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In The Machine is the official blog of the Inventor Product Management Team. It is a way for us to share Inventor news, interesting information about successful Inventor customers and partners as well as tips and tricks. From time to time we’ll also use the blog to solicit feedback from users via surveys. This blog is hosted by Garin Gardiner our Technical Marketing Manager.
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Media Summit in San Francisco
August 29, 2006 01:00 PMbyLast week in San Francisco we had about 15 members of the press in for a media summit. This usually involves some fun ice breaker type activity - this time we went to the Giants baseball game and then had a day of presentations. The event was attended by press from the top CAD and manufacturing journals ranging from technical editorslike Martyn Day of MCAD Online to business process journalists like Sidney Hill of Manufacturing Business Technology.
The highlight of the meeting (for me at least) was hearing from 4 of our customers. The customers represented very different industries and provided a look into the wide range of problems people solve with Inventor. I even learned a few things I didn't know!!
Williams Sonoma uses Inventor to design furniture for their Williams Sonoma Home, West Elm and Pottery Barn brands. Before using Inventor their designers would send a concept over to the manufacturer who could be anywhere in the world. The supplier would build a sample and send it back - unfortunately it never matched the designers intent - there just wasn't enough information in the concept. Now that they use inventor they create a 3D visualization model in Inventor and then work out any kinks with the designer. Next they create proper manufacturing documentation that they send to their supplier and they get back a sample that matches their design - this is a big time savings, especially since they develop over 200 new products per year. Now when I go shopping at Pottery Barn it will be even harder to resist making a purchase.
Flo Health Care uses Inventor to manufacture mobile computer workstations for the health care industry. They call them COWS - Computers On Wheels. Imagine nurses in hospitals wheeling around carts. I should know, I got to see one of these first hand when my son fell out of bed and somehow managed to need stitches. (I don't think I will ever know what he actually hit his head on - I need some CSIs). At any rate these mobile computers were everywhere. This is technology that saves lives.
Kone is a global company who uses Inventor to design and retrofit escalators around the world. They are the only company who is specializing in updating older equipment - the key to their success is the ability to make the new escalator fit into the existing space of the old escalator. They measure the existing space and model the new equipment and when the show up to do the installation on-site everything fits perfectly, thanks to their Inventor digital prototype. They just completed a job retrofitting all the escalators in O'Hare airport and have done work on the Moscone center and in the Venetian.
What do tunafish and Coors Beer have in common? Inventor of course. Can Lines got their start in tunafish and now uses Inventor to design conveyor systems for the food and beverage industry - notable customers include Coors Beer and Arrowhead Water. (I think we'll be hearing more about these guys later!)
-Amy
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Format Parameters in Parts List
August 29, 2006 10:43 AMby Garin GardinerThe other day I had the opportunity to talk to Robert Williams of LeaCar LLC - a long time AutoCAD, MDT and Inventor user. Robert has developed some great little applications over the years and I thought I would share one that we talked about and I thought was a really neat tool.
If you have ever wanted to format text in your parts list to show something like "Height x Width x Thickness" of a given part based on parameters, this is a great little tool.
This add-in lets you format your text to display decimal, fractional and architectural layout as well as control the parameter precision. To help you get started there is a PDF that will explain how it all works and I will also attach a part file that is already set up.
Add-in
Instructions
Sample File
Robert hopes to support sheet metal parts in the future to display the extents of a sheet metal part so take a look at his site from time to time for an update to this great little app.
http://www.leacar.com/
I would like to thank Robert for the great add-in and hope many of you find it useful.
Garin
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Got Opinions on 3D Annotations
August 28, 2006 10:05 PMbyWe are currently investigating requirements in the area of 3D model annotations (aka 3DA). If you have a need for such functionality and would like to participate in our survey go to the link below:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?A=143565826E1749
Thanks for participating.
-amy
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Inventor Studio Animation
August 25, 2006 01:53 PMby Garin GardinerHere is s nice little animation of a few robotic arms positioning and welding a car fender. If you have created animations like this with Inventor don't be shy, youtube is a great place to post them and let the rest of us see your great work.
Garin
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AutoCAD Electrical Success at Spectrum Technologies
August 19, 2006 01:32 PMbyIt's been a busy month for Autodesk customers in the news. Check out this article in mcadoline to learn about how Spectrum Technologies used AutoCAD Electrical to minimize the volume of manual work undertaken by its electrical engineering team.
-Amy
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Delete extra faces
August 18, 2006 01:52 PMby Garin GardinerI recently received a model that had several extrusions that were used for construction purposes and were never removed from the model. Consequently the drawing had extra lines that didn't need to be visible and needed to be removed. Below is a simple example of this.
One of the best ways to remove solid lumps from your model easily is through the use of the Delete Face tool from the Part features panel bar.
Select the Delete Face tool and change the option to "Select Lump or Void" and select the extra geometry in your model you want to remove and select OK to completely remove the extra geometry from your 3D model.
Garin
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Waiting for Your Luggage at the Airport - Think of Inventor.
August 17, 2006 01:16 PMbyI don't know about you but I spend a lot of time waiting for luggage in airports. Portland has a great airport but it always seems to take forever to get the bags out to the waiting crowds - or worse, one bag comes out early and the other one in the last batch- leaving you to wonder for a while if it has been 'delayed'. Talk about marketing, the airlines never like to call a bag lost- just delayed!
So, now when you are standing there you can stop wondering when your bag will show up and think about Inventor. Chances are the baggage handling equipment was designed with Inventor by G&T Conveyor. Check out this Cadalyst article to see how they are leveraging Inventor 11.
-Amy
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Inventor podcast now available on iTunes
August 17, 2006 09:06 AMby Garin GardinerFor those of you that use iTunes you can now subscribe to the "Official Autodesk Inventor Podcast" and have it automatically download new podcasts when they become available.
Below are the steps to subscribe to the "Official Autodesk Inventor Podcast" from iTunes.
1 - Launch iTunes
2 - Select "Music Store" from the browser
3 - Select "Podcast" from the "Inside the Music Store" section
4 - Type in "Autodesk Inventor" into the search area
5 - Select "Subscribe" to the Official Autodesk Inventor Podcast
If you don't use iTunes although still want to be able to automatically download the Inventor podcast you can download a podcast aggregator like Juice and use the following RSS feed in the aggregator.
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Sean Dotson in the Limelight
August 16, 2006 11:02 PMbyOne of our most active users entered into a new business venture with some partners about 18 months ago. They were recently featured in their local Florida paper - the Bradenton Herald. How Sean has time to run a business and contribute so much to the Inventor community is a testament to his passsion around CAD. Check out his blog and forums. Thanks Sean!
-Amy
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Inventor Gets an A
August 16, 2006 06:46 PMbyIn a recent Cadalyst review, Jeff Rowe gives Inventor an A and highlights one of our unique advantages - Functional Design. Jeff writes "There is much more to Functional Design than I can cover here, but it's an important aspect of Inventor that really sets it apart and will continue to do so as the product matures." He also highlights many of the new features including large assembly performance, iAssemblies, Frame Generator and complex shape description to name a few.
Enjoy! Amy
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Feel free to email me any comments you have concerning the podcast.
inventor.blog.feedback@autodesk.com
Garin Gardiner
0 Comment | Add CommentIn In the Machine > Podcast