Autodesk Inventor

Autodesk Inventor is a parametric, feature-based 3D mechanical CAD product from Autodesk, widely deployed in mid-market manufacturing — machinery, OEM equipment, and tool design. It combines part and assembly modeling with simulation, sheet-metal, weldments, and tooling-design workbenches and integrates tightly with Autodesk Vault.

Context

Inventor was first released in 1999 and has historically competed with SolidWorks, Solid Edge, and Creo in the mid-range CAD segment. It uses Autodesk’s ShapeManager geometry kernel (a fork of ACIS) and stores native data in Vault for revision and BOM control.

What it implements

• CAD 3D Design with parametric and direct edit features.
• CAD 2D Drafting with the Drawing Manager.
• CAD Assembly with constraint and joint-based assembly.
• GD&T, PMI Annotations, and Model-Based Definition through the Tolerance Advisor and 3D Annotation tools.
• STEP AP242 Data Exchange read/write.

Relationships (see sidebar)

• Mid-range alternative to SolidWorks and PTC Creo; commonly paired with Autodesk Vault.

Vendor

Autodesk.

Resources

• Autodesk Inventor Overview — official product page
• Autodesk Inventor Overview — official Autodesk channel
• Autodesk Inventor 2025 Basics for Beginners — 30-minute step-by-step intro