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Ellipsis is the official blog of Autodesk's Technical Evangelist Team. We will discuss all things design and manufacturing related with a focus on industries such as automotive and transportation, consumer products, industrial machinery and building product manufacturing and fabrication. We also have resident experts who will blog about specific product developments in CAD, Simulation, Industrial Design and Data Management.
We look forward to providing you, our user community, with the most relevant and up to date developments in our industry, and hopefully with information that will assist you in doing your job better, faster, and more precisely.
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The same, but different...
October 1, 2009 09:30 AMby Jay TedeschiThe same, but different... let me explain. So, the same problem we were discussing for the last couple of weeks, namely, working with data from other sources. If you recall, I had covered working with data from a vendor from whom I was buying components for our re-design. This week, the problem is the same, but different in that in this case I am working not with a purchased component, but rather with an assembly that was created with a different design tool than the one I happen to use.
In the best of conditions, this presents something of a challenge, but when we find ourselves needing to change the design in some way, the level of complexity quickly increases. Autodesk Inventor Fusion was built from the ground up to facilitate the toughest of these type of design challenges. In this, the first of several posts featuring Inventor Fusion, we will take a look at some basic assembly manipulation and modeling techniques.
If you remember last week we finished up working on the Caster Wheel "Assembly" that we downloaded from our vendors web site. Well now we are going to work on the brake assembly that attaches to two of those wheels... this was originally created in Pro/E, which is not a problem for us as we can open the .asm file natively. Once open we can see that the existing torsion spring is not going to work in our new configuration, so we will select the body from the assembly, and then from the marking menu select "Isolate" to suppress all but the spring.
I can now make several non feature based edits to this part, quickly and easily. As these changes are symmetric, I will split the part, then correct for rotation and position with the Move command. Here I am moving the body along its mount axis so that it fits correctly in the bearing block.
Now we can address some of the feature lengths, but again, not via a feature edit, but rather with a direct manipulation of the feature face. For example, as you can see in the figure above, the length of this element is a bit more than is required, so Press/Pull functionality is used to select the capping face and then press into the model, shortening the element. As we split and then moved the entire body away from the center plane of symmetry, the split face is now short of the center plane by the amount of that first move. Press/Pull is used here again, but in this instance I will select the symmetry plane after picking the capping face, and the pulled face "snaps" to that plane.
Finally, the corrected spring is mirrored about the symmetry plane and the assembly saved for use back in the top level assembly.
The thing that really hits you with Fusion is how absolutely easy it is to use. The entire edit sequence shown above took no more than a couple of minutes... Don't take my word for it... check out the entire session for yourself in this video I shot. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions I would love to hear them.
Ciao'
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Simplify...
June 19, 2009 02:38 PMby Jay TedeschiSimplify... as defined by Websters...
Function: Transitive Verb
Inflected Form(s): sim.pli.fied; sim.pli.fy.ing
Etymology: French simplifier, from Medieval Latin simplificare, from simplus simple, Date: 1759
: to make simple or simpler: as a: to reduce to basic essentials b: to diminish in scope or complexity : streamline <was urged to simplify management procedures> c: to make more intelligible : clarify
"Mmmmmm... that sounds good. I'll have that." Wow, enough references in the first few lines to make Dennis Miller proud. [grin] However, in all seriousness, when working with simulation, your goal should always be simplification. Simplify.
Ultimately, your goal is to analyze as accurate a representation of your assembly as possible. But before you dive in with your top level file, think for a second as to what results you are trying to determine. The assembly shown above is an excellent example... my goal was to determine the deflection of the welded chassis under load, therefore the rear trolley wheels and forward pivot mount are not required. Their role in the analysis can be simulated with a constraint. Ditto for all of the pylon mount points and the associated hardware located on the upper faces of the weldment. These changes alone will save me an incredible amount of time in pre and post processing.
There is however, more that I can do. Take a look at the weldment assembly itself. What one feature or characteristic do you notice almost immediately. Right. It has symmetry... and as long as the loads placed upon the trolley via the engine pylon are also symmetric, which they are, what assumption can I make with regard to the results? Correct... they should also be symmetric about the center plane of the weldments. So what can I do to simply this and still get accurate results? Take a look at the following image...
I am using a Level of Detail Representation, named "Simulation", for each of the Weldment sub-assemblies. An LOD Rep in the top level assembly with the same name allows me to toggle back and forth. Now in this situation, you have a lot of flexibility in how you create your simplified rep, but the easiest is to use a Shrinkwrap substitute and then drive a single extrude cut from the mid-plane out effectively removing half of each of the sub-assemblies. The results are shown below...
Sweet... right? Okay, I am almost there... What? You didn't think I was done did you? Absolutely not. What would happen if I was to load up this model the way it is now? What do you think would happen to those unsupported elements that have all now been split? Right... they do not effectively represent our full assembly any longer, precisely because I split them in half, and therefore I will not see the correct amount of deflection on those elements. I can't use a Fixed constraint either, as it will leave me with a frame that is unnaturally stiff.
