Over the past year, since Autodesk announced the end of sale of Inventor ETO, many customers have expressed their desire to find an easy migration path out of Inventor ETO.
This desire basically consists of the following components:
- Ability to keep generating the outputs that the organization has grown used to
- Ability to maintain and/or augment the rules that have been defined after an excruciating process.
- Protection of investment in customization of Inventor ETO through Intent API, many times through the Parameter Editor custom UI.
UnitCAD offers an automation model similar to Inventor ETO but with a simpler rule definition interface.
- Rules Driven Creation of CAD Models – assembly / drawing
-
Replaces Programming paradigm with
- Database
- Familiar Formula Language
- Front end GUI
Here’s a short comparison of UnitCAD and Inventor ETO:
|
Parameter |
Inventor ETO |
UnitCAD |
|
Rule Definition |
Programming based approach. Rule Editor Add-In or Visual Studio Projects |
Graphical user interface for rule entry. UnitCAD add-in |
|
Rule Storage |
*.iks files |
Cloud Service / On-Prem Database |
|
Rule Language |
Intent Language |
Excel like formula language |
|
Custom UI |
Intent API |
UnitCAD API |
|
Common Features |
Model Browser, Entity Naming Editor, Various Rule Types, Dynamic Child Rules, Automatic File Management |
|
|
Cloud Features |
Configurator 360 |
Integration with Forge Design Automation API Rules and Files stores on Cloud for collaboration |
Cloud workflows
Through the integration with Forge APIs, UnitCAD already provides a future ready path for your cloud and web based workflows:
In summary, UnitCAD provides a clear path for transitioning from Inventor ETO. We have been a member of Autodesk Developer Network for close to 7 years now and had our first UnitCAD version listed on the Autodesk app store in 2012-13.
On customer request, we can also organize projects in collaboration with our implementation partners to undertake the work of conversion of Inventor ETO rules to equivalent UnitCAD rules.
Until next time, hoping for early ‘adoption’.