IN THIS ISSUE

Community

- iCopy Technology Preview for Autodesk® Inventor®
- AutoCAD® Users: Experience the Benefits of Digital Prototyping
- AutoCAD Users: Make the Move to AutoCAD® Mechanical and AutoCAD® Electrical
- The New Digital Prototyping Wikipedia Site is Live
- Download the official 2009 Autodesk Inventor of the Month Screensaver

Focus On

- Autodesk Inventor 2010 First Look Review
- Autodesk Digital Prototyping Solution – The Mechatronics Advantage

Tips & Techniques

- Purge Blocks Project Wide with AutoCAD Electrical
- Autodesk Inventor 2010 Demos
- Inventor Detailing in AutoCAD Mechanical with Inventor Link
- Autodesk Inventor Skill Builders

Subscription News

- Get Trained At Your Own Pace With e-Learning

Customer Success

- Autodesk Brings Historic Designs to Life in New Discovery Channel Series DOING DAVINCI
- Green Ocean Energy Harvests Power of Ocean Waves With Autodesk Inventor

It all starts here  

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Welcome to the May 2009 issue of Manufacturing News, the newsletter designed especially for professionals in mechanical engineering, engineering design, process engineering and electrical engineering.

In this issue, you’ll get to find out more about how you can increase productivity with Autodesk Inventor iCopy Technology Preview, top 10 reasons why AutoCAD users within the manufacturing space should move to Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD Mechanical and AutoCAD Electrical, download the official 2009 Autodesk Inventor of the Month Screensaver, and see what industry expert Bill Fane think of Autodesk Inventor 2010. As always, we'll share our bi-monthly dose of tips and tricks as well as showcase some wonderful success stories on how our customers use our solutions to design, visualise and simulate their projects to an amazing degree of sophistication.

If you would like to share your comments on how we can improve this newsletter, please send them to keepintouch@autodesk.com.

Happy Reading!

The Manufacturing News Editorial Team

iCopy Technology Preview for Autodesk Inventor

The Autodesk Inventor iCopy Technology Preview can significantly improve your productivity by enabling you to make multiple copies of an assembly that automatically resize to fit their design. By capturing a few key constraints, such as connection points and paths, iCopy creates and inserts multiple instances of the assembly and automatically adjusting the size and shape of each occurrence based on their functional requirements. Get it today!

AutoCAD Users: Experience the Benefits of Digital Prototyping

Industry experts are championing Digital Prototyping as a way to cost-effectively validate design ideas and accelerate the development of more competitive products. Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical design software is designed to help AutoCAD users realise the benefits of Digital Prototyping. Inventor allows you to safely integrate AutoCAD and 3D data into a single digital prototype. This digital prototype can be used to validate the form, fit, and function of a design before building it. Here are the top 10 reasons to move from AutoCAD to Autodesk Inventor.

AutoCAD Users: Make the Move to AutoCAD Mechanical and AutoCAD Electrical

AutoCAD Mechanical design and drafting software offers significant productivity gains over basic AutoCAD by automating common tasks, simplifying complex mechanical design work and preserving the AutoCAD user experience. Designers can maintain their existing AutoCAD workflows, while adopting the enhanced functionality of AutoCAD Mechanical at their own pace. Making the move to AutoCAD Mechanical has never been easier. Check out the top 10 reasons to move from AutoCAD to AutoCAD Mechanical.

AutoCAD Electrical design software offers significant productivity gains over AutoCAD. Purpose-built to create and modify electrical control systems, it contains all the functionality of AutoCAD, the world’s leading CAD software, plus a comprehensive set of control systems design tools. Find out the top 10 reasons for moving from AutoCAD to AutoCAD Electrical here.

The New Digital Prototyping Wikipedia Site is Live

Find out more about the new Wikipedia page that explores Digital Prototyping and add your comments and share your expertise with others. Read more here .

Download the official 2009 Autodesk Inventor of the Month Screensaver

The Inventor of the Month program recognises innovative design and engineering advancements made by the extensive community of customers using Autodesk Inventor software. Support our inventors! Learn more .

Autodesk Inventor 2010 First Look Review

See what industry expert Bill Fane think of the latest version of Autodesk Inventor. Read the review on Cadalyst.

Autodesk Digital Prototyping Solution – The Mechatronics Advantage

A new Mechatronics webpage is now live on Autodesk.com! The new webpage includes links to Mechatronics videos, the “Enabling Mechatronics with Digital Prototyping” whitepaper, and a Mechatronics Webcast featuring Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical.

Tip 1: Purge Blocks Project Wide with AutoCAD Electrical

As with any drawings in AutoCAD you end up with many unused block definitions in your drawings, AutoCAD Electrical isn't much different in that aspect, the only main difference is that you could have many drawings you are working with. I have one customer that has about 200 sheets on average in their projects, that is quite a few drawings to go through and purge the blocks out before shipping or archiving the job. In AutoCAD Electrical a user can purge blocks project wide along with many other project wide utilities. Find out how .

Tip 2: Autodesk Inventor 2010 Demos

Watch demonstrations of the Autodesk Inventor 2010 product line of 3D mechanical design and product simulation software for digital prototyping. Find out more here .

Tip 3: Inventor Detailing in AutoCAD Mechanical with Inventor Link

One of the features that is not used as much as it could be is the ability to link Inventor with AutoCAD Mechanical. This allows you to detail parts and assemblies from Inventor with the tools of AutoCAD Mechanical.

Check out how easy it is to do and watch this video.

Tip 4: Autodesk Inventor Skill Builders

Autodesk publishes Skill Builders to help you continue learning about Autodesk Inventor software in between our annual releases. Many Inventor Skill Builders include a data set and step-by-step instructions similar to Inventor tutorials. Others include animations and images that demonstrate a feature or workflow. Learn how .

Get Trained At Your Own Pace With e-Learning

Only for subscription customers. The online training catalogue provides a variety of learning experiences. Featuring self-paced lessons that are a quick and convenient way to learn the Autodesk suite of Manufacturing solutions. Each lesson usually takes 15 to 30 minutes to complete and includes hands-on exercises so you can practise what you've learned.

To get access to the training catalogue, please visit the Subscription Center www.autodesk.com/subscriptionlogin .

Don’t have a login? Please email us at ap.subscriptions@autodesk.com for your login.

Autodesk Brings Historic Designs to Life in New Discovery Channel Series DOING DAVINCI

In this 10-episode series on Discovery Channel, watch a team of designers determine the viability of DaVinci inventions using Inventor. Read the full story.

Green Ocean Energy Harvests Power of Ocean Waves With Autodesk Inventor

Autodesk names Renewable Energy Company as April Inventor of the Month for Design of Electricity-Generating Devices. Read on to learn more.