What's New in Inventor Professional 2021

Autodesk’s experienced product, Inventor Professional 2021, has now gone live. This new edition has been improved in the four key areas below:

• Performance
• Modernisation
• AnyCAD
• Automation

Performance:

As with every release, Autodesk Inventor Professional has enhanced product performance to allow for greater speeds and capability. Below you will find a list of some of the key areas they have improved:

Modernisation:

Tools have been gradually updated in line with the modernisation of the product. This year is no different, with Autodesk updating tools such as Coil, Thicken/Offset, Frame Generator and Delete Face. They have also released the new dark theme to counter issues that come with the blue light and light theme exposure. 

AnyCAD:

The interoperability between Revit and Inventor Professional has been constantly reviewed. With this release, Autodesk have incorporated the ability for Inventor Professional to read Revit 3D data. What is great about this is that it is a live connection and allows Manufacturing and Architectural companies to work seamlessly using BIM.

Automation:

The ability to automate procedures is a constant feature with each update. This year pre-sets have been added to Frame Generator and drawing templates have been enhanced to improve this aspect. 

General Part Enhancements 

Some features in the part environment have been improved with the likes of now having the ability to window select multiple bodies. Previous versions would have made you choose this by selecting on them individually in the window. This will save users a vast amount of time considering it's a small tweak, especially when working in the woodwork environment. 

Another feature they have tweaked in the part environment is the unwrap tool, which now align to specific work planes. They have also enabled coplanar holes to stay rigid; this allows for holes to keep a set distance when creating the flat pattern. 

The flange tool in the sheet metal environment has been updated to now allow you to choose a reference face. This is good as it will reduce manual calculations when trying to match an exact angle.

Frame Generator Enhancements

All the tools in Frame Generator have been updated with the modernised theme to now allow it to be docked into the properties panel. This goes hand-in-hand with some much needed adjustments that allows for a smoother workflow. Firstly, the new zoom options which allows users to see the placement of a member perpendicular to the view. Secondly, you can also zoom so the member is fit to the view of the screen. Both options provide a great new alternative when aligning your member.

Further improvements to the notch tool include a follow on from the custom ‘I’ template in the 2020 version, with Custom ‘C’ and ‘T’ Templates. Improvements like this allow for the Frame Generator environment to become a more well-rounded tool. 

General Drawing Enhancements

Sheet Set Formats in previous versions only allowed for standardisation of Borders, Title Blocks and Sheet Properties. In 2021, Autodesk have adapted this to encourage users to have sheet format templates for a few different areas including: View placement (as well as shaded properties), 

Sheet Metal Settings, Parts List and Format settings, General/Generic Tables, and Notes and Text. This is a little time consuming during the initial set up phase, but worth it in the long run. Once these are created it will not only reduce time but provide a great addition to the software by improving consistency of drawings throughout the business. 

Excitech Toolkit for Inventor

The Excitech toolkit for Inventor has also had a revamp, making it fully compatible with Inventor Professional 2021. The toolkit has been modernised to align with Inventor Professional’s theme and bug fixes from the previous release have been included. If you have any tool ideas for the toolkit or any issues installing or licensing, please feel free to get in touch at info@symetri.co.uk 

To learn more about Inventor Professional, please visit our product page here. Alternatively you can call us on 01992 807 444 or email info@symetri.co.uk.