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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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Official Inventor Podcast Episode #10
March 29, 2007 07:38 AMby Garin Gardiner
Friday March 23, 2007 Episode 10 Podcast Show Notes
Right click here and select "Save Target As..." to save a local copy
Its also located on iTunes.
News:
1. Inventor of the month
2. Autodesk Design Review 2008 & GlobalSpec
3. Microsoft update and Inventor Text
4. Beyond 3D Modeling: Digital Prototyping (Podcast)
Technology
1. Inventor 2008 Countdown #4 (Drawing Manager 1 of 2)
2. Inventor 2008 Countdown #5 (Drawing Manager 2 of 2)
3. Inventor 2008 Countdown #6 (Ribbon Cable)
Tips and Tricks:
1. The Best Table in the House
2. Equally "Divide" using a Reference Dims
Enjoy!
Garin
inventor.blog.feedback@autodesk.com
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #10: Easy-to-use simulation in Inventor Professional
March 27, 2007 07:52 AMby Garin Gardiner
A recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that the best in class companies create fewer physical prototypes than average companies. How do they do it? By leveraging their 3D models to simulate and optimize design behavior before they build anything. With Inventor 2008 simulation early in the design process has never been as easy and fast.
Easier Digital Prototype Development and Simulation
You can now build and simulate your digital prototype and analyze its behavior in a single integrated development environment. Rapidly simulate the dynamic motion of your mechanical assembly and perform stress analysis on critical solid or sheet metal parts under real dynamical loads at different time steps to find peak stresses over a full operation cycle. The result is optimized product performance without having to build a physical prototype.
With the new Automatic Joint Creation feature it is easier and faster than ever before to build a digital prototype. You can now rapidly run an initial dynamic simulation after setting simple dynamic parameters like gravity and spring stiffness. Assembly constraints are automatically translated to mechanical joints. Inventor has the most seamless modeling/simulation environment on the market.
The integration has been further streamlined and now mechanical parameters like contact friction, spring stiffness, actuators damping, imposed motions etc. can be entered and edited directly through the Inventor Parameter dialog box, enabling more efficient collaboration between engineers and designers.
More Functional Design: Export Trace Curves to a Sketch
Paths generated from Motion studies can be directly exported to a sketch for use in geometric modeling. This makes cam creation from a trace very straight forward. Better still, parametric 3D curves can be created from motion studies and leveraged for geometric modeling.
Integration of the Dynamic Simulation and Stress Analysis environments is enhanced to provide more control over which loads are included in the finite element analysis. A new group in the dynamic simulation browser shows all the components to be included in the stress analysis data export.
Multiple Time Step Analysis
Analysis based on loads at multiple time steps in a dynamic simulation cycle can now be exported in one single step eliminating the need to switch back to Dynamic Simulation for each time step.
All components that are included in the export group are evaluated at the indicated time steps, expediting the comparison of stresses at different times in the operating cycle.
Stress Analysis of thin walled parts
A new thin shell element provides faster analysis of thin walled or constant thickness parts. Enabling efficient analysis of sheet metal parts.
Stay tuned for the the next article about Shape Description.
Garin
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #9: Sheet Metal Design Part 2
March 23, 2007 12:53 AMby Garin Gardiner
One of the key benefits of a digital prototype is the ability to leverage rich data through to manufacturing. The last article covered some great enhancements to the design and documentation aspect of sheet metal and now well move on to improvements in flat pattern creation and capturing manufacturing intent.
Flat Patterns
A comonly requested sheet metal enhancement we have received from many of you that use Inventor is the ability to edit flat patterns developed with Inventor. In previous versions of Inventor you would typically export the flat pattern via DWG/DXF and use AutoCAD to cleanup corners, edge conditions, reliefs, etc. However, whenever a design change occurs there is no associativity to the flat pattern edited in AutoCAD. Therefore, you would need to export the flat pattern from Inventor again and make the necessary changes manually in AutoCAD.
