Infraworks from beginners perspective

[Anonymous]

Hi, 

I've recently started using Infraworks for Bridge design and first thing that I learned is that it takes more than Infraworks to get your design as accurate as possible. Depending on complexity of design you need to use Civil 3D, Revit and Inventor. Next thing I learned is that all those apps need to be in the same version, for example Infraworks 2018, Civil 3D 2018, Revit 2018 and Inventor 2018. Third thing that I've learned is that if you plan to use Inventor to create your own elements for Infraworks you need to INSTALL INVENTOR FIRST (lot of people had that problem) otherwise you won't be able to export element from Inventor and use them in Infraworks. There's many more other things that you start discovering once you get into more often use of Infraworks but that's for another discussion.

My question is will that be the standard practice in future? Do I need to update Inventor first, then Civil, then Revit and then Infraworks so that everything works properly? 

Thank you, 

Regards

[Mike_Hurtado · Accepted solution]

Are you using the Infrastructure Modeler plugin to get your parts from Inventor to Infraworks? I haven't had the chance to play with exporting from Inventor much but if you have Inventor preinstalled while going through the Infraworks setup, the Infraworks installer will install the plugin automatically. If you didn't have Inventor preinstalled, you can always grab the plugin from your manage.autodesk.com page or from the Autodesk Desktop app.

Since Infraworks can pull in from a variety of Autodesk software, I would install it last so that it can detect what plugins it can use during the installation process. Otherwise you can manually grab the plugins after everything has been installed.

[Anonymous]

Hi Mike, 

At the start I only had Infraworks, then while working in it I discovered that library for bridge decks, piers and abutments is not so rich and that I need inventor to be able to create some shapes for those elements. Then I installed Inventor but it didn't work and I found out that Inventor needs to be installed before Infraworks (as you said) to be able to export elements from Inventor to Infraworks. Unfortunately I haven't found a word about it at Autodesk learning and had to discover it by myself using other users tips. 

Regards, 

Mirko