Lo and behold, a wee update popped up on the Autodesk CAM page today. An update with a shiny ‘NEW’ badge to share that Autodesk has actually finished development of their very own native CAM app for Inventor. And like its companion app and predecessor HSMXpress for SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor HSM Express is completely free.
Inventor peeps, Get Your Toolpath On
For those keeping a watchful eye you’ll know, HSM Express for Inventor has been in beta since early summer for select Inventor users. It’s been a long time coming since HSMWorks was acquired by Autodesk in October of 2012. Now Autodesk and users of Inventor bent on breaking in the digital tool path on their native models are celebrating. Capabilities in image form are as follows:
Autodesk has been committed to continue development of the HSMXpress SolidWorks version of the software, even though Dassault SolidWorks Corp. yanked the product from the the Partner Product page hours after the acquisition was announced by Autodesk. You’ll still find reseller support for the product and support via Autodesk’s CAM group. It’s uncertain, however, if this new Inventor version precludes the lessening of effort put into the SolidWorks product as we’ve seen happen to similar competitor related products.
To run HSM Express, you need a valid license of Autodesk Inventor (or LT) 2014. You can download Inventor HSM Express for free in exchange for your name and details right here.
What’s next for CAM?
Make no mistake, Autodesk isn’t shy about its Cloud (ad)ventures. They’ve brought Fusion 360 to the cloud carrying card members of the design community with the T-Splines tech they acquired. They’re learning quite a bit of what works and doesn’t work through that and will be making a move to bring CAM to the Cloud next (as evidence by their ‘camcloud.jpg’ image on their CAM site). A move we expect to be announced at Autodesk University this year, if not sooner.
Update 09/26/13
Anthony Graves, PM, CAM at Autodesk commented with great insight into the software development process at Autodesk. Autodesk’s In the fold blog announced the news later on Thursday.
Disclaimer: Autodesk and Autodesk CAM division are advertisers on SolidSmack. This post, however, was not arranged and is not a paid notice or endorsement for the product.
