Autodesk's investment in simulation technology: What does it mean for Joe Inventor?

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In case you have been living under a rock the past few years, much has been made about the investment Autodesk has made in simulation technologies for manufacturing. If you are curious about what those investments were, feel free to read about them (Solid Dynamics, PlassoTech, Moldflow, Algor, Fatigue Wizard, CFDesign) or take a look at this picture.

yeah, I would just look at the picture too.

All said and done, Autodesk has spent around $500M in acquisitions and R&D investments around manufacturing simulation technology.

Outside of being pretty fantastic (my biased, but correct, opinion), what does this mean for Joe or Jane Inventor user? Short answer: they get the benefit of technology trickle-down into the core Autodesk tools they use everyday.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about. First off, right under the Environments Tab on the ribbon toolbar you have access to Dyanamic Simulation, Stess Analysis and Frame Analysis.

Yep, you guessed it. That simulation goodness came from Solid Dynamics, PlassoTech/Algor and Robot. Oh, you mean to tell me you aren't familiar with Robot? That is an example of how we here at Autodesk share technology across platforms and industries. Robot is a structural analysis tool used by our AEC customers. Turns out, it is a great tool for our manufacturing customers to use to analize welded frames in Inventor.

Have you looked at all the value the Moldflow team brought to the design engineer's desktop in Inventor over the past few years? In addition to Tooling being part of Inventor Professional now, Autodesk Moldflow Adviser Design runs right inside of Inventor and Inventor LT while you are designing plastic parts.

And Labs! Have you seen the simulation tools we have put on Autodesk Labs? Here we are giving Joe and Jane Inventor a sneak peek into what tools we have in the works for them. Did you see the Inventor Optimization Technology Preview? Here my man Rob takes it for a whirl.

Even though CFDesign is new to the Autodesk fold, take a look what they are bringing to the table already with Project Falcon? (Remember earlier when I mention how we like to share here at Autodesk?) This is a great example of what we are doing for Joe and Jane Revit on labs too with Project Vasari. Looks eerily like Project Falcon, right.