Digital Prototyping gives manufacturers the ability to virtually explore a complete product before it's built. By using a digital prototype, you can visualize and simulate the real-world performance of a design with less reliance on costly physical prototypes.

Visualizing Your Digital Prototype
Create accurate and highly realistic visualizations of industrial machinery, automotive designs, and consumer product digital prototypes. Designers are turning to industry-leading visualization software that is part of the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping, including Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design, Autodesk® Showcase®, Autodesk® Maya®, and Autodesk® Navisworks® software.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design software is a natural extension of Autodesk® Inventor® software for creating visualizations of digital prototypes for interactive marketing campaigns. Autodesk 3ds Max Design contains a suite of data preparation, modeling, animation, effects, and rendering tools that enable manufacturers to:

• Create advanced software-rendered animated visualizations and high-resolution still images for design reviews and client presentations.
• Add animated characters to scenes; animate products and exploded diagrams; and place products in their intended settings for in-context visualization.
• Market products in print, on the web, and in television commercials and video games without the need for costly physical prototypes and photography shoots. Advanced mental ray® renderer rendering, animation, and effects tools enable designers and computer graphics (CG) artists to create virtual photography and cinematography that is nearly indistinguishable from reality.
• Give designers and CG artists flexibility for the design, animation, and rendering of digital prototypes within a single unified pipeline from Autodesk through data interoperability between Inventor and 3ds Max Design.

With Autodesk Showcase software, designers can quickly evaluate multiple design variations by creating realistic, accurate, and compelling imagery from 3D CAD data. Then they can interactively view this imagery in realistic environments, helping make it easier and less expensive to make design decisions. Manufacturers streamline the following tasks with Autodesk Showcase:

• Data preparation—Import models from Autodesk® Alias® products or CAD software, and convert them to a format suitable for high-quality, interactive 3D visualization.
• Presentation authoring—Use Showcase to create a range of realistic design alternatives for design reviews. Apply realistic textures and materials—such as paint, glass, and leather—and place models in an environment for context.
• Presentation review and decision making—Put your 3D CAD data on display. Present large models in a realistic, accurate way, so team members can make informed design decisions.

Autodesk Maya is a powerful, integrated 3D modeling, animation, and rendering solution that enables consumer products and automotive manufacturers to incorporate CAD data into engaging product collateral. Maya is a natural extension of the Autodesk® Alias® family of products and Autodesk® Showcase® for the creation of advanced rendering and animated visualizations of digital prototypes. With Maya software, consumer product manufacturers can:

• Create advanced software-rendered animated visualizations and high-resolution still images for design reviews and client presentations.
• Add animated characters to scenes; animate products and exploded diagrams; and place products in their intended settings for in-context visualization.
• Market products in print, on the web, and in television commercials without the need for costly physical prototypes and photography shoots. Advanced mental ray® rendering, animation, and effects tools enable designers and computer graphics (CG) artists to create virtual photography and cinematography nearly indistinguishable from reality.
• Leverage data interoperability between Maya and Alias products as well as Showcase to give designers and CG artists flexibility for the design, animation, and rendering of digital prototypes within a single unified pipeline.

Autodesk Navisworks software for manufacturing, part of the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping, helps you to experience your factory before it's built. You can combine product, tooling, fixture, layout, and facilities data from different CAD systems and create a single 3D digital model of your factory. Then, analyze the model to check for collisions, identify space constraints, and create 4D simulations of your factory models that include the installation of equipment on the factory floor. Publish the digital factory model in a highly detailed but lightweight format and share it with suppliers and partners to give all stakeholders complete access to the information.