Autodesk Releases Inventor 2008 Update

By DE Editors

Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) released Service Pack 1 for its Inventor 2008 3D CAD product. The update adds support for Windows Vista, including native support for Microsoft’s Direct3D 9 application programming interface. While many CAD applications experience reduced performance when running on Windows Vista, Inventor 2008’s performance has improved, according to Autodesk.

Inventor 2008 supports both Direct3D 9 and OpenGL graphics cards, but with OpenGL graphics cards who want to run Windows Vista will need the appropriate Direct3D driver.

DirectX support means that Inventor should work with a wide range of graphics cards. According to Autodesk, Microsoft expects that most "modern" cards will work. However, graphics card vendors such as ATI and NVIDIA support only their CAD-targeted products for use with Inventor (those are the ATI FireGL line and the NVIDIA Quadro products). For details on Autodesk’s testing of graphics cards with Inventor, visit the Inventor Hardware Web site.

"By providing native support for Windows Vista, Autodesk has distinguished itself in the CAD market," said Charles Johnson, GM, WW Manufacturing Industry, Microsoft Corp. "Their customers gain the full benefit of Direct3D graphics technology and countless other Windows Vista innovations that empower businesses of all sizes to work more efficiently."

The service pack also fixes a variety of issues that are outlined in the Readme file. Service Pack 1 (30MB) can be downloaded at the Autodesk support site. For more details on new features in Inventor 2008, read the Desktop Engineering review by Al Dean. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, head on over to the AUGI Inventor Wish List to cast your vote for what new features you’d like to see in future versions of Inventor. Balloting closes October 31.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.