- 360 Publisher
- Alias
- AutoCAD
- AutoCAD Civil 3D
- AutoCAD Electrical
- AutoCAD for Mac
- AutoCAD LT for Mac
- AutoCAD Map 3D
- BIM 360 Glue
- Building Design Suite
- Constructware
- Creative Finishing
- Design Review
- Factory Design Suite
- Flame Premium
- Green Building Studio
- Infr. Map Server
- Infrastructure Modeler
- Installation Help
- Inventor
- Inventor ETO
- Inventor Fusion
- Inventor Fusion Technology for Mac
- Inventor LT
- Inventor Publisher
- Navisworks
- Navisworks Freedom
- PLM 360
- Product Design Suite
- Project Galileo
- Project Photofly
- Project Simulus
- Revit
- Revit LT
- Robot Structural Analysis Professional
- Sim 360 Pro and Sim 360 Moldflow
- Simulation 360
- Simulation CFD
- Simulation DFM
- Simulation Job Manager
- Simulation Mechanical
- Simulation Moldflow
- Simulation Moldflow Adviser
- Simulation Moldflow Communicator
- Simulation Moldflow Insight
- Simulation Moldflow Insight 360
- Smoke
- Vasari
- Vault
Tag Tags0
Page statistics
Table of contents
- 1. Use control vertex splines in a guitar design
- 2. Use equation curves to model complex geometry
- 3. Use part file view reps
- 4. Enable the Browser Display
- 5. iFeatures, iParts, and iAssemblies
- 6. Freeform edits for Inventor
- 7. View Representations
- 8. Positional Representations
- 9. Level of Detail Representations
- 10. Animating Positional Representations
- 11. Inventor Tooling Jig and Fixture
- 12. Tooling part and mold fill analysis
- 13. Spline and Surfacing Skill Builder
- 14. Mold Base Author Skill Builder
by Paul Normand, Principal Content Developer, Autodesk DL&S
Click to forward Paul's page to your LinkedIn contacts
This page is dedicated to providing you with tips, tricks, cool links and tutorials to enhance your digital prototyping experience.
Here is an alternate drawing file template you can use. This template uses the AutoCAD method of prompted entry to input title block information as opposed to iProperties. It also contains general notes, a revision block, confidential statement and other useful bits. If you like it, copy to your Inventor templates folder to make it available. This template is formatted for B size only. Note: The template was saved in 2012. If using with a newer version, migrate the file before using.
/@api/deki/files/55292/=Prompts_11_17.idw
Helpful Links
Automatically generate PDF's
Speaking of drawings, Inventor Jedi Steve Bedder created a blog post that shows you how to save drawings in multiple formats including PDF by using iLogic and event triggers.
The details are posted here:
http://autodeskmfg.typepad.com/blog/2012/01/using-inventor-ilogic-to-save-multipl-formats.html
Steve is a UK & Ireland MFG Technical Sales Engineer and posts some great information on the Autodesk Northern Europe Manufacturing Blog . Check it out!
http://autodeskmfg.typepad.com
Our Inventor support staff has their own blog you can check out here:
http://beinginventive.typepad.com/
A recent post to the support blog details the steps to create an ellipse by specifying two focus points and the offset distance from one of the focus points. Details to accomplish in both 2012 and 2013 are provided.
Coding wizard Brian Ekins developed a very cool macro in response to the question "How do I replay how a part was built if I don't want to use the end of part marker?".
The macro he wrote allows you to step through a model feature by feature, or fast forward to the end. Check it out here:
http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/06/stepping-through-the-features-of-a-model.html
Want to export an Inventor parts list with thumbnails to Word? Brian Ekins created an awesome add-in for Inventor that will do it for you :
http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/02/parts-list-with-thumbnail-image.html
Here's another Brian macro. A customer wants to export Work Point X, Y, Z locations from Inventor to Excel. Brian wrote some code that will do it:
http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/06/writing-work-points-to-an-excel-file.html
Use the Table of Contents below to navigate the remaining topics on the page
- 1. Use control vertex splines in a guitar design
- 2. Use equation curves to model complex geometry
- 3. Use part file view reps
- 4. Enable the Browser Display
- 5. iFeatures, iParts, and iAssemblies
- 6. Freeform edits for Inventor
- 7. View Representations
- 8. Positional Representations
- 9. Level of Detail Representations
- 10. Animating Positional Representations
- 11. Inventor Tooling Jig and Fixture
- 12. Tooling part and mold fill analysis
- 13. Spline and Surfacing Skill Builder
- 14. Mold Base Author Skill Builder
Use control vertex splines in a guitar design
New 2013 spline functionality is used to create an acoustic guitar body.
