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June Expert Elite Highlight: Inventor Workstation by Neil Cross

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Message 1 of 4
Neil_Cross
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June Expert Elite Highlight: Inventor Workstation by Neil Cross

Autodesk is excited to feature Neil Cross in AutodeskHelp blog's 2016 Expert Elite Highlight series - June edition!  Neil has created a fast, furiously fantastic video analyzing the ideal workstation for running Inventor. 

NeilCrossHardware2.jpg

 

Original title provided: Autodesk Inventor Workstation started-off-as-a-buyers-guide-but-turned-into-a-something-else Guide

 

What kind of title is that? It makes no sense.  I know.  However, there is a point to this article! And quite an important one.  FYI this is a bit of an introduction, setting the scene, the video is where it’s at!

 

For most of my career I’ve been “the CAD guy”.  That guy who shows up at your office now and again, usually when it’s time to upgrade the CAD system or when it’s time to learn about the latest Autodesk products from your rep.  And you genuinely believed this CAD guy is ‘the guy’ who can fix any problem you’re having with Inventor in a heartbeat, so you continuously beat him down with questions about why your computer is slow.  Oh but this computer is only 6 months old! Why is Inventor running slowly? Takes a long time to open this and takes a life time to start that; I turn it on in the morning and go make a coffee whilst Inventor boots up! No it can’t be the computer, it’s brand new, our IT guy picked the spec and bought it from *insert reputable brand name here*. 

 

So after years of taking that beating, and also reading plenty of folk having a little moan about it on the forums, I decided I needed some answers.  What makes Inventor tick? Well, after extensive and painstaking testing of Inventor on numerous different types of systems, I’ve come to the conclusion that Inventor is extremely difficult to test, it really is.  It’s nothing at all like benchmark testing something like video games.  For example, Doom at 4K on a new NVIDIA GTX 1080 graphics card where everything is a constant.  Every purchased copy of Doom is the same, 4K is 4K, and within the tolerances of silicone manufacturing and board partner overclocks, the graphics cards are going to be the same.  So you can watch a benchmark of a video game from your favourite YouTuber and you’ll pretty much know what to expect if you bought the exact same gear being tested there.  With Inventor though, it’s not really that simple! There’s a new version every year, files at different migration levels, different service pack levels, every 3D model is different, every drawing is different, it can take longer to open a complex single part than a medium sized assembly, and it can take longer to open and work with a tiny assembly that has some funky broken adaptivity relationships!

 

Performance testing still needs to be done.  But why though? Well hopefully that’s quite obvious.  Some of the Internet’s finest have found lurking in the YouTube comments section didn’t quite get it though, vehemently arguing that “these tests aren’t helpful, of course system A is going to be better than system B because of etc. etc. etc… Why are you comparing two totally different systems when clearly one is better equipped for the job than the other…etc.”  

 

Well here’s the thing, benchmark tests don’t exist to inform the already informed; that would be pointless.  But there’s thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people likely using a workstation that they’ve been led to believe is suitable for the job they’re doing, but in actual fact is inadequate, and they have no idea it’s the PC at fault.  And with something like a 3D CAD application where there’s no set standard or fixed perpetual performance guidelines, the only real way to highlight the inadequacies of a certain PC spec is to directly compare it to another, with context applied.  

 

In many cases, the guys and girls using these systems in the real world are often uninformed and maybe uninterested when it comes to computers specs, and why should they be?  They’re architects, engineers, product designers and the like, they have enough on their plates without having to understand the intricacies of PC hardware.  Their PC is merely a tool, a conduit for getting their job done, and their tools are often bought by people who with the best of intentions, also don’t fully understand what their CAD software requires from the hardware it’s installed onto.  As long as it’s a workstation and is on the certified hardware list, it should be fine am I right? It has a reputable name and recognizable logo on the front, and was expensive so you know it’s good for the job!

 

I haven’t mentioned money or budgets yet, so you may be thinking ah but Neil, what you’re missing is that not everybody has the budget to drop three and a half grand on a top of the range Workstation! If I had twenty grand I could pick all the most expensive options on the PC configurator website and put together something which would destroy my workload, I’d be racing a Ferrari at a tricycle race!

 

And now, on with the show.

NEIL'S BIO

NeilCross1.jpgI joined the Autodesk Expert Elite program in 2014, around 17 years after I used my first Autodesk program.  Asides from a random 1 year of trying to be but not being a very good police officer, using/teaching/supporting Autodesk applications and customers have been the only thing I’ve ever done in my 20 year career so far.  Things escalated quickly when in 2004 I joined the UK Autodesk reseller Symetri, formerly Imass, now part of CAD-Q.  I quickly needed to get out of my AutoCAD comfort zone and self-teach myself these ridiculously daunting looking applications known as Inventor and Vault.  I had a wonderful 8 years at Symetri, and like Eric Cantona (European soccer player for those unfamiliar), I left at the top of my game after being awarded UK Technical Engineer of the Year by Autodesk in 2011.

 

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Outside of work, which at the moment such a place doesn’t exist, when I’m not clearing up a trail of destruction left by my cat who is basically a fur covered parcel of hatred sent special delivery by Satan to make my life a living hell, I can be found in my home office which I use when the cat allows me to.  A glimpse of my office reveals the scale of my nerd-ness.  I’m a huge geek, so even when I’m not working I’m still surrounding myself in technology, I just can’t get enough of it. 

 

So to close this off, you can find me over at www.tficad.tips where I’ll be continuing to upload short snippet tips & tricks as and when I think them up, but you’ll also see more professional tech related content appearing there too as I shift some focus towards that.  Pluralsight is where the main Inventor tutorials will be at, and you can Twitter me @tficadtips

 

That's it from Neil for now!

 

Autodesk is very appreciative of the information provided by Neil on the workstations for Inventor. We really value the effort and the large amount of time that Neil have taken to produce this particular video, as well as all the contributions made providing information on Autodesk.

 

Please subscribe to the AutodeskHelp blog to learn about helpful product tips and tricks like these.

 

Labels (2)
3 REPLIES 3
Message 2 of 4
bgarden
in reply to: Neil_Cross

Why aye man! Favourite vid of yours so far mate! 

 

 

Message 3 of 4

Really nice video! Kudos to you.

 

I would love to extend this to the Inventor HSM (Or just Autodesk CAM in general) software.

I mean the CAM is going to behave differently to the same hardware, it eats RAM and runs truly multi-core. 

 

Easiest thing to do would be to just run this benchmark: http://www.hsmworks.com/performance/

 

Laurens Wijnschenk
3DTechDraw

AutoDesk CAM user & Post editor.
René for Legend.


Message 4 of 4
ReySantos
in reply to: Neil_Cross

Very, very good video. Congratulations!! Neil

Rey Santos

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