Autodesk Inventor, one of Autodesk Inc.’s bunch of software releases, got published for the manufacturing process of a design. It is also a good tool as well for developing those 2D/3D designs. The market is full of competitors with almost the same abilities or some possessing more or less. Nevertheless, Autodesk Inventor is a name widely popular across the manufacturing, engineering and construction sectors. What sets this apart? Well, that is for another day. Today we are here for assimilating all Autodesk Inventor pros and cons borne with this software.
Before that, we hope that a decent percentage of our readers are already aware of its uses. Some might have even used it for a couple of days. So, time to halt and learn a thing or two of what our testing showed at our experts’ lab and what other long term users have to say about the software.
Overview of Autodesk Inventor:
Autodesk Inventor is the same as the difference between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Yet, there are fundamental differences. From the initial understanding of a new user, it may appear the same as both of them make 2D and 3D design models. But if dived deeper, one would know the intricacy regarding distinct terminologies, various parameters, dimensional freedom, and relationships. To put it simply, suppose you want to change the location of a particular hole that rests on a block contributing majorly to your design. You can easily change that, suiting your requirement by changing merely the dimension or parameters controlling the specific location. You can get this software at a low cost by using Autodesk Inventor discount code through which you can get a huge discount.
Coming to its uses, Inventor is famous across multiple industries for its features like simulation, accurate 3D models, different tool creation and most importantly, an accurate visualization. Before the final build, manufacturers gain a complete idea of the design and the outcome. The file types that come in Inventor are IAM, DW, IPT etc. Also, both Windows and Mac support Inventor.
What Are The Pros Ans Cons Of Autodesk Inventor?
Here is the overview to the benefits and limitations of Autodesk Inventor
| Pros Of Autodesk Inventor | Cons Of Autodesk Inventor |
| Drawing | Overwhelming options complexities |
| Updates of existing geometry | Memory hungry |
| Frames | No recovery feature |
| User Experience | |
| Tools and parts | |
| Good with animations too |
Advantages Of Autodesk Inventor
Here is a brief description of the benefits of using Autodesk Inventor:
Drawing
This is the very first Autodesk Inventor pros that allows a kind of drawing that is easy and more effective. There are so many things available after you finish drawing the model. You only make a rough sketch and set dimensions. The sheet format template is feature-packed. Especially the 2023 updates brought a multitude of updates on this front which helped it fetch more quality outputs. We can’t miss its other quality feature, which is part-distinguishing and storing them individually. Gone are those earlier habits of deleting and redoing the design when you need to alter a tiny part of it. Dimension freedom is handy when you need to modify a feature without much headache.
Updates of existing Geometry
Whenever there was a need to reflect a change in the design, we would delete and redo the entire thing. Also, a slight update here could take place without giving you a hint that the remaining parts may not be compatible anymore. That is where the geometry updating feature of Inventor makes a great stride. Autodesk Inventor allows you to modify a small area of a design you wish to change, and the existing geometry would update accordingly to meet the feasibility standard. Its elder sibling AutoCAD is missing this feature. Layers, UCSISON and command lines don’t exist in Inventor, which is indeed a great thing.
Frames
On this front, the naming of frames plays a significant role and updates in 2023 put more focus on it. This update brought filtering selection and a set of new presets that will make your frame creation experience even better. There is this “reuse” feature that will keep all your redundant efforts at bay. Unlike before, you no longer have to keep track of the first case to emulate its native profile data. Any of the members that belong to the reused copies can do the job for you. The termination options that came with this new update is also a centre of attention this time. Coming to the notching tools availability, you get to see that the system supports C and T sections besides a long time compatible I-section and circular tubes.
User Experience
Given the frequent and timely updates that ensue more features and improvements, Inventor seems to have reached a well-aged mature phase. Users like us need functionalities that suit the recent market demands while being easy to use. Since its initial year, it has walked through some slick modifications that further improved the UI, enhanced features and listened to feedback. New features like the support for 4K monitors, multi-monitors, dockable windows have met users expectations in an environment, ever-changing due to innovation in all fields. Also, the demand for software mobility or cross-platform support is a new trend these days. Users want to stay hooked to their work on the go irrespective of the locations where they are. Not only are features that take your breath away, but the overall look and feel also play a vital role. Innovation is housing icons, themes, speeds, colour management as well. We liked how each update polished those areas, and that lets us keep our hope that more improvements are en route.
Tools and parts
Like Fusion 360, Autodesk comes with T-Splines technology providing surface style and free form modelling features. Although there is one unwrapping enhancement tool, we see a unique face unwrapping tool inside Inventor. This tool is perfect for understanding the underutilized blank areas. All you have to do is lock one specific face to fix it rigidly and move the model to discover the best space allocation for your other operations. If we talk about Unwrap enhancements, it is one of the advantages indeed. The use of the Unwrap tool is the simplification of the design of a complex part into a flat one. It helps to make room for more components by finding blank spaces.
Good with animations
Although being marketed as design software, Inventor can create a 3D rendering of the prepared model with the help of animation before the manufactured output. There is a provision of changing lighting, style, background images. Also, you can change the camera angles so that a realistic animated outcome show up before the designer can finalize the model. Inventor uses animation techniques to give a complete idea of the product functionality and showcases how different parts of your model will turn out in the final product.
Cons of Inventor
After its advantages now its time to know the disadvantages of Autodesk Inventor:
Overwhelming options
Autodesk has launched a plethora of software for various purposes. AutoCAD, Autodesk Sketchbook, Inventor etc. The thing with Autodesk is that it bombards with options to its users. It happens such intensively that users often get confused with the overwhelming tools. While the purpose of those options is to make things easy for the users, the flood of choices fails the purpose. Inventor brings forward the same curse to us with no exceptions.
Memory hungry
Autodesk Inventor provides plenty of features, powerful rendering, background processes, animation rendering, high graphic memory consumption. All these are only possible when the power source is enough to back it. Upon checking in our test, we faced a quick drop in our power back up after witnessing it grabbing a significant memory allocation inside the task manager. The memory consumption gets so much at times that we experience crash and glitches once it runs out of supply.
No Recovery feature
The great disaster chipped in when we got to see that there is no recovery feature available in Autodesk Inventor. In fact, we lost our work progress when the power source ran out of supply. It sent chills down our spine when all our testing data disappeared after we managed to power on the software. Also, we felt that the software couldn’t handle heavy files resulting in system crashes. But what appears more troublesome for us is the lack of the recovery feature. We sincerely want to urge the developers to include this option in future updates that will help users avoid such a debacle.
Final words: Autodesk Inventor Pros And Cons
Autodesk Inventor is indeed a revolution in the design software market, with a large community contributing to its robustness and growth, matching the rhythm of the volatile market demands. The features packed with timely updates convinced us that the future of this software is in safe hands. We want this trend to continue. The Autodesk community is enormous. It is so much collaborative that the inputs added by the users always find their way in the upcoming updates. It will be an understatement if we stop at that, as we saw instances when Autodesk went even further to exceed the customers’ expectations. Like almost everything, Autodesk is not perfect, and that’s why we exhibited our perceived issues with this software. But in this case, we have the faith that such drawbacks will be taken into account very soon with the latest updates
