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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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Block Party
July 27, 2009 03:00 PMby Rob CoheeTwo demos, not at all planned to be released at the same time, both on the same subject: Blocks. You couldn't possibly find two completely different demos. I think it goes to show the versatility, and value in working with AutoCAD data. It's funny because back in the (yester)day, all you hear about in this industry is 3D, move to 3D, get off of AutoCAD and move to 3D....as though tomorrow your going to wake up and all your 2D AutoCAD data is somehow stale bread that you would only use if you had to. I've never really understood that - its not a matter of 2D, or 3D. That's one of the great things about Digital Prototyping - Its 2D drawings, its 2D drawings of 3D models AND oh yeah - all of the other supplemental information that further illustrates, validates, or communicates design intent. I know I'm rambling a bit here, but I think many of you share in my frustration...right? ....Bueller.....Bueller? [grin]
Alright, I'll stop ranting now...roll film!!....
-Rob
Here's Justin's example. Check out the difference in workflow... http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/view/4/Inventor_144_Tip_AutoCAD_Block/
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Awesome Workflow Example
July 24, 2009 09:46 AMby Rob CoheeSo I was on a call the other day with an industry analyst where we were talking about Building Products, Equipment, and Fabrication and how we have the broadest set of tools to best address the needs of this industry. And he had the same types of questions that our customers have - seems like a lot of products, the technology is great but do I have to learn all of the tools in order to achieve the right mix of interoperability and collaboration?
My answer was of course, no. But if you are asking me "should I utilize Freewheel, Inventor, iLogic, Showcase, Revit, Navisworks, and Autodesk Seek..."? Then I would say, yes, but each for the right purpose. Users get into trouble when they try and use an application for something it’s not intended for. Example - in most cases I don't need to model the actual studs in a stud frame wall of a residential home if that wall is being constructed on site using traditional framing methods (I was a madman with a nail gun back in the day...) and laying out a building using Revit is ideal. However, if I'm manufacturing pre-built homes or mobile homes in a manufacturing facility, I may want a tool that I can model all the way down to each and every strand of electrical wire... like Inventor.
Now the real tricks is when you need to model something that requires both a manufacturing level of detail as well as provide to an architect, builder, or contractor 3D models. You don't want to give them, nor do they want to work with a heavy file or data in a format that makes it difficult for them to include your design in with their project. Within the last 9 months every manufacturer of building products, equipment, or fabricators that I have talked with has asked me how they can get their product models "BIM-ready", or "BIM enabled". And in most cases it comes down to, “how do I work with Architectural data and how can I get my designs into the Architects Revit model so that I'm spec'd into the project and scheduled when it comes time to order?”.
You've seen several examples from me on this topic but I wanted to share an example from Michael Prom of Applied Engineering. Mike does a tremendous job illustrating the hand off points as a product evolves during a project and when and where it is beneficial to hand off data from one application to the next in this complex workflow.
I heard Phil Bernstein, one of our VP's in the AEC division once say "The world is understood in discontinuous levels of abstraction." And that's a perfect description of how design is evolved. Take a look at this example and see how Mike illustrates concept, design iteration, collaboration, and interoperability between our products. Fantastic job Michael!
-Rob
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Inventor 1:44 Tip, AutoCAD Block to Inventor Sketchblock
July 23, 2009 05:47 PMby Justin HoeyThis week instead of of doing 2 videos on differant topics I did it on the same topic.
This week we are looking at how to move over you AutoCAD block over to Inventor. Check it out!
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iCopy for Inventor
July 21, 2009 08:36 AMby Rob CoheeHow many times have you tried to convince your psychiatrist / monitor (don't tell me you don't talk to your monitor...) that all this assembly needs to be is exactly the same as this one, now just a little bit bigger...? Almost pleading with it, trying to rationalize the simplicity in the change you need. No, no, no Mr. Computer - don't change all of the instances of this assembly...just this one... please?
I had a viewer on my YouTube Channel ask me if I could upload my brain so that they could download the information. Read the paragraph above and tell me you want that in your head... Probably not. [grin]
So, to my point here. If you are creating assemblies that are essentially the same components, just different sizes of them then you need to try iCopy. Not a should, or maybe think about it...no - dude, download it, run through Garin's tutorial and try it out on one of your designs. Download it here http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/inventor_icopy/ then watch the latest episode of Rob Unscripted. You'll like the opening on this one.
-Rob
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Inventor1:44 Tip: Digital Markups
July 16, 2009 01:21 PMby Justin HoeyHere is another 1:44 tip. Today we are looking at Digital Markups. How to send your drawings out for review and re incorporate the markups in to your DWG's
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Large Assembly Management
July 14, 2009 09:21 AMby Rob CoheeThink about it. 10K pennies or one $100 bill? Not hard to debate really. The same thing is true for your large assemblies or subassemblies - why carry around all that weight if you don't have to? This is the beauty behind Level of Detail and the new functionality with Shrinkwrap Substitute - think of it as the Coinstar of assembly management...ok, I'll stop with the coin references now.
Oh, and my boss told me I could start taking lunch breaks now if I hit 100 subscribers on my YouTube channel. I'm so looking forward to those 15 minutes of freedom. Please, help a brother out... subscribe at www.youtube.com/robcohee and follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/robcohee
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1:44 Inventor Twitter Tip: Publish your Parts to Content Center
July 9, 2009 10:19 AMby Justin HoeyHere is another 1:44 Inventor Twitter Tip.
Want to easily share commonly used parts in your organization or create your own library of parts. Publish your Parts to Content Center!
Here are some links to the youtube page and my twitter. Enjoy!
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/EverydayTropic
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/justinhoey
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Inventor Tips on Twitter
July 7, 2009 05:13 PMby Justin HoeyI have started a new series of videos that I that will mosly be notifying through "twitter", Called "144 Charactor Inventor Twitter Tip". But I realized thay many people are still not on twitter, so I will post a weekly summary here of what I have posted up to YouTube.
Here is the first one to kick it off.
Here are some links to the youtube page and my twitter. Enjoy!
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/EverydayTropic
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/justinhoey
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That ought to hold...
July 6, 2009 03:38 PMby Rob CoheeAs a regular (or required... [grin]) reader of our Manufacturing Community content I came across a skill builder talking about Stress Analysis and decided hey, if I don't have a lot of stick time behind our Stress Analysis stuff, there may be a few folks out there that don't either. Von Mises, mieces, modulus of coefficients may not be your bag of tea, but that doesn't mean that we can't use some of the tools inside of Inventor Professional to help validate our design.
-Rob
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