Born as a digital version of the drafting machines, the evolution of modern CAD, like Autodesk Inventor, brought them to be sophisticated environments in which are present not only the geometry of the project, but also all the information necessary to make them feasibles.
The development of a modern project is a flow of information, synchronously moving among different software environments.
In Inventor, the solution of the engineering problem starts from the Part and Assembly environments, where the designer develops the optimal geometry for the single components - identified by their dimensions and properties - and for their assembly, with the set of proper relations of space positions.
Once the ideal design is obtained, it is necessary to communicate and share it with all other persons involved in the development process, and for this purpose Inventor uses the Presentation and Drawing environments, designed to maintain a direct connection with the original data in Part and Assembly environments, so that every update made in the 3d model can be immediately reflected.
Anyway, a modern product development cycle very rarely relies on a unique software platform, more frequently there are interactions among different software using the same physical-geometrical information to operate specific tasks. The commercial success of Inventor indeed relies on its advanced tools for modelling and analysis as well on its ability to export in widespread standards.
That said, it appears clear that the development of a software able to offer every tool needed by every person operating in every sector, would be quite impossible for its complexity.
The optimal solution to achieve the flexibility that made Inventor so popular, consists in a very wide series of tools frequently used, relying for the more specific needs on the implementation of external modules and plugins.
The integration of the main software with a subsystem of plugins offers to the end user the availability of tailor-made tools for their tasks; the creation of specific software modules allows procedures not originally introduced, to perform repetitive tasks or to simplify labor-intensive operations.
The scope where the plugins can make the difference is in the compatibility to and from other formats: as we saw the sharing of information among different environments of Inventor and among different software constitutes the real workflow to arrive at the product.
While for the former situation Autodesk itself provided all the necessary to work efficiently, for the latter – the multi-software interoperability - the real boost in the speed of the workflow comes from tailor-made solutions in the form of plugins. This of course it isn’t a lack of attention from the software-house, but the consequence of the introduction and the rapid evolution of a multitude of software, which make impossible the creation of a unique solution able to consider all the possible combination of software interactions.
The customization of the software can be the real strength and an important quality multiplicator for a productive company. When realized by professional developers, in close touch with the end user to understand all the details of its needs, the external plugins considerably improve the productivity and make easier to respect the shorter and shorter deadlines of today market.
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