly Design
Define digital prototypes of large complex assemblies. Autodesk Inventor combines design accelerators with assembly tools so you can be sure that every part and component in an assembly design fits correctly. Accurately validate interference and mass properties to help produce quality products the first time.

Inventor provides the tools to control and manage the data created by large assembly designs, allowing you to work on just the components required to complete a particular part of the design.

 Assembly design features include:

• Assembly Snap tool
• Interference analysis and contact detection
• Assembly configurations
• Large assembly performance
• Frame Generator
• Weldments
• Content Center
• Design Doctor

Layout and System Design
Getting the initial mechanical design concept right is the key to a successful mechanical engineering project. With Autodesk Inventor, you can move your initial design studies from paper by using the parametric design environment to develop initial concept sketches and kinematic models and rapidly investigate multiple design concepts.

Dynamic sketch blocks can enable you to quickly evaluate different concepts and convert your sketches into a fully constrained 3D assembly model to form a 3D digital prototype. The Design Accelerators in Autodesk Inventor offer the fastest way to add the remaining components, such as drive mechanisms, fasteners, steel frames, and hydraulic systems.

Plastic Part Design
Design plastic parts that are ready for manufacture. Get maximum flexibility by combining native Inventor geometry with exterior surface models designed with Autodesk Alias industrial design software. The associative relationship between Autodesk Alias and Inventor 3D mechanical engineering software reduces time to market by allowing engineers to start detailed designs earlier. As the concept evolves, mechanical engineers can easily incorporate changes from the industrial design team. Functional plastic features, rule-based fillets, and powerful multibody workflows simplify the design of high-quality molded part models.

 Plastic part design features include:

• Advanced shape description
• Import from Autodesk Alias products
• Sculpt tool
• Surface quality analysis
• Molded part definition
• Technical plastic features
• Rule fillets
• Draft angle and cross section analysis

Direct Manipulation
Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical engineering products redefine ease of use with a revolutionary new design experience that features new methods for modeling parts and assemblies. Direct manipulation part modeling offers an uninterrupted design workflow. You can control all command inputs right at the point where you are directly affecting geometry. Dynamic input in the sketch environment helps you to sketch more freely and directly.

The Assemble tool can enable you to "snap" components together quickly and accurately.

Rules-Based Design
Autodesk Inventor features rules-based design and automation tools that can help accelerate design and enable engineers to focus on design intent rather than manually modeling geometry. Fully integrated Inventor iLogic technology can dramatically simplify rules-based design, so that any Inventor user—even those with little or no programming experience—can capture and embed engineering and product knowledge directly into virtual models. The iCopy feature automates the process of copying components, so you can easily customize commonly used assemblies.

Cable and Harness Design
The electrical systems in almost every product or machine require careful design of physical cables and harnesses. Incorporating cable and harness runs into your 3D digital prototype enables you to calculate accurate path lengths, avoid small-radius bends, and help ensure that electrical components fit into the mechanical assembly before manufacturing. 

Cable and harness design features include:

• AutoCAD Electrical software interoperability
• Functional harness design
• Harness validation
• Harness documentation
• Automatic wire routing

Tube and Pipe Design
Streamline the design of complex tube and pipe runs. Use Autodesk Inventor Professional software to accelerate the design of routed elements, including tubing, piping, and flexible hose. Autodesk Inventor Professional provides rules-based routing tools that select the correct fittings and help ensure that the pipe run complies with your standards for segment length, round-off increments, and bend radius.

Tube and pipe design features include:

• Pipe fittings library
• Tube and pipe styles
• Pipe run creation
• Hygienic pipe runs
• Flexible hose
• Rigid tube routing
• Tube and pipe documentation

Tooling and Mold Design
Autodesk Inventor Professional automates key aspects of the design of injection molds for plastic parts so you can quickly create and validate complete mold designs, reducing errors and improving mold performance. With its intuitive mold design workflow, Inventor guides you through the mold design process in a way that is natural for the experienced user and supportive for the novice.

Simulate and optimize your mold design before machining with the plastic flow analysis tools in Autodesk Moldflow software. Determine material flow rates and ideal gate locations, assess shrinkage, and establish process parameters. Mold analysis can enable you to optimize your design and minimize the number of mold iterations, helping to save you time and money.

Data Management
Autodesk Vault data management software is a centralized application within Autodesk Inventor 3D CAD software that enables teams to securely store and manage design data and related documents. Design workgroups can more easily manage and track all the design components of a digital prototype, so they can better reuse critical design data, manage bills of materials (BOMs), and collaborate earlier with manufacturing teams and clients.

Design and Manufacturing Documentation
Easily create and share production-ready DWG drawings with manufacturing teams and outside suppliers. Inventor 3D CAD software enables you to generate engineering and manufacturing documentation from digital prototypes, helping you to reduce errors and deliver designs in less time. Extending the advantages of AutoCAD software, Inventor takes digital manufacturing documentation to the next level through automatic generation of drawing views and comprehensive tools for finishing drawings.

With support for all major drawing standards, automated drawing updates, and output in true DWG format, Inventor delivers superior data sharing and creation features.