With Inventor 2008, now you can edit the 3D flat pattern in Inventor and maintain these edits during downstream design changes, thus ensuring all data passed to manufacturing is up-to-date.
The ability to work on the flat pattern (adding features such as fillets, etc.) is exactly what I require. Inventor 2008 beta participant
Manufacturing
Greenheck Fan, Areva, and Cooper Power to name a few customers, require manufacturing information to be applied to the flat pattern for automatic CNC manufacturing. Inventor 2008 provides the ability to predefine manufacturing punch attributes like tool ID, depth, and an alternate representation within the flat pattern. These are critical attributes to allow you to capture and leverage manufacturing intent directly within sheet metal designs to reduce errors and time to manufacturing.
You can access and leverage this information either through the API for automation routines, or directly from the exported DXF file from Inventor. This ability to define manufacturing intent within the design is unique to Inventor 2008.
Inventor 2008 contains the most exciting improvements to the Sheet Metal environment since its introduction in Inventor R2. Inventor 2008 beta participant
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #8: Sheet Metal Design Part 1
March 16, 2007 03:00 PMby Garin Gardiner
One of our main areas of focus for Inventor 2008 is sheet metal. This was in direct response to many requests we received from new and existing Inventor users to expand this core capability. For Inventor 2008 we focused on four critical areas: ease-of-use, flat patterns, documentation (drawings), and manufacturing intent. This two part article will highlight some of our users favorite new features in these areas.
Ease-of-Use
Improvements to flange creation and editing tools enable automatic edge chaining and corner mitering conditions. This dramatically streamlines the design workflow and as one-beta participant states a part in Inventor 11 had 17 features, and I can create the same part in 2008 with 2 features!
Inventor allows a streamlined workflow for both creation and editing operations. Furthermore, Inventor supports automatic corner conditions at any angle unlike the competition, which only supports 90° angles.
Flexibility in defining the height of flanges based upon the manufacturing processes allows users to create digital prototypes of their sheet metal designs faster and with better accuracy for manufacturing.
The Contour Flange using the Edge Chain option is beautiful! -- Inventor 2008 beta participant
I really like the new sheet metal flanges with Inventor 2008 the workflow captures the design intent -- Inventor 2008 beta participant
Documentation
With more and more companies outsourcing their manufacturing, accurate drawings of sheet metal designs become even more critical. Inventor 2008 provides best in class drawing productivity tools to document sheet metal designs. Key improvements include automatic bend annotations on flat pattern views, and automatic bend and punch tables streamline the creation of sheet metal drawings.
Hole/Punch Table is great addition and is going to be a big time saver Inventor 2008 beta participant
Inventor 2008 also provides advanced bend and punch tables that include all manufacturing information such as punch tool-number and punch-tool depth control. Leveraging Inventor styles, users can predefine all formatting options for drawing annotations such as color, linetype, text font, and bend direction control. All of these items save time and provide accurate sheet metal designs for manufacturing.
Congratulations to the Inventor 2008 Sheet Metal development team for a job well done. Inventor 2008 beta participant
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #7: Tools for the AutoCAD User
March 14, 2007 07:00 AMby Garin Gardiner
I know many of of you have a strong AutoCAD background and we have heard from many of you letting us know you would like the transition from AutoCAD to Inventor to be easier.
Are we going to make Inventor look and feel just like AutoCAD?
Not at all! However, there are many areas that we can improve to help you make the transition to 3D easier. For example, James Robertson from the Inventor Discussion group recently asked about a repeat last command option for Inventor that he enjoys in AutoCAD.
Well with 2008 he has one. This is just one of the many enhancements we have added to Inventor 2008 to make it easier for the AutoCAD user. We have also added the ability to save and restore profiles similar to AutoCAD. There has even been an AutoCAD profile added that will adjusts various settings such as the zoom direction from the mouse wheel, heads up display prompts on select commands and command alias that provide consistent use paradigms between Inventor and AutoCAD. We also worked with the AutoCAD team to incorporate a few of the new Inventor icons into AutoCAD for even more consistency.
