Autodesk rolls out Inventor 2009 bonus pack
for subscription customers

By Mark Lautenbach,
MCAD Solutions Engineer
Hagerman & Company
Schaumburg, IL

For those users who have Inventor as their primary 3D design application we have always suggested that their companies purchase subscription along with their license of Inventor. Up to now, many people have wondered why they should go with the subscription program. Is it just for the annual releases or just for the web based support and tutorials?

Now comes along tools that really make the subscription program even more important. Autodesk has just released the Autodesk Inventor 2009 subscription bonus pack. This subscription bonus pack will give customers new productivity tools that they can enjoy in any of their Inventor environments.

One of the environments where you’ll find some new tools is the drawing manager. This section has a whole host of productivity tools to utilize from either being able to automatically arrange dimensions to selection filters which help you select specific types of dimensions whether they are modeled, overwritten or AutoCAD dimensions. For a few releases it has been pretty easy to open up a part file from the drawing environment. Now with the subscription package we can go from the part file and directly open up the drawing environment with a simple right-click.

There are also some new productivity tools inside the part modeling environment. Previously in order to create parameters we would have to go to the parameter editor. With the introduction of the subscription bonus pack we can create parameters on the fly while editing dimensions. Also, iFeatures have been improved with several productivity enhancements. One of which is the ability to create an iFeature from an iPart. This can also include all the original iPart table data.

The assembly environment has seen its fair share of enhancements as well. With the bill material editor you will now find a look and feel for editing cell data that is similar to what is found in Microsoft Excel. For example, using shift or control for contiguous or non-contiguous selections can be done, find and replace, and copy and paste are all great time savers while working with the bill of material. Cross highlighting is another new function; this allows greater interaction between the graphic screen and the bill of material editor.

Lastly, probably one of the most desired enhancements that come with the Inventor 2009 subscription bonus pack is an auto save option. This auto save function will allow users to specify a time at which Inventor will populate a balloon to remind the user that the open document needs to be saved.

For more information about this tool if you are a subscription customer, or how to go about getting into the program, contact your local Hagerman & Company, Inc. sales representative.