The answer is the Frictionless constraint.
This constraint prevents a selected surface from moving or deforming in the normal direction relative to the surface selected. It does however allow for rotation, movement and deformation in a tangential direction to the selected surface.
So... applying the Frictionless constraint to all of the cut faces on the Weldment Sub-assemblies allows me to simulate symmetry, and I now have an much smaller model to have to pre and post process... these are all very desirable attributes when performing analysis. Meshing is quicker, automatic contact detection is quicker, and best of all, the results are in-line with what I would expect to see if I had spent almost three times as long analyzing the full assembly.
Simplification... "It's a good thing."
By the way, if you found this interesting, and are looking for a way to get better acquainted with Inventor Simulation, then you should head over to @adskcommunity on Twitter and send them a direct message to receive your copy of "Up and Running with Autodesk Inventor Simulation 2010". Details are on the site.
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All Mixed Up...
June 11, 2009 03:01 PMby Jay TedeschiIf you frequently find yourself working in a "mixed geometry" environment then do we have a new tool for you... Up on //Labs today, the release of the Rhino Import Translator. http://tinyurl.com/nb8ul5
This translator allows Inventor users to directly read Rhino surfaces, solids, wires and points, eliminating the need to intermediate file formats such as Iges or Step. Check it out... !
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Interoperability or Collaboration...
April 10, 2009 01:08 PMby Jay TedeschiHeres another post from Rob Cohee, our resident BPM expert... Enjoy!
I’d like to expand upon a discussion thread that I saw on Facebook the other day. It had to do with which application should be applied toward a particular design challenge. Or to be specific, should I use Inventor, or Revit, or Maya, or MAX, or Navisworks, or Alias, or AutoCAD, etc. Yes – use them all, the key is how to determine which one to use. It’s simple really, ask yourself “what is my desired result.” The answer to that question will determine which application, or combination of applications to utilize on a project.
Here’s an example – I want to build a new line of configurable office workspaces. Simple enough, sounds like I fire up Inventor and start creating iAssemblies, right? Well, what if you were working with an Architect to build out a project? Maybe starting with the Revit file to perform some early analysis of the project would be appropriate? Here is where we can start to talk about the difference between interoperability and collaboration. At this stage I want to collaborate with the Architect. I don’t want to, nor do I have any influence to change the design of the building, so I’m not looking for interoperability between Revit and Inventor. However, by utilizing the Revit model to bring in the information I need to perform my analysis on these workspaces I have saved myself a considerable amount of time compared to re-drawing or re-modeling the architectural space. I don’t in this case, require interoperability between the Revit files and Inventor – I just need some sort of collaboration between the two.Let me expand then on what I mean by interoperability. Interoperability, in this example, would be the ability to open a Revit project file natively in Inventor – AND be able to manipulate the native geometry through parametric or other methods. So if I wanted to move a wall, I could click on the wall and have Inventor recognize the Revit wall element and move, clean corners, adjust schedules, door position, window position – essentially all the things that Revit does, but do it within Inventor. That’s interoperability, and that’s not what you want.THUD! That’s the sound of someone hitting me on the back of the head with a bat. “What are you doing telling the customers that what they want isn’t exactly what they want?” Sorry guys, that’s the cold hard truth of it. Where is the control in the design process if everyone can edit anything whenever they want? Plus, when you create a single, monolithic application that is good at many things; they become average as a complete solution. Here’s my thought - apply the appropriate technology determined solely by the desired result allows you to determine which purpose built tool to apply to the design; with a higher degree of accuracy and unmatched ease of use. Any one of the Autodesk products previously mentioned is best in class at modeling, drafting, collaborating, and managing every aspect of a project throughout its lifecycle. Check out this example...
This should get some blood pressure up... Bring on the comments!
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Lights... Camera...
January 23, 2009 04:08 PMby Jay TedeschiHmmm… I have a sneaking suspicion that I have named an entry this before, but a quick search of my archives came up with nothing so I will stick with it. In any case, this one is a quick tip that should help out all of you who use Inventor Studio for creating product imagery.The stock lighting styles that ship with Inventor assume a model of X cubic area or volume. You will more likely than not find that when applying a style to a model that is either significantly smaller or larger than the that default volume that the lights simply do not look “right”, either drowning out your model or highlighting a very small patch of it. Well, before you start moving the light origins there is a quick global change that you can make that may be just what you need.
As you can see from this image, the model is a bit larger than the effectively lighted area defined by the default settings in this lighting style. As I already pointed out, this can be corrected without touching the position of either of these lights by simply adjusting the global scale.
Upon opening the Lighting Styles dialog the last tab, named Position, has a Scale slider. Not surprisingly, by default it is set to 100%.
