Digital Prototyping with Autodesk Inventor Helps Create Advanced Water Treatment Technologies to Filter Contaminants and Enable Safe Water Reuse

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — July 29, 2010 — APTwater, a California-based developer of advanced water treatment technologies, is using software from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) to design its HiPOx and PulseOx reactors, both of which use advanced oxidation processes to remove harmful compounds and pollutants from water. This high-performance water treatment helps increase water quality and reusability.

The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program — which provides software for emerging clean tech companies in North America and Europe — enabled APTwater to significantly accelerate the design of its advanced reactors, which are customized for use at a variety of water and wastewater facilities. Since floor space is limited at most of these sites, APTwater uses Digital Prototyping technologies such as Autodesk Inventor software to produce reactor designs that make the most of every square inch of usable space. With the help of Autodesk reseller KETIV Technologies, the company was soon leveraging the benefits of Inventor software.

“We need to optimize our designs for use in very tight spaces, and we simply wouldn’t be able to do that without the 3D modeling tools in Autodesk Inventor,” says Louis LeBrun, vice president of business development at APTwater. “Inventor software helps us make our pipe reactors as small and efficient as possible, and makes our injection points fit perfectly into the limited space we have available.”

APTwater’s reactors work by creating a complex chemical reaction that oxidizes biologically toxic and nonbiodegradable materials, including pesticides, herbicides, petroleum and other volatile agricultural and organic compounds. The oxidation process literally burns up and destroys the contaminants, without leaving behind any harmful by-products. The result is clean water that can be reused by municipalities, businesses and agriculture.

Creating digital prototypes and then sharing the design and engineering data across offices with Autodesk Vault Professional software has helped APTwater to significantly reduced the amount of time required to create water treatment reactors and deploy them in the field. This speed, in turn, helps shorten the amount of time before APTwater’s customers can turn a polluted or contaminated water source back into a viable source of clean, reusable water.

“APTwater’s water processing technologies have positive implications for many different industries and regions of the world that face clean water shortages,” said Robert “Buzz” Kross, senior vice president, Autodesk Manufacturing Industry Group. “Digital Prototyping has helped accelerate APTwater’s ability to solve key design and engineering problems for its diverse customer base.”

About the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program

The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program supports early-stage clean technology companies by providing design and engineering software that accelerates their development of solutions to the world's most pressing environmental challenges. Clean tech companies in North America and Europe who can benefit from Autodesk solutions for Digital Prototyping are invited to apply to receive up to $150,000* worth of software for only $50. Access to a collection of Autodesk industry-leading software applications includes up to five licenses of AutoCAD Inventor Professional Suite, Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk Vault Professional, Autodesk Revit Architecture, Autodesk Alias Design, Autodesk Algor Simulation and Autodesk Inventor Publisher. For additional information, visit http://www.autodesk.com/cleantech.

About APTwater, Inc.

Headquartered in Pleasant Hill, California, APTwater develops and commercializes advanced water treatment process technologies that enable water reuse. Its technologies are based on renewable resources and minimize or eliminate production residuals or waste by-products. For additional information, visit www.aptwater.com.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc., is a world leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software to help customers experience their ideas digitally before they are built. Fortune 100 companies -- as well as the last 15 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects -- use Autodesk software tools to design, visualize and simulate their ideas to save time and money, enhance quality, and foster innovation for competitive advantage. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

*Value is based on up to five commercial licenses of each application.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, Algor, Alias, Autodesk Inventor, Inventor, Revit and Showcase are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

© 2010 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6379447&lang=en

Contact:

Autodesk, Inc.
Jennifer Ha, 415-547-2435
Email Contact
or
For Autodesk, Inc.
Alyson Moses, 312-297-7430
Email Contact