In the Machine

Inventor 2012 is here!

We have been slaving away at our little cottage this past year to bring you all new software. What awaits you in the next release of Inventor? Check out several interviews Mr. Cohee conducted concerning our 2012 lineup.

  

 

It's all about the position

One of those tools that's been in the Inventor for many years that is often overlooked is the ability to show a drawing view in multiple states. Take this clamp for example, you may want create a drawing and show it in an open and closed states.

 
This assembly has a positional representation set up with the cylinder set up with two states, one in an open state and one in the closed state. From there you can create a drawing and place a view using one of the positional state.

Once you have the view you want, select the Overlay icon from the Place Views > Create ribbon. From there you can specify the overlay view such as the closed Positional Representation I created earlier.

Once you select OK, you will see your original view with the overlay view to show an open and closed state.

 

 

 

Autodesk TinkerBox is here!!!

 
As some of you might have seen from our AU 2010 coverage, we introduced Autodesk TinkerBox, the first game from Autodesk.

 

If you can imagine it, you can build it with TinkerBox

TinkerBox is a fun, free-to-play physics puzzle game.  While it is full of interesting science facts and teaches basic engineering concepts, TinkerBox is more than just educational!

Take the tools in your hands to explore your creativity and imagination with Invent mode.  Build outrageous machines, share them with your friends, or download popular inventions from online.

Stretch your brain through the devious Puzzle mode.  Get immersed in physics-based puzzles and mechanical concepts, where your only hope for success is your creative problem solving.

Dream.  Build.  Share.  TinkerBox.

If you have an iPad, head on over the the app store and pick it up, its FREE!!

 

CAP IT!!

 Have you ever created a Parts List only to realize a great deal of the text is lower case? If this has happened to you, you know just how painful it is to go through and capitalize everything.

 
 
There is a much easier way to do this in the the last few releases of Inventor. To do it, open up the assembly and open up the assembly BOM. From there you can select everything you want to capitalize and right click to capitalize.

 

Now go back to the drawing and you will see it is all capitalized.

Hope that saves you some time the next time somebody forgets to select the caps lock button before they type.  

Model Documentation Survey

Are you responsible for creating 2D drawings in Inventor or AutoCAD? If so, we are looking to gather feedback from you to help guide us in future projects around model documentation. Please take 10 minutes and complete this survey in order to help us better understand the most important things to you when creating drawings.

Thanks for your help!!! 

AU 2010 Day 1

As many of you are probably aware, AU 2010 is upon us and many of us have been feverishly preparing classes and are looking forward to a great AU 2010. Monday has drawn to a close and many attendees have arrived, registered and will kick off AU 2010 with a bang first thing tomorrow morning.

Yesterday (Monday 11/29/2010) was full of press events and preparing for AU to get in full swing.

We are already seeing great news hitting the airways from the press events. Deelip Manezes captured a few videos from the event including  an new mobile game that will be released soon for the iPad, iPhone and iTouch. That's right, Autodesk is developing a new game for young Inventors. This app targets high school and college students as a fun way to learn more about physics and mechanical design. Check it out!

   

Stay tuned for more excitement to come this week!

Select Features

When working on a model, I often need to select a given feature in the graphics window instead of looking for the feature in the browser. There are a few ways to do this but the easiest way is to change the selection filter from "Select Face and Edges" to "Select Features". You will see the green icon next to the material selection across the top of the screen.

Once you have changed the filter to "Select Features" you can move over your model and see it highlight each of the features as you mouse over them. You can select a feature and Right Click to edit the feature all from within the graphics window.

You can also get to the selection filter option by holding down the Shift Key and selecting the Right Mouse Button while in the graphics window for faster access.

What iPhone applications are you using?

I know many of you have an iPhones, iTouch or iPad and are often playing with various applications. As many of you know, Autodesk has several applications from Inventor Mobile Publisher, AutoCAD WS, Fluid FX and SketchBook Mobile but there are other great apps that can be very useful when you are working on your designs. Below are a several that I have used in the past and think are great apps to look at.

Mechanical Engineer

Contains 130 formular needed by many Mechanical Engineers

 

Feed Rate Calculator

App for calculating feed rates and speeds for machinist

 

Convertbot

Great app that converts length, mass, time and much more

 

Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer

Allows users to view 3D assembly instructions created with Autodesk Publisher

 

 

SketchBook Mobile

Professional Sketching app designed for the iPhone and iTouch

 

Tell us what apps you are using in the comments below.

 

2011 Subscription Advantage Packs are here

Today  we released Subscription Advantage Packs for many of the Autodesk products.

If you have subscription for any of these products, head on over the the Subscription site to download the desired Advantage Pack.

With the addition of the Inventor 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack, those of you on subscription will receive enhancements around ease-of-use tools, better data interoperability, expanded tools for building product fabricators, and an expanded tooling library.

Ease of Use

• Dynamic Sectioning – Appearing as a top AUGI request, many of you have requested the ability to dynamically drag a section plane through models to better see internal detail.
• Feature auto-name – By providing better naming of features in the browser, you can select and modify their designs easier.
• Flexible drawing view orientation – You can now modify drawing views after they have been placed without the need to delete and re-creating the drawing view.

BIM Tools

If you design HVAC components and need to streamline AEC Exchange, now you can automate the creation of BIM content through the new AEC Exchange API. The Inventor 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack includes a  rich API framework for AEC Exchange allowing the ability to build your own applications which can automate various tasks inside AEC Exchange.

Better Interoperability

With the Subscription Advantage Pack you will gain enhanced support for Rhino translators, 3D DWG™ in/out, iLogic Copy Design. This makes it much easier to open and save 3D DWG files as well as import Rhino files directly into Inventor. For those of you using iLogic, you will be able to copy your iLogic models  as well as remove rules when passing sensitive data to your vendors. 

Inventor Tooling Expanded Content

Gain access to more mold bases and components for AutoCAD Inventor Tooling Suite and AutoCAD Inventor Professional Suite software

•  Additional inch/imperial mold bases and components from popular vendors
•  Expanded coverage of Meusburger mold bases and components

You know what they say...a picture is worth 1000 words.

 
 

 

Inventor Publisher Mobile is here!

For those of you that aren't familiar with Inventor Publisher take a look at the video Rob Cohee posted on YouTube recently.

 

Today the Inventor Publisher team released an App for the iPad, iPhone and iTouch devices allowing you to view your technical publication data on your IOS device.

 

I think this is a really great way to view your Inventor data on an iPhone or iPad including assembly instructions. head on over to the app store and download it if you have an IOS device.

What other applications are you all using?