This readme contains the latest information regarding the installation and known issues for Factory Design Suite Ultimate 2012. We strongly recommend that you read this entire document before you continue the installation. For reference, you should save this document to your hard drive or print a copy. If you experience problems not covered in this Readme, please visit the Autodesk Product Support web site.
Contents
Suite Components
Autodesk Factory Design Suite Ultimate 2012 includes the following components:
- AutoCAD Architecture 2012
- Autodesk Inventor Professional 2012
- Autodesk Navisworks Manage 2012
- AutoCAD Mechanical 2012
- Autodesk Inventor Fusion 2012
- Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012
- Autodesk Showcase 2012
- Autodesk Vault 2012
- Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for AutoCAD 2012
- Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for Inventor 2012
- Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for Navisworks 2012
Supported Operating Systems
Autodesk Factory Design Suites Ultimate 2012 supports all of the following operating environments: XP 32bit SP3, XP 64bit SP2, Vista 32bit SP2, Vista 64bit SP2, Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit.
If the operating system does not meet these requirements, please update it before the installation.
Installation Instructions
Note for Beta Users: Please uninstall all the components from Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2012 Beta 1 and Beta 2, and any other 2012 editions of the components listed in this suite before starting your installation of Autodesk Factory Design Suite Ultimate 2012.
A consolidated installer is provided for the release. The "setup" program is a dual-platform installer, so can be used on both x86 and x64 systems.
Important: As Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for AutoCAD 2012 is listed as a sub-component under AutoCAD Architecture 2012 and AutoCAD Mechanical 2012, we strongly recommend that you install them at the same time. Otherwise, if one of these products is installed later, the Utilities may not be available. If this happens, first uninstall Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for AutoCAD 2012 from "Control Panel". Then launch the suite installer, make sure Autodesk Factory Design Utilities for AutoCAD 2012 is checked under AutoCAD Architecture 2012 and AutoCAD Mechanical 2012, install again.
Autodesk Navisworks 2012 Exporter plug-in is in the sub-components list under Navisworks Manage. If you want it to work with AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD Architecture, Showcase and/or 3ds Max, these should be installed along with, or before, Navisworks Manage.
If installing Vault 2012 client and add-ins as part of a suite, the Vault add-ins may not be installed to all applications. To resolve the issue, select Uninstall/Change for the Vault client in "Control Panel" -> "Programs and Features" then select "Add or Remove features" for the Vault client install, and re-select the add-ins that need to be installed.
If you use the Factory Design Suite Uninstaller, and encounter a failure, use the Control Panel to uninstall the individual Suite components that remain.
There is a possibility that you will encounter a problem that results in no Factory Ribbon appearing in AutoCAD Architecture 2012 and AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 after the installation, especially if you had previously installed one of the Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2012 Ultimate Betas. You can reload the Ribbon by running the CUI or CUILOAD command and loading FactApplication.cuix from C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\FactApplication.bundle\Contents\Resources.
Known Issues
AutoCAD Architecture/AutoCAD Mechanical
- After executing Factory commands in AutoCAD Architecture 2012 or AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 and then using UNDO, you cannot REDO the command.
- 2D (.dwg) representations of certain highly complex assets may be missing geometric detail.
- When turning off the visibility of a layer that contains Factory assets, the assets remain visible since the asset geometry is on the Visible layer.
- 3D replacement of mirrored 2D assets, after using the Send to Inventor command, will not occur automatically. Instead, you will need to use the Inventor Mirror command.
- When using the Copy/Mirror/Move commands with stations, the object should be selected prior to starting the commands.
- After canceling the Edit Block Definition dialog, the factory ribbon tab commands may become disabled. You can re-enable them by reopening a file or re-launching AutoCAD.
- Selecting a station as 'component' in AutoCAD Mechanical 2012, may result in the Analysis functionality not working.
- A station will be deleted if the connection point of the station is selected to create a block.
Inventor
- Since the BOM structure for Pit and Platform assets is set to Reference, 2D for these assets can't be generated when Create/Update DWG. To see them in a 2D layout, you can change the BOM structure to Normal.
- Occasionally the 3D asset is not positioned on its 2D overlay after Send to Inventor.
- If an assembly file has references to two different files with the same name, the assembly will not publish as an asset successfully. We recommend that you change one of the file names.
- Occasionally, after updating a cloud asset, the updated asset cannot be placed from the Asset Library. Please close the document and open again to place the updated asset.
- If you find that Undo fails to work after placing an assembly asset, please save and close your document and then reopen it. Undo should then work.
- If you work on a layout with a DWG Overlay added, and then go to the BIM Exchange environment to export building components, Inventor may become unstable.
- 3D replacement of 2D NAAMS Safety Fence in Inventor may generate redundant connector links, impacting the layout of the fencing. Manually remove redundant connector links in the Connector Links dialog. Afterwards, you can free drag 3D assets and place 3D assets. Alternatively, to avoid the issue, launch Factory Options|DWG and turn off the Infer Connectors option.
- Adding a complicated DWG file as an overlay may impact Inventor's performance. To improve performance, you can suppress the overlay or turn off the visibility of unnecessary layers.
- If you suppress and then unsuppress a placed asset, its associated connector link will disappear in the Manage Connector Links dialog.
- The Smart Connection for cloud assets is not supported when opening one Inventor Factory layout assembly created from 2011 Update Pack 1 in Autodesk Inventor 2012.
- Smart Connections between 2011 and 2012 are incompatible. We recommend you start from a new 2012 project to avoid assets smart connection issues.
- When you use Import Asset with a 3D dwg file, we recommend you select "Import" but not "Open" in File Open Options; otherwise the Factory tab might be visually incorrect.
Factory Design Suite
- When you run a workflow in Launch Pad, make sure you have closed any existing dialog of the workflow before invoking the next workflow.
Navisworks Manage
- When using the Classic UI in Navisworks, the Factory commands will not display in the toolbar.
- The Factory Floor/Grid will disappear when Navisworks is using Autodesk Graphic System.