Digital Prototyping Explained

Experience It Before It's Real

Best-in-class manufacturers use Digital Prototyping to:

Build half the number of physical prototypes
Get to market 58 days faster
Achieve 48 percent lower prototyping costs
Drive greater innovation into their products

Autodesk Digital Prototyping Takes You Beyond 3D Design

By putting powerful Digital Prototyping technology within the reach of mainstream manufacturers, Autodesk is changing the way manufacturers think about their design processes and is helping them to create more productive workflows. The Autodesk approach to Digital Prototyping is unique in that it is scalable, attainable, and cost-effective, which allows a broader group of manufacturers to realize the benefits of Digital Prototyping with minimal disruption to existing workflows, and provides the most straightforward path to creating and maintaining a single digital model in a multidisciplinary engineering environment.

The Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping enables manufacturing workgroups to create a single digital model that can be used in every stage of production, bridging the gaps that usually exist between conceptual design, engineering, and manufacturing teams. It provides the technology to help manufacturers build fewer physical prototypes, reducing design and production costs.

Best-In-Class Conceptual Design

Optimize your design process and work digitally from project outset using best-in-class conceptual design tools from Autodesk. Capture ideas digitally—from initial sketches to 3D concept models using the Autodesk® AliasStudio™ product line—then share those designs with the engineering team using a common file format, allowing a product's industrial design data to be incorporated into the digital prototype.

Facilitate informed and streamlined decision-making with realistic representations of the product created from 3D design data with Autodesk® Showcase™ software. Easily present a range of design options to help reduce the time, cost, and the need for building physical prototypes.

The Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping includes AutoCAD® Electrical software for electrical control system design. The sharing of electrical design information from AutoCAD Electrical with the cable and harness functionality of Autodesk Inventor allows mechanical and electrical teams to work collaboratively on the digital prototype.

Integrated 2D and 3D Mechanical and Electrical

Autodesk® Inventor™ software is the foundation for Digital Prototyping. The Inventor model is an accurate digital prototype that enables users to validate design and engineering data as they work, minimize the need for physical prototypes, and reduce costly engineering changes discovered after the design is sent to manufacturing.

Designers can import their Inventor data into Autodesk® 3ds Max® software for advanced rendering and animated visualizations of digital prototypes. These stunningly realistic product visualizations can be used for sales and marketing before actually building anything.

Connect All to the Digital Prototype

Connecting all the workgroups to the digital prototype is the Autodesk® Productstream® family of product data management applications. These modular, scalable, and practical tools enable design workgroups to manage and track all the design components for a digital prototype, access critical design information, and make smarter business decisions. These tools automate the design revision and release processes and manage engineering bills of materials. This shortens production times, increases the ability to leverage standardized design processes, and facilitates better collaboration among design, manufacturing, and vendors.