Cadalyst - June 2008 - (Page 10)

cadcentral Inventor LT: Free for Another Year In April, roughly a month before the previously downloaded Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview licenses were set to expire, Autodesk extended the offering with the release of Inventor LT 2009, which will be free until May 2009. The latest version is downloadable at Autodesk Labs (http://labs. Autodesk has extended the free offering of Inventor LT with version 2009, autodesk.com). But valid until May 2009. the availability capable of reading competitors' formats, is currently limited to Australia, Canada, such a Pro/ENGINEER, SolidWorks, and New Zealand, and the U.S., prompting someone from the United Kingdom to ask, Siements PLM Software NX. In addition to Autodesk' s preferred DXF and DWG, the ªA ny chance of making the United Kingsoftware also supports neutral formats, dom the next country? We do speak the such as IGES and STEP. If you try to open same language Ð wel l almost!º ( http:// an Inventor assembly file with the LT verdiscussion.autodesk.com). sion, you' ll be prompted to open it in the Like the previous version, this release free Inventor View application instead also is limited to part-level modeling (installed with LT). As with the previous only. Some features from the paid verversion, LT 2009 cannot coexist with full sions, such as sheet metal, dynamic simversion of Inventor on the same machine. ulation, standard parts library, tube and New features specific to Autodesk pipes, cables and wires, and stress analysis Inventor LT 2009 include sketching are left out of the LT version. Autodesk is constraint enhancements and cropped pitching Inventor LT 2009, a native 64-bit version, as a multi-CAD collaboration tool, drawing views. By Kenneth Wong Stressful Exams Studying to become a mechanical engineer? If you' re getting your certification from the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES), your exam might require you to run a few stress analyses using the solvers in ALGOR, a finite-element analysis (FEA) package from a company by the same name. According to a recent announcement from ALGOR, CMES has ª chosen to formally incorporate ALGOR software into its national Mechanical Design Engineer qualification examination.º A similar announcement nearly two years ago from ANSYS, a competitor to ALGOR, stated, ª The CMES and the Examination Center of Ministry of Education have formally incorporated ANSYS softwareº for the qualification exam. Both announcements were preceded by an earlier one from COSMOSWorks, which announced in 2002 that it managed to place 40 seats of its FEA package in South China University of Technology. AI-Driven Simulation Autodesk' s acquisition of Kynogon, completed in May, offers a glimpse of what is possible when you combine building information modeling (BIM) and artificial intelligence (AI) middleware. Paris-based Kynogon' s flagship product is Kynapse, an AI technology used in computer games such as Fable 2 and The Lord of the Rings to populate scenes with autonomous secondary characters. Obviously, Autodesk' s entertainment and media division will benefit from this technology, but it also offers simulation possibilities for Autodesk' s AEC division. The same middleware from Kynogon that animates thousands of battle-hardened orcs in computer games also could be used for traffic simulation (people and vehicles), town planning, traffic study, accessibility evaluation, 3D visualization of urban projects, and vehicle driving simulation. Automakers, civil engineers, and architects using Autodesk products already possess 3D digital replicas of vehicles, building structures, landmarks, and even city blocks. They could easily take advantage of the automatic path-finding capabilities offered by AI engines such as Kynapse to populate the as-built environment with virtual being Ð or agents, as they' re commonly called in the AI industry Ð to study how the public will interact with their products and designs. CAD Central continues on page 12 10 www.cadalyst.com cadalyst June 2008 http://labs.autodesk.com http://labs.autodesk.com http://discussion.autodesk.com http://discussion.autodesk.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - June 2008

Cadalyst - June 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Community Building in Progress A Quarter Century of Cadalyst Tracking a CAD Giant The Highs and Lows of CAD Hardware Industry Insights — Looking Ahead Cadalyst Lab Reviews: HP xw4600 Workstation with LP3065 30” LCD Monitor NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 — Graphics Card LaCie 324 — LCD Monitor CAD Manager: Making Standards Stick MCAD Modeling: Rational vs. Irrational Decisions AEC Insight: Data Collection in AEC CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Just a Few CAD Renovations

Cadalyst - June 2008

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