Balancing Cube Productions

A few thoughts on Autodesk Inventor Professional 2008 and a comparison (sort of) to Blender

In class, I have used Inventor for a good deal of time, and during this time, I have formulated several opinions on the program itself.  I have consistently found errors in its design, making the product sometimes difficult to use.  I suppose I carry a certain amount of bias, as I am a veteran Blender user.  Blender is a free, open-source 3D design program that is capable of constructing high-fidelity 3D scenes and complex animations.  Blender has the capability to render specularity, reflections, refractions, and bump-mapped textures.  It's animation abilities are complex, containing support for bone-mesh animations and blended actions.  My point is that it can do A LOT.

And now I turn to Inventor.  I see "constraints" everywhere.  First of all, the software is proprietary, carrying a huge price tag, and is closed-source.  Inside the program itself, I see a limited design scheme.  Individual parts form sub-assemblies, which then form assemblies.  One can create exploded views of the assembly using a limited set of tools that move objects on gizmos.  Working drawings allow one to fully dimension a part to be sent to manufacturing.

I do recognize the fundamental differences in the purpose of both programs.  Inventor is primarily a professional engineer's tool, whereas Blender is for 3D artists.  However, I would like to see a more "artistic" approach in Inventor's design scheme.  The whole process seems rather concrete, with little room for creativity.  In a world where creativity exemplifies everything from massive architectural masterpieces to small, everyday objects, Inventor needs to be able to model these parts with ease.

My biggest challenge in coping with Inventor's rigid structural design process came in designing a simple object:  a buret clamp.  The clamp contained many curves and fillets, two features that Inventor was not very good at designing.  Curves were difficult to make, requiring effort that would not have been expended had I been using Blender.  The lack of ability to simply model the curve based on vertex position was frustrating.  The other main problem was the fillet feature of Inventor.  The whole process was sketchy, to say the least.  I found myself applying fillet after fillet, and receiving a cryptic, generic error message.  When I tried the fillets in different orders, selecting different combinations of edges at a time, it was sometimes successful.  I found myself spending large periods of time trying to fillet a simple edge.  In comparison, Blender's per-vertex bevel tool works every time.

Still, Inventor has a few redeeming factors.  When the fillets work, the part looks very nice.  The lofts, when they work, can make very neat objects.  And recently, browsing through Inventor's features, I came across Inventor Studio.  This sub-program allows me to create high-fidelity renderings of assemblies, as well as animations.  I created an image using Inventor Studio, edited it in Word, touched it up a bit in Photoshop, and ended up with this result:

I found the rendering to be a very easy process, much easier and FASTER than Blender's one.

In conclusion, I find both applications to be good products.  However, in the end, Blender's versatility make it an excellent tool in almost any situation, and Inventor falls behind quickly with its rigid, structural design process.  I respect the fact that Inventor was designed to meet the criteria of engineering standards of construction, but even then, modern engineering demands a more "artistic" approach.  So, my final rating?  I don't have one.