Autodesk DWF Helps Mercury Marine and Other Manufacturers with 3D Design

Lightweight Versions of Lifelike Virtual Models Ensure Accuracy and Cost Savings

2004-10-21 - San Rafael, CA, USA: Manufacturers continue to adopt Autodesk(R) DWF(TM) Viewer 5 from Autodesk (Nasdaq: ADSK), the world's leading design software and digital content company. The latest version of Design Web Format(TM) (DWF), DWF Viewer 5 complements Autodesk's flagship 3D design technology to make it easy for engineers to create, manage and share 3D product models with other departments, and help customers and suppliers better understand complex design concepts.

Global competition, decreasing margins and the need for mass customisation are pressuring manufacturers to innovate and bring products to market even faster. Autodesk DWF Viewer 5 works in conjunction with Autodesk Inventor(R) 9, the cornerstone of Autodesk Inventor Series for 3D solid modeling, to help manufacturers streamline product development processes, improve design engineers' productivity and reduce costs. DWF Viewer delivers higher performance and better image fidelity than competing solutions to support viewing of rich data and 3D models.

"Manufacturers like Mercury Marine must take advantage of every tool that helps them to boost collaboration and speed innovation and time to market," said Amar Hanspal, vice president, Autodesk Collaboration Services. "As 3D solid modelling becomes prevalent, engineers require the means to share design information efficiently without sacrificing the precision of their drawings. Only Autodesk DWF Viewer 5 allows them to do so."

With more than three million users, Autodesk say that their DWF Viewer has become the industry standard for sharing computer-aided complex design, engineering and mapping information electronically. Autodesk DWF Viewer enables anyone to electronically navigate, view and print both 2D and 3D design information. DWF Viewer is compatible with all major Autodesk design products; non-Autodesk files can be viewed using the Autodesk DWF(TM) Writer print driver. With the addition of 3D capabilities, DWF Viewer 5 enables full visual and printing fidelity of the original Autodesk Inventor models, at a fraction of the original file size. DWF files are smaller, faster and more complete to transmit than any other format including PDF, providing the extended design team a way to distribute design data quickly, easily, and securely.

Mercury Marine, the world's largest producer of marine engines, is standardising on DWF so that it can easily, securely provide internal departments and its suppliers with accurate, intuitive snapshots of tooling and fixture designs. Mercury Marine's Tool Engineering group designs and builds tooling, fixtures and machines used to manufacture and assemble the engines that are Mercury Marine's end-product. Autodesk Inventor Series serves as Mercury Marine's primary computer-aided design application for Tool Engineering. The marine engine manufacturer is making DWF its standard for sending complex drawings electronically to suppliers, as part of requests for tooling quotes. In addition to easy publication, DWF's integration with Autodesk Inventor Series ensures design accuracy, as updates to design data trigger automatic publication of an up-to-date DWF file.

"DWF Viewer 5 makes it so easy to e-mail the extended production team a snapshot of assemblies and 3D models that are less data-intensive - but no less accurate," said Dan Sponholz, CAD Systems Administrator, Mercury Marine Tool Engineering group. "Just as important as the efficiency and cost- effectiveness is the document control we get with DWF. Because DWF is built into Autodesk Inventor Series, our mechanical design platform, we're confident that published images are always up-to-date - and that assurance is critical to maintaining compliance with ISO standards."

Autodesk DWF Viewer is available as free, downloadable viewer software, in the form of a stand-alone application or as an ActiveX control that is embedded within Microsoft(R) Internet Explorer, providing a simple, easy-to-use interface for even the novice user to master viewing and printing of design data. Autodesk DWF Viewer ActiveX control also allows users to embed DWF files in other Windows(R) Office applications such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint(R) formats. The Autodesk DWF Viewer requires an Intel(R) Pentium(R)-based PC, 200MHz or faster processor, 32 MB RAM, and Microsoft Windows XP Home or Professional, Windows 2000, or Windows NT(R) 4.0.