Migrating from AutoCAD to Inventor

Leverage your experience with AutoCAD while migrating to Autodesk Inventor's specialized toolset for mechanical design, engineering, and manufacturing.

AutoCAD users around the world are adopting Autodesk Inventor, the purpose-built tool for mechanical design, engineering, and manufacturing. While they're both Autodesk products, Inventor has different tools, terminology, and workflows than AutoCAD, which can make migration challenging. This course explores the key elements of Inventor that every experienced AutoCAD user needs to start moving their projects and design processes over to Inventor. Author Thom Tremblay explores 2D drawing and 3D modeling, as well as options for collaborating with AutoCAD users while using Inventor and leveraging your existing AutoCAD data in Inventor.

Introduction

• Welcome
• Using the exercise files

1. Basic Concepts

• Understanding the key differences between AutoCAD and Inventor
• Similarities in the user interfaces
• Key differences in the user interfaces
• Inventor file types
• The Inventor project file
• Customizing the look and behavior of Inventor

2. Creating 2D Drawings in Inventor

• Placing drawing views using Inventor
• Creating specialized drawing views
• Adding dimensions to a drawing
• Modifying the drawing layer styles
• Working with units in an Inventor drawing
• Editing a dimension style
• Leveraging 3D model properties in annotation

3. Creating 3D Models in Inventor

• Working with dimension-based models
• Changing the appearance of a model
• Enhancing the model with common features
• Connecting models as an assembly
• Working with standards-based tools
• Creating a rendering

4. Working with AutoCAD Data

• Opening existing AutoCAD data
• Editing an Inventor .DWG file with AutoCAD
• Exporting drawings for use with AutoCAD
• Using an AutoCAD drawing as a template

Conclusion

• Next steps