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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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Interview with Brian Roepke about the Vault 2010 product family
May 29, 2009 04:18 PMbyI know I'm a bit late in getting this next interview to you guys, but It has been one of those weeks. This time I sat down with Brian Roepke to chat about the new Vault 2010 product family. I really think that some of the items that they have embedded in Inventor to work with vault are genius.
Check it out and have a great weekend!
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This Week's Two Minute Tip
May 26, 2009 07:53 AMby Rob CoheeLast week I was building out a data set with our resident Curtain Wall expert Brian Frank and I wanted to put in every detail I possibly could with this curtain panel assembly, including the ability to extract the length of each part. But there was a catch here – the length wasn’t the length of an extrusion or something I could dimension in the normal sort of dimensioning. No big deal, right?Now the reason for this technique is that I need to use a “From, To” extrusion when using the new iCopy tool on labs http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/inventor_icopy/ . So in order for me to create a cut list and extract length for each part I need to create a driven dimension and reference that dimension in a customized part list in a drawing file.So just like that two minutes turned into four, my how time flies when I’m rambling… [grin]
-Rob2 Comments | Add CommentIn Ellipsis >
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Customer Request Line is Open
May 21, 2009 08:39 AMby Rob CoheeWhat do you think of the new look? Nice job Mr. Repp.We mentioned a couple of months ago that one of the key goals of Ellipsis is to open up the request lines and explore some of your everyday design challenges that Inventor can address, and ultimately allow you to focus on design and engineering instead of using Inventor just as a geometry creation tool.This entry is exactly that. I had a customer ask how to create a castellated beam. They were aware of the Content Center and the ability to bring in a W beam, and then make edits to it, but they knew there had to be an easier way. Let’s take it a step further and associate the number of cut outs with the length of the beam if it adjusts in length, and one more – make this available in Frame Generator.Here is a short video that walks you through creating a custom library, associating the number of features based upon the length of a part, and redefining an entire family of components. There are a few other useful tidbits in there as well so grab a coffee, a doughnut, and your headphones, I think you’ll like this one.
-Rob7 Comments | Add CommentIn Ellipsis >
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Ellipsis Blog Interview: Inventor Tooling 2010 by Justin Hoey
May 19, 2009 04:03 PMby Justin HoeyHello everyone, I had a change to chat with John Callen on the new addition of Tooling design in Inventor 2010. Probably the best tooling design software that I used. Check it out.
Also here are some other links about Inventor Tooling 2010.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=12371778 http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/view/4/Inventor_ToolingIts_Not_Just_for/
The last thing I will leave you with today is a video that I found while browsing through the Autodesk youtube channel
Enjoy!
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Break Old Habbits by Learning New Ones
May 15, 2009 08:17 AMby Rob CoheeI’ve been accused more than once in my life of changing my mind 100 times in an hour. You see though, I don’t see it as changing my mind, I see it as I have an innate ability to commit to something so completely that it seems like I change my a lot. Buying that? Neither does my wife.Anyway, I had a thought the other day – yes, just one – about how to best put out some quick hitters. Two minute tips and tricks on anything Inventor. The first one in this new series is about learning new features. It’s not fancy smancy geometry by any stretch; it’s really just a tip on how you can force yourself to learn new modeling techniques. This is especially useful for people new to Inventor, but it’s also important for you seasoned guys and gals out there.Take a simple piece of geometry – one of the four travel coffee mugs on my desk right now.
I wasn’t kidding… [grin]. Yeah, I’m man enough to steal my wife’s coffee mug when she’s not looking. Anyway, once you have been 3D modeling long enough you start to look at geometry from a standpoint of how you would model it. A Revolution, Extrusion, Loft, Sweep. Then you start thinking about creating a surface and adding thickness or do you shell a solid. All within a split second or two.The key is being able to deploy any one of the modeling features based upon the amount of control you need in the part. Take a look at the Two Minute (and 54 second) Tip here.
On a final note, I’d like to call for a “Stump the Chump”, “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” type of YouTube video submission. I’ve been in this game long enough to know that there are thousands of ways to use Inventor and I’d like to see how you guys are using it. Record your favorite tip. If you can’t record it (we all use Camtasia by Techsmith BTW..) Write it up and email it to us and we’ll make sure it gets on the blog.Come on – you know you want to…
-Rob0 Comment | Add CommentIn Ellipsis >
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New Sheet Metal Tools
May 11, 2009 08:30 AMby Rob CoheeA couple of things about how I roll. First off, I still say “how I roll”. According to Esquire magazine you aren’t supposed to say that, it’s one of their dead sayings, oh well. Secondly I try to be both entertaining and informative in my YouTube series. Judge for yourself on this one if I took it a little too far… A very bad attempt at a British accent for the opening, but hey I was having fun.If you haven’t seen what the new Lofted Flange, Contour Roll, or Unfold & Refold functionality can do for your sheet metal designs, then definitely check this out. If you have, check it out anyway this one is only 7 minutes so it’s a nice break from your otherwise highly productive day. There is even a special guest appearance from Jay Tedeschi, who wastes no time putting me in my place.
Enjoy!
-Rob
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Interview with Inventor product manager Pete Lord on the 2010 launch
May 7, 2009 04:42 PMby Justin HoeyI had a chance to sit down with Pete Lord and ask him a few questions about the 2010 launch of Inventor. EnjoyAlso, here are a few links to some video for the 2010 launch of products.www.youtube.com/user/AutodeskMFG
Look out for the next interview in the coming days.
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Inventor Tooling...It's Not Just for Mold Designers
May 4, 2009 07:18 AMby Brian SatherBut first, a little introduction. My name is Brian Sather...I just came to Autodesk not too long ago by way of the Moldflow acquisition last year. I was born and raised in Michigan but moved to the metro-Boston area about two years ago and now work out of the all new, uber-environmentally friendly Autodesk office in Waltham, Mass. I’m a huge football fan…unfortunately my team is the Detroit Lions which is terribly embarrassing to admit. The good thing is that the Lions only play on national TV once a year and because I am now in Boston I only saw them lose 1 game last year rather than having to witness the entire 0-16 fiasco.
But that’s enough about me…on with the show!And we start with a good one for all you plastic part designers out there running Inventor Professional 2010. Inventor Tooling, one of our brand spanking new products this year comes included. And right about now you’re probably thinking, “I don’t design the mold for my parts, so why would I go through the trouble of downloading and installing it?” Well, there are a lot of really nice Moldflow features integrated directly into Inventor Tooling that can help you design better plastic parts.Ever get the first shots out of the mold only to see a bunch of nasty sink marks? Ever see the visual defects that entrapped air can leave on a part? The part design has a huge influence on whether or not these, and a whole lot of other kinds of defects show up…and this is where Inventor Tooling can help.Watch the video to see how Inventor Tooling can pinpoint potential defects and how a couple simple design changes can remove the possibility of problems like these occurring in production…0 Comment | Add CommentIn Ellipsis >