Since the beginning of design, sketches have been used to convey the designer’s ideas in detail. Sketches in effect were 2D renderings of 3D objects. As designs grew more complex, sketching became drafting and 2D views became the standard form of engineering communication. In the early 1980s, with the advent of the PC, tools such as AutoCAD emerged still focusing on automating 2D.

The advent of computer-aided drafting (CAD) applications revolutionized engineering, architecture, and drafting, because the computer handled all the calculations with accuracy and speed, allowing engineers and draftsmen to perform the same work in a fraction of the time. CAD applications that operated in 3D, such as Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, emerged to take mechanical design automation to the next level.

Because 2D CAD applications are single-plane, single-view tools, they cannot offer the detailed modeling and visualization capabilities of 3D applications. Designers typically build physical prototypes to show the complex relationships between different parts of an apparatus, but physical prototyping is expensive and slow.

By contrast, 3D engineering and design applications such as Autodesk Inventor offer so much detail that electronic models are very good visual representations of the product and fulfill early prototyping needs. And when the first physical prototypes are needed, the model data can be used in a wide variety of rapid prototyping software and equipment to create them very quickly.

Parametrics are the key advantage of Autodesk Inventor and other 3D CAD applications. The ability to tie together each element of a design so that a change made to one component in one file is automatically implemented in all other views and related assemblies and models is nothing short of revolutionary. In 2D CAD applications the engineer would need to make the change manually in each view of each affected component—a time consuming and error-prone operation. Parametrics make true 3D modeling possible and dramatically reduce development time.

With all this extra capability, visualization, and efficiency, the decision to jump to 3D would seem to be a no-brainer, but there are some challenges involved. While 3D applications have an astonishing level of capability and functionality, it takes time and practice to master them. Today some organizations are reluctant to change because their engineering processes and downstream uses are 2D drawing dependent and 3D appears as an extra step they could do without. The transition requirements hold these organizations back from evolving the engineering group.

The other major challenge is hardware. Because of their capabilities and functionality, 3D applications are complex and compute intensive. They demand a lot and soak up prodigious amounts of memory—especially as file sizes approach the multi-gigabyte range. Gone are the days of running these applications on a desktop computer or conventional notebook computer. To get the best performance and efficiency out of Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, and other 3D design and engineering applications, you need a workstation-class computer such as one of HP’s personal workstations or mobile workstations.

All HP personal workstations, from the entry-level HP xw4300 to the HP xw8200 and the HP xw9300, as well as the HP Compaq nw8240 Mobile Workstation, offer the power and graphics needed to tackle the most demanding 3D models—and all are optimized for use with Autodesk applications.

Autodesk provides the engineering and design applications demanding users need. HP provides the power and performance to make the most of them.