Sunday, August 17, 2008

Shrinkwrap for Inventor - Implications for Revit?

Shrinkwrap for Inventor was recently announced as "In the Labs" at Autodesk Labs. The text from their site says:

Shrinkwrap Add-in for Inventor is an Inventor Add-in to create envelope parts from Inventor assemblies.

Shrinkwrap Add-in for Inventor enables you to:

* Create substitutes for use with alternative representations in Autodesk Inventor
* Reduce detail of production data to protect intellectual property
* Create simplified data for complex purchased assemblies

Shrinkwrap Add-in for Inventor takes advantage of Inventor’s derived part workflows to create a standalone, single part solid version of a model assembly. Once the user is identifies penetrations in components to be filled with solid material, Shrinkwrap Add-in for Inventor fills any internal voids that remain in the assembly.


What does this mean for Revit? Well it might mean that Inventor parts can be reduced to nice simpler representation that can in turn be used effectively in Revit families to convey design intent and lead directly back to a manufactured part or assembly/product. We get enough information to design around the part and be tied more closely to a real product.

Of course this assumes that manufacturers will use it to make our lives "easier"? Hopefully they will if it makes it "easier" for them to do so?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw that and thought the same. Is there hope that these "shrinkwraps" become a cross platform solution to sharing model geometry at without the overhead of full model data?

Steve said...

I hope there is hope...