Use equation curves to model complex geometry
2013 functionality that allows you to precisely model airfoils, cones, variable pitch threads and other complex geometry.
Use part file view reps
More 2013 functionality very useful when you are creating and documenting multi-body parts.
Enable the Browser Display
"How do I turn the Inventor browser display back on after someone turns it off?" is a common question on forums.
To restore the Browser to the display:
- Click the View tab on the ribbon.
- Click User Interface
. - Click the drop-down menu and check the Browser entry.
TIP: Use Clean Screen (Ctrl+0) to toggle the display of the browser, ribbon, document tabs, and status bar on and off.
iFeatures, iParts, and iAssemblies
Table driven features, parts, and assemblies are often a great solution to creating configurations. The link below is the handout I created for an Autodesk University class I taught last year.
Freeform edits for Inventor
The form editing tools for Inventor 2011 have been moved to Fusion for the 2012 release. To use the freeform edit tools, click Edit Form or Edit Copy of Form in the Inventor Model tab, Fusion panel. These images show the transition from a prismatic block shape to an organic shape using the shape manipulation tools.
The following video shows editing a cylindrical extrusion with the Alias edge manipulation tool in the 2011 release. These tools were moved to Fusion for the 2012 release, but the edit steps are nearly identical.
Inventor Fusion and Moldflow Simulation Video
Watch this video to see a sample workflow using Fusion and Moldflow.
View Representations
Once you discover view reps, you will want to know the answer to these 3 questions:
- How do I keep new components from being added to existing assembly view reps?
- How do I keep new components from being added to drawing views created from a view rep?
- How do I get rid of this annoying message?
- To prevent new components from showing up in a view rep, right click the view rep(s) in the browser and select Lock. If you have already inserted the parts, you will have to modify each view rep. It may be faster to delete, lock, and re-insert.
- To prevent new components from appearing in a drawing view, lock the view rep in the assembly as previously noted and check the associative box in the drawing view dialog box.
- This message is displayed because the view rep default is set to Master (Locked). To reset the default, go to Application Options>File, scroll to the File Open area and click Options. In the File Open Options dialog box, select Last Active and then save your changes. The default for view reps is now unlocked.
Watch the following video for an overview of View Reps.
Positional Representations
Watch the following video for an overview of Pos Reps.
Level of Detail Representations
Watch the following video for an overview of LOD Reps.
Animating Positional Representations
Have you been frustrated trying to simulate a mechanism using Drive Constraint to show movement? Did you know you can use Inventor Studio to create complex movement? The following video was created by driving multiple positional representations in an Inventor Studio animation.
Inventor Tooling Jig and Fixture
A very nice fixture design module is live on labs. Automated fastener placement, cloud assets and more - check it out!
Download the Inventor 2012 Jig and Fixture module from Autodesk labs here:
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/inventor_jigs_fixtures/
The two instructional videos posted on the labs site use the datasets included in this zip file.
Tooling part and mold fill analysis
The following animation shows the steps to create a part or mold fill analysis. You can display defects in the fill such as air traps and weld lines.
Spline and Surfacing Skill Builder
A new Skill Builder has been posted that uses the following functionality:
- Multi-body
- Splines
- Surfacing
- Plastic Features
Click here to access:
Mold Base Author Skill Builder
A three part video skill builder and downloadable dataset has been posted on the Community Tutorial page. This skill builder leads you through the process of creating a mold base that is Inventor Tooling friendly.
Check it out here: Tooling - Author and use a Mold Base
