Covid unexpectedly invaded our lives, forcing us to close up and work from home. However, our team hasn’t lost the pace, and, as every year, we give to your judgment a new version of Woodwork for Inventor V11.

The main focus of this year’s version is to increase the speed, flexibility, and convenience of the constructor work. Big improvements have been made in BOM, Autoplot, and other fields that Woodwork for Inventor covers.

Work with multi-layer board and Material Replacement has been improved. The reporting capabilities of BOM have been significantly expanded and a tool is given to users to reconcile their generated reports. Specifications are automatically added to drawings and many other improvements to make the work of the designer easier and faster.

I would like to separately highlight the innovation of associative sculpt – now users after changing hardware position, doesn’t need to reapply the sculpt command. This has been a source of misunderstandings for users and one of the problems most often addressed by our support.

This year we have avoided the compatibility issues with Inventor. Our users probably remember the problem with the previous, Woodwork V10 version, when due to a bug in the first release of Inventor 2020, Woodwork could not work with it. It took several months for Autodesk to release the service pack. This year, the new version of Inventor 2021 did not present such surprises, which is why the V11 version starts normally with 2021 Inventor from the beginning.

Users as always can get their installation files and licenses from their Account, and everyone else can download a free Trial from our webpage.

What makes us very happy is that, over the past year, Woodwork’s geography has continued to expand, with countries such as Colombia, Chile, Iran, Hungary, and Finland appearing on our map.

Also, the network of partners continues to grow. It is gratifying that their ranks are complemented by Autodesk representatives with expertise in implementing complex systems. Woodwork’s task is not just to design and generate product information, but also to provide that information to other participants in the manufacturing process. For this reason, it is very important for us that our partners are able to carry out integration projects.

The new version released, what’s next?

Our compass depends on the needs of the market that dictate further directions of development for us.

As the trend of customization increases, it is becoming increasingly important for manufacturers to be able to quickly design and produce a single piece of unique furniture. In certain segments of furniture production, this need for flexibility is even more important than the ability to produce large quantities of furniture productively.

One of such technologies, that allows the manufacturer the flexibility to adapt to a variety of products is nesting. We are currently witnessing the increasing use of nesting in furniture factories of various sizes and profiles, and the need for nesting design tools is growing accordingly.

Another growing need is the management of CAD-generated information. CADs generate large amounts of information and its management and utilization become no less important than its production. It is becoming important for companies to have tools that allow the generated information to be stored in an orderly manner, to perform an easy search, to enable other participants in the process to supplement and use this information.

But the most important dictator of our tasks is the comments and preferences of Woodwork for Inventor users. This feedback is a refined requirement for real-world conditions, an inexhaustible source of ideas and tasks for Woodwork improvement.

So, it’s hard to say what this year will be like – Covid-19 has drastically changed the situation. So far, no one can say how that will affect business, because such an “explosive mixture” – a pandemic plus the economic crisis has never occurred in our history. However, the goals remain the same and we continue to fulfill our mission – to provide furniture manufacturers with the best design tools.

As for you, don’t forget to register for our webinar on May 14th! Register here.