Inventor, like many other CAD applications that use older graphics APIs, isn’t the best at harnessing the plentiful power of modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). It dates back to 2007 and uses older graphics APIs including OpenGL and DirectX 9/10/11. OGS is shared by nearly all Autodesk products, including Inventor, Revit, 3ds max, AutoCAD, Maya, Fusion, Infraworks, Navisworks and Recap. The new viewport system is a complete re-architecting of the current One Graphics System (OGS), which relies solely on rasterisation, a rendering method for 3D software that takes vector data and turns it into pixels (a raster image).

The aim is to enable users to switch between a simple shaded view and a photorealistic representation very quickly – though the speed at which this can happen will depend on the graphics hardware and the complexity of the model. The ‘next-generation’ system will also improve visual quality by delivering ray tracing directly inside the viewport. Autodesk’s new One Graphics System (OGS) for Inventor, 3ds max and other Autodesk applications promises to improve viewport performance and visual quality through GPU ray tracing, writes Greg CorkeĪutodesk is working on a new graphics engine that promises to ‘radically improve’ 3D performance in its core applications, including Inventor, 3ds max, Revit and others.