In the Machine

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.

 

 

 

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.  

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.

Official Autodesk Inventor Podcast Episode 42 - Using DWG files

I often get questions around importing/exporting DWG files with Inventor. Many of you have need to work with 2D DWG files between AutoCAD and Inventor and at times also need to open or save 3D DWG files. This episode is all around how to leverage DWG files between both AutoCAD and Inventor. I also use a great little tool that was recently updated on Labs to help take 2D drawings and turn them into 3D models.

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2D to 3D tool update on Labs

I have received many emails lately concerning the Inventor 2D to 3D tools availability for Inventor 2011. As some of you probably already know, there is a 2D to 3D tool available on Labs that takes 2D views from AutoCAD and positions them to easily create 3D models.

This has been available for several versions of Inventor although we just updated it for Inventor 2011. If you AutoCAD 2D drawings that would like to turn into 3D models, head on over to Autodesk Labs and download the Inventor 2D to 3D tool.

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!

More great videos

Those of you that have followed me for for a while know I am a sucker for cool videos created with Inventor. More and more Inventor videos are getting posted on YouTube and other services with great tips and tricks  and other videos that just look cool. Over the weekend I ran across these two videos what were captured with Inventor 2011 with real-time graphics that I thought were worth mentioning - take a look.

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.