In the Machine

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.

Embrace the intersect

As many of you know I took six weeks off this summer (hence the light blog posting) and Jay was kind enough to post some goodies for you while I was gone (Thanks Jay).  Now that I am back I plan on getting back into it and getting some content posted for you all.

Since most of you like tips the most, that is what I thought I would start with. Once in a while I will need to create an extrusion with lots of holes or a certain shape that aren't pattern-able. If you look at the following image you would need to select 13 open profiles to do an extrusion cut. Imagine if you had many more than 13 and it would be a huge pain to select all the open profiles. 

A little trick I use it to select the outer region and do an Intersect Extrusion so I only have to select one profile. Inadvertently if I try to select all the open profiles I miss-pick and have to start over so this save me lots of time.

Start the Extrude command and select the outer area as highlighted.

From there you can use the Extrude dialog box or Heads Up Display (HUD) to choose Intersect instead of Cut. Make sure you have the right direction and termination and select OK to finish the cut.

 

 

I hope that helps out next time you need to create an extrusion of many profiles that can't be patterned or mirrored.

Scale up those constraints

There are a few things options I typically change after installing a fresh new Inventor. I don't feel old enough to need to scale up my text and constraints but I like the look when they are larger. If you take a look at the following image this is the typical size of both text and constraints.

There are two separate options to scale them both up. Launch Applications Options from the ribbon and select the Sketch tab. From there we will first scale up the Constraints so bump up the value from 1 to 1.5 or 2.

The second area we will adjust is under the General Tab. Look for the Annotation Scale option on the right and change it from 1 to 1.5 or 2.

 

Simply apply and close the dialog to view you sketch annotations and constrains with the new setting.

Enjoy!

A Brief Overview with Wiki help

A few weeks ago I posted about our new Wiki help system and now there is a great YouTube video from Lynn Allen on how to use it. This shows you how to use it and how you can set your own page up to share your own pictures, videos and tips.

 If any of you set up a page page with tips and images let me know. You never know, it might even show up on my blog.

For starters here are a few pages to check out.

• Paul Normand'sWiki page is full of great Tips, Tricks and cool links from Paul.
• Bill Bogan's page with useful tips and projects he has worked on.
• Inventor Studio Tips

Just rewind it

Today I was flipping through a training manual for Inventor 2010 and noticed a feature I had forgotten about and had to play with it. While in a model and navigating around, Inventor keeps track of all your moves and gives you a chance to rewind and fast forward through your movements.

To access this capability, select the Navigation Wheel from the View tab in the ribbon or from the view tool on the right side of the graphics window.

 

Select the Rewind option to access the various views by scrubbing the cursor across the various views to rewind or fast forward your view.

 

Image Export Options

I noticed that Mark Flyler over at Imaginit posted a great article on pulling images from Inventor to be used as technical illustrations, Power Point or on web sites. You might simply  want to get an image directly from your Inventor screen or perhaps a more customized image rendered from Inventor Studio. Mark starts out with the basic and works his way to Inventor Studio (including a few tips for using in Power Point). If you have ever needed to capture images out of Inventor, head on over to his blog post.

Nicely done Mark!

Its all about materials

For those of you that need to use materials (physical not visual) for your parts and assemblies that aren't in the Inventor standard template, this one is for you. I will also explain how you can apply specific hatch patterns per material in your drawings.

Lets take a look at how to add the materials you need. First, open a template file or part that you want to add a new material to. Open up the "Style Editor" from the Manage tab in the ribbon. Expand the Material node to show all the materials available in the part. If there is a material similar to what you would like to use, select it in the left portion on the dialog box and select New towards the top of the dialog box. Specify a new name and make the appropriate changes to the material. You can often find material properties by doing a Google/Bing search to locate a density table or any other properties you need.

Notice towards the bottom of the dialog box you can specify the color you want for this material.

Select done and we will proceed to the drawing environment to link up a hatch style to this material. Open a drawing or drawing template and navigate to the "Style Editor" just as we did in the part file. On the left pane select the standard you want to use (in my case I will use Default Standard (ANSI). Select the "Material Hatch Pattern Defaults" tab and either import materials from an existing file or bring in all the styles from an existing Style Library. Once imported you can select each material and apply a different hatch pattern to it that will be applied when you section your part/assembly.

Official Autodesk Inventor Podcast Episode 39 - Drawing Tips and Tricks

I have received several emails wondering if I was still podcasting. Yes I am still doing it and should be able to get back on a regular schedule (if I ever had one). This episode I cover various tasks to help annotate your drawings. I also cover several ways to add more intelligent data that will update with your model.

• Auto centerlines
• Move model dimensions from one view to another
• Add associative text to 3D model
• Add balloons with associative items like models mass properties

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Rotate Drawing View

I am just getting back into the swing of things after a two week vacation for the Holidays and realized it’s been a while since I have posted last. I hope you all had a great New Years and look forward to a great year. Shortly before my vacation I received a question about rotating a drawing view so here it goes.

I build a simple part with a few angled faces and want to be able to create a drawing with a particular horizontal edge .

You will notice the top edge is close to horizontal although I want to rotate the entire drawing view to ensure it is at 0deg. In the browser right click on the drawing view you want to rotate and select Rotate.

Note: If Rotate is grayed out, you have a sketch overlaid on the view and it will block you from rotating the view.

From the Rotate View dialog you can select an edge to be Horizontal / Vertical or specify an Absolute / Relative angle for the view.

Associative Project Edges

This week I was visiting one of our long time Inventor users and received a request that we make it possible to associatively project edges to a plane. One example where this might be useful is if you have two steel members overlapping and you need to remove material from one of them for clearance  - oh and did I say it needs to be associative? In the following example I am using a multi body part where I have two bodies representing each part.

In this case I created a sketch on the larger steel member and from the "Project Geometry" tool in the ribbon, I selected the drop down and chose "Project Cut Edges". This projects all the edges that pass through that sketch and makes them associative.

To make this a little more useful, I offset the projected edge of the smaller member to give me clearance and removed the material with an Extrude Cut.

Now I can move the smaller member to a new location and see the cut move with it.