Inventor Fusion

Shaan Hurley’s post alerted me to Autodesk’s Inventor Fusion Technology Preview. So contrary to what some believed would happen, Autodesk went ahead and made it’s own push-pull technology instead of buying it.

I haven’t got access to this piece of software yet but these videos look very familiar to what SpaceClaim and Synchronous Technology offer. I am most interested to see whether Autodesk has done a better job at mixing parametric modeling and direct modeling as compared to Siemens.

So now that leaves SolidWorks and Alibre Design out in the cold. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the direction in which solid modeling is headed. Alibre had better come up with something pretty soon. It will be most interesting to see how SolidWorks handles this. It’s parent company Dassault Systemes already has this technology in their CATIA V6 platform. But it does not appear that they are in the mood of giving it to poor little SolidWorks because poor little SolidWorks is busy nibbling at their pie and snatching their customers from them. They don’t even let SolidWorks read CATIA files, which is simply ridicuous. The fact that SolidWorks has been using the Parasolid modeling kernel from Siemens will only add to their woes.

But then, SolidWorks may already be developing their push-pull technology. I don’t believe they have been twiddling their thumbs as they watch the world go by. Time will tell.