You can also import Mechanical Desktop parts and models, or simply attach them. In the latter case, you can constrain them as part of an Inventor assembly, but you must return to Mechanical Desktop to edit them. The first time I saw Inventor R1, I was more than a little impressed. Its only shortcomings related to the fact that as release one it lacked many of the productivity features of a more mature product. Autodesk obviously chose to focus on the basic underlying core technology in R1.
Developers can fill in details later, but only if the fundamentals work.
Getting back to our car analogy, now that the engine, steering, and brakes work, Autodesk is adding the seats, doors, windshield, and windshield wipers. But before we get into the new features, let's review the existing basics. First, although it uses the industry-standard ACIS solid modeling kernel, it stores file data. Virtually all CAD programs store data chronologically in the order you create it. When a program opens a file, it reads it from beginning to end, then sorts the data into graphic and numeric categories.