 Design and manufacturing documentation features include:

• Direct read and write of the authentic DWG format
• Automatic drawing views
• Automatic drawing updates
• Bill of materials
• Associative parts list

Visualization Tools
Clear visuals make it easier for stakeholders and customers who don't have engineering experience to understand engineering drawings and designs. Inventor offers visualization tools to quickly create photorealistic renderings and animations that help convey ideas to managers, explain designs to manufacturers, and persuade customers that you have the best solution for their needs.

 Visualization features include:

• Realistic renderings and animations
• High-quality visual materials
• Advanced lighting, shading, and material properties control
• Visual fidelity across products
• Multiple publishing formats
• DWF file markup

Native Translators and Data Exchange
Autodesk Inventor 3D CAD software offers a comprehensive suite of CAD translators, including native translators that read and write files from other CAD applications and translators for industry-standard formats such as IGES and STEP. These translators can enable you to accept and supply data in customers' preferred formats.

 Inventor CAD translators include:

• CATIA V4
• CATIA V5
• UGS
• SolidWorks
• Pro/ENGINEER
• JT 6
• JT 7
• Parasolid
• GRANITE

AutoCAD Integration and DWG Interoperability
With direct read and write of true DWG format, Autodesk Inventor users can share critical design data securely, efficiently, and accurately. Inventor can enable engineers to integrate AutoCAD drawings and 3D CAD data into a single digital model, creating a virtual representation of the final product.

 CAD interoperability features include:

• Interoperability with AutoCAD Mechanical software
• DWG save
• Direct DWG open
• DWG Block Browser
• AutoCAD blocks from Inventor views
• Template synchronization
• Import AutoCAD hatch patterns

BIM Interoperability Enhancements
Autodesk Inventor includes tools designed specifically for mechanical engineers and fabricators who work with architects, builders, and contractors. The building information modeling (BIM) exchange functionality in Inventor enables data sharing between Inventor 3D CAD software and Autodesk Revit and AutoCAD Architecture software.

Inventor Fusion Interoperability
Autodesk Inventor is fully interoperable with Autodesk Inventor Fusion. Autodesk Inventor Fusion provides direct manipulation capabilities, direct modeling, and unites direct and parametric workflows within a single digital model created in Autodesk Inventor.

 Inventor Fusion features include:

• Intuitive, graphics-based user interactions
• Rapid design changes without limitations irrespective of feature order, dependencies, or original CAD system
• Intuitive free-form shape modeling for Inventor users
• Seamless direct and parametric workflows with a single digital model
• Bidirectional compatibility with Autodesk Inventor parametric, feature-based data so you can use the right tool for a given job

Integrated Motion Simulation
Use motion simulation software—not intuition—to enhance your design decisions. The motion simulation feature in Autodesk Inventor Professional 3D mechanical CAD software uses the assembly constraints in your 3D model to identify relevant rigid bodies, generate correct motion joints, and compute dynamic behavior. This functionality can enable you to quickly understand how the design behaves, including the position, velocity, and acceleration of moving parts.

CAD simulation features include:

• Load definition
• Point trace
• Graphing
• Animated visualization
• Custom report generation

Simulation Ease of Use
Optimize and validate product performance before the product is built. Easy-to-use and tightly integrated motion simulation and stress analysis tools in Autodesk Inventor Professional can enable you to predict how the design will work under real-world conditions, helping you save time and reduce prototyping costs. 

Inventor Professional can help you find the best design solution without having to investigate an excessive number of options. Create parametric studies of design constraints and understand the effects of different parameter values.

The Simulation Guide helps you to set up loads, constraints, and contacts, as well as generate and interpret the results. Because the simulation tools are part of the 3D mechanical design environment, it is practical and cost-effective to employ simulation throughout the design process. A comprehensive simulation software environment provides support for motion simulation and static and modal finite element analysis (FEA), at both the part and assembly level.

Integrated Finite Element Analysis
Increase the accuracy and reliability of your design stress analysis with Autodesk Inventor Professional. Use integrated finite element analysis (FEA) to predict stress and deflection with accurate peak loads by transferring reaction forces from simulation time steps to AIP stress analysis.

Fully integrated with Frame Generator, the Frame Analysis environment in Autodesk Inventor Professional can enable you to simulate the performance of load-bearing frame models quickly and efficiently. Users can sketch out their framed structure, create the detailed design with frame members from our extensive library, and then quickly simulate the response of the frames to gravity and other loads in an easy-to-use environment that automatically brings over the material properties and member cross sections from Frame Generator. After running the analysis, you can take advantage of the report generation tools to present your results and embed graphics and animation in your reports.

Finite element analysis features include:

• FEA environment definition
• Static analysis
• Modal analysis
• Frame analysis
• Analysis output
• Adaptive solver technology
• Editable reports

Sustainable Design
The Eco Materials Adviser in Inventor can enable mechanical designers to optimize material selection based on environmental impact and cost while considering performance. Jointly developed with Granta Design Ltd., the Eco Materials Adviser gives Inventor users access to environmental information on materials as well as analysis and reporting tools to make better sustainable design decisions, within your existing mechanical CAD process.