Hasta La Ideas

For this review, I ran all software on Windows 7 with updates and current drivers. Test machines:

Unibody Macbook Pro with a Intel Core2duo and 256MB GeForce 9400M
HP Workstation with a AMD Phenom (quad) with a 1GB nvidia GeForce 9600

If you haven’t heard, Autodesk is now offering software bundles or “suites.” Each suite wraps a handful of Autodesk Products into an industry-specific package. Standard, Premium and Ultimate editions add products while increasing the (discounted versus retail) price. I was given Ultimate editions of the Design and Product Design suites for evaluation.

Autodesk Design includes Sketchbook Designer (previously known as Alias Sketch), Alias Design, 3D Studio Max, Inventor Fusion, Showcase and Mudbox. Autodesk Product Design adds AutoCAD and Inventor Pro. It would be impossible to review all of these software products in depth, so instead I will share my experiences using these products as an integrated suite of tools within an industrial design workflow.

To begin, I assigned myself the task of designing a wireless desktop speaker. Instead of opening Sketchbook Pro to begin concept sketching, I launched Sketchbook Designer. This is Autodesk’s next generation digital sketching tool that builds upon the look and feel of Sketchbook Pro while adding many features and tools. The most notable being full vector sketching: point based, editable, fluid—almost unbelievable. If you’ve ever danced the ctrl-z sketch dance: sketch, undo, sketch, undo, sketch…It’s a breath of fresh air to throw down a clean line, click, drag nudge and continue. It takes some time to adjust to this new way to sketch, but once I got it I was sold.

Click for full-sized images!

Sketchbook Designer mixes vector and raster layers for versatility. If you haven’t tried it, it is worth a trial download. After I finished my sketch, I saved as a native Sketchbook Designer DWG (import and export as Sketchbook Pro TIF or Photoshop PSD is an option).

Next, I launched Alias Design, and opened the DWG sketch I had created. It imported successfully but the file was empty—hmmm? Switching back to Sketchbook Designer, I found “File>Export>Curves DWG.” Back to Alias, my vectors imported perfectly as plain NURBS curves of varying complexity (not quite usable to generate surfaces but better than a fuzzy raster underlay. Plus, I can snap curves to my sketch?!).

Alias Design has continually added features and enhancements over the years. It is still unbeatable for ultimate control when crafting perfect NURBS surfaces. I consider parametric surface modeling to be the future and would love to see Alias Design push blend curves and construction-history even further.

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