If this setting is changed, as it is here to 300%, then the position of all of the lighting elements in the scene is changed and the result is more in line with what I wanted.
Much better…Well, that is it for now, hope this helps.1 Comment | Add CommentIn Ellipsis > Tips, All, Inventor 2008, Inventor 2009
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Bears do it...
January 5, 2009 10:56 AMby Jay TedeschiBears do it... but you may not need to. Hibernate that is.
If you are using Microsoft Vista, there is a hidden culprit consuming what is more likely than not a good portion of your hard drive. I knew this, but somehow when I set to the task of building a virtual machine recently to test the newest version of Inventor I neglected to take it into account. Imagine my surprise upon finishing the Vista\Office install and service pack upgrades to find that the free space on my once seemingly huge 30Gb virtual drive reduced to a paltry 7Gb.
A quick look at what was consuming so much space on my drive brought it all back. Depending on your hardware "landscape" you may find that you never use the hibernate feature of your Microsoft OS, in which case it is, at least for most of us, desireable to recover that unused disk space. Vista unfortunately throws us a curve as hibernation is not a feature which can be disabled from the GUI. There is a way to do this however via the command prompt, but keep in mind that changes like this require admin privaledges, so you have to run the command prompt "as administrator".
So, go to Start\All Programs\Accessories\Command Prompt and right click to access the "Run as administrator" option. Once this is done the familiar DOS command prompt window will appear and you simply enter the string "powercfg -h off" which will disable the hibernation feature and get rid of that pesky hiberfil.sys file.
I hope you find this helpful and I hope that you are all looking forward to all the great stuff we have in store for you this new year!
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John von Neumann
December 17, 2008 12:00 PMby Jay TedeschiJohn von Neumann, aka "Johnny" was more likely than not the greatest mathematician of the last century, making contributions to a wide range of fields including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics, game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics (as it relates to explosions) etc. etc. as well as many other mathematical fields.
He first came to my attention because of his work on a subject that has always fascinated me... the Manhattan Project. In the earliest days of development, the majority of those working on the actual process by which the fissionable material would reach super criticality believed that the only reliable method was what was referred to as a "Gun Assembly", where one sub critical mass would be fired into another to achieve super criticality. While this was reliable, it was grossly inefficient, and also not scalable.
Von Neumann was one of the mathematicians who worked on the explosive lens process, an elegant and complex solution which is more widely known as an implosion style device. This process is the one that was tested at Trinity, the worlds first man made atomic detonation, and has been at the core of every nuclear and thermo-nuclear device since. In any case, tales of von Neumann's prowess abound, and there was one that always appealed to me.
Von Neumann was once asked to solve a classic "fly puzzle"...
Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 Mph. At the same time, a fly that travels at a steady 15 Mph starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and the flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels. Question: what total distance did the fly cover?
There are two ways to answer the problem. One is to calculate the distance the fly covers on each leg of its trips between the two bicycles and finally sum the infinite series so obtained. The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly an hour after they start so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles. When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner...
"Oh, you mush have heard the trick before!"
"What trick" asked von Neumann, "all I did was sum the infinite series."
3 Comments | Add CommentIn Ellipsis > All, Just for fun
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Jimmy Crack Corn...
December 15, 2008 10:51 AMby Jay TedeschiJimmy Crack Corn... and I don't care. Is this thing on? Is anyone out there?
Let's try something... obviously if you are just browsing through, and not logged in, there is no way you can submit a response to this, but if you are, logged in to the MFG portal that is, take about 37 seconds out of your day and submit some feedback to this post. I am not looking for anything more extensive than just a "Here"... something like a virtual roll call. I am betting that I will get fewer than 10 responses... which is absolutely pitiful.
For gods sake, this is a community site, YOUR site, and yet you wont tell us what you want us to discuss. C'mon, prove me wrong... I dare you! [grin]
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SurveyMonkey strikes again...
August 29, 2008 08:05 PMby Jay TedeschiOkay gang... here is another chance to have your voice heard... well, maybe not voice, but definitely opinion. In any case, for a while now Autodesk's Manufacturing Division has been providing Digital Prototyping tools that facilitate key phases of the manufacturing process. To help us further tailor our products to your manufacturing needs we would like to better understand how assembly instructions, maintenance/repair manuals and manufacturing documents are created and used in your organization.
Please take a moment to participate in a quick 10 minute questionnaire by clicking on this link. Upon completion of the survey you will be entered into a drawing to win one of 3 $100 Amazon.com gift certificates!
Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you!
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From concept...
May 2, 2008 06:26 PMby Jay TedeschiFrom concept to finished product in 3:03… A better or faster example of Digital Prototyping I don’t think I have ever seen…
The video, posted today on YouTube by Technogeekgal it is most definitely worth a look.0 Comment | Add CommentIn Ellipsis > Images, All