AnyCAD in Fusion 360 Preview

AnyCAD allows you to take models from other CAD software in their original format and use them directly in your Fusion 360 designs. AnyCAD preserves your CAD data associations, so changes made to the original designs in their native applications are automatically shown in Fusion 360.

The AnyCAD preview in Fusion 360 allows users to maintain full associativity with Inventor and Solidworks data. Additional file formats coming soon include Creo, NX, and other non-native data types like IGES and STEP.

This past August, Autodesk dramatically incresed the value of the Autodesk Product Design & Manufacturing Collection. They added Nastran non-linear simulation and 5-Axis CAM to Inventor at no additional cost. By doing so, they made the Collection a truly robust platform for the full product development process – from concept and design to engineering and simulation to CAM and fabrication.

Now they’re at it again, this time extending AnyCAD to Fusion 360 to unlock a new level of interoperability in the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection. As an added bonus, they’re also introducing a preview of the new Nesting Utility for Collection subscribers to get the most out of their manufacturing materials.

AnyCAD has been introduced to Fusion 360, enabling interoperability with Inventor and throughout the entire Product Design & Manufacturing Collection. The connection will allow data to move in both directions, so subscribers can leverage the power and depth of Inventor with the cloud-enabled Fusion 360 platform. Whether your favorite flavor of CAD is desktop, cloud-based, or browser, you’ll always have access to the right tool at the right time in your product development process.

We can rant on for hours about the various benefits of bringing your desktop CAD to the cloud, but let’s focus on a few of the new highlights.

Simulation

Engineering problems are getting increasingly complex, which require advanced tools and solvers to validate. So maybe you’re one of the few lucky ones who had access to SolidWorks Simulation, ANSYS, or Simulia. Nastran has now got its way into Fusion 360. Now you’ll have the tools to solve engineering problems which require thermal, nonlinear, shape optimization, and so much more. Not only do you have access to a variety of study types, but you can leverage the cloud to solve your complex simulation studies. The cloud enables you to offload time-consuming studies from your feeble laptop. On top of that, you can run different design ideas or different simulation scenarios in parallel to ensure you get to the best decision sooner.

Manufacturing

Fusion 360 has integrated CAM to fuse the workflow from design to CAM, but a CAM programmer will see file types from almost every CAD package. Fusion 360 can translate 25+ different file formats, but translation is where things break down. Once the translation occurs, the link to the original part is broken. Well, not anymore. Yes, the CAM toolpaths will update when your SolidWorks data is updated.

Cloud Storage

Last and most importantly, store your SolidWorks data in the cloud. With Fusion 360’s cloud data you can log into a web browser to view, collaborate, manage, and even modify your CAD data. There is NO server installation needed; it just works the first time you sign in. Don’t believe me yet? Check it out!

Fusion 360 will even automatically version control your SolidWorks data in the cloud. When you save your SolidWorks data into Autodesk Drive (similar to a Dropbox folder in Windows Explorer or Finder), and your SolidWorks data will automatically be synced to the cloud. As your SolidWorks files change, versions will be created in the cloud. Teams can comment, red-line, and markup different versions to produce an audit-able trail of design decisions throughout the product development process. Typically, this is a conversation that happens between multiple team members email boxes.

Oh and finally, as I mentioned previously in the blog, the new addition of the Autodesk Nesting Utility to the Collection, allows manufacturers to optimize the use of materials such as sheet metal, plastics, composites, wood and more for part production. Similar to the integration of Nastran and HSM previously, the new utility will work directly from within the Inventor interface. The introduction of this utility is yet another example of a  more complete workflow to the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection – again at no additional cost.

Over-all Autodesk recognize that our customers use other software too, so AnyCAD will let you leverage Solidworks data into Inventor and Fusion 360 while maintaining full associativity. And while Inventor users can already import other major file types like Siemens NX, PTC Creo and other non-native data, that’s also coming soon to Fusion 360.

So what are you waiting for, buy your Fusion 360 with Symetri (formerly Procad) now and avail of the latest updates and functionality Now!