We havent stopped there. When you start Inventor for the first time, a help page will be displayed that offers various options for new users transitioning from AutoCAD. These options consist of such items as a 2D to 3D Transition Guide, 3D Modeling Concepts, Tutorials and more. Once again these are just a few of the many ways we are making Inventor a more inviting 3D environment.
Will there be any enhancements to the User Interface?
A variety of really cool enhancements have been made to the Inventor User Interface that benefits both new and existing users. When you start Inventor 2008, you will notice all new high resolution icons as well as XP Style controls across all aspects of the product. Not only does this keep the user interface consistent with the Windows environment, it also gives it a more inviting feeling.
Who will be able to take advantage of the new enhancements?
With tools added to Inventor 2008 like the Dynamic Prompt Tooltips, new and existing Inventor users alike will enjoy many of the great enahncements to Inventor 2008.
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Inventor 2008 Countdown #6 (Ribbon Cable)
March 12, 2007 07:13 AMby Garin Gardiner
Do you ever need Ribbon Cables in your digital prototypes?
I am sure many of you build your own computers and have seen the ribbon cables that connect the hard drive and optical drives to the motherboard. As more and more of you need to create more detailed digital prototypes, it is becoming more necessary to have components such as ribbon cables available in your 3D models to validate your design.
Unique to Inventor
Autodesk Inventor Professional 2008 includes a dedicated environment for Ribbon Cable design and manufacturing. This is an example of our desire to help you create complete digital prototypes. This is not a work around or an approximation its the real thing.
Beyond best-in-class 3D design tools, Inventor provides for re-use of common hardware through enhancements to the cable and wire library and the newly added ability to store standard connectors in the Content Center. This functioanlity enables you to quickly build a digital prototype of your entire wire harnesses by leveraging a library of wires, cables and connectors.
On to Manufacturing Documentation
We also streamlined the documentation and manufacturing of ribbon cables by displaying these cables on the nailboard drawing, so manufacturers can see exactly how long the cable must be and precisely where the folds must be. Also new to Inventor 2008 is the ability to automatically add connectors to any nailboard drawings, providing a complete guide for manufacturing and assembly purposes.
Our functional design approach to ribbon cable provides a familiar set of tools for harness layout users; its easy to add the folds, twists and bends required to effectively place the ribbon cable in the assembly, making it easy to add ribbon cables to digital prototypes.
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Autodesk Design Review 2008 Includes Access to GlobalSpec
March 7, 2007 11:37 PMby Garin Gardiner
Autodesk Design Review 2008 Includes Access to GlobalSpec
Recently Autodesk and GlobalSpec announced a strategic partnership that will allow users to publish DWF files with various properties and search GlobalSpecs library for parts with those properties. I can see this as a great way to publish a DWF with all the standard parts that will need to be purchased for a project and give the purchasing department the DWF to locate and purchase all the standard parts.
Take a look at the following press release for more details.
http://www.tenlinks.com/news/PR/AUTODESK/030607_globalspec.htm
Garin
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Inventor 2008 Countdown #5 (Drawing Manager 2 of 2)
March 5, 2007 11:38 PMby Garin Gardiner
In the last article we reviewed how Isometric dimensioning, BOM/Parts List Variables, and Mass in Title-blocks will increase user productivity and improve quality of drawings release to manufacturing. The following four enhancements also received rave reviews during beta.
Revision Tables
Leveraging the table architecture developed in Release 11, revision tables will look and feel like any the other table objects in Inventor and can also reference drawing iProperties a hotly requested enhancement. This consistency leverages our Styles framework and offers you all the formatting, administrative benefits, and consistency that Styles delivers.
Hatch by Material Style
With Inventor 2008, you can be even more productive when creating section views for manufacturing. New with this release is the ability to associate predefined hatch patterns to the 3D material. In the past you would needed to modify the hatch pattern for every component, now you can have Inventor automatically associate it based on the Material Styles library. This saves time and frustration, and guarantees drawings will meet company standards.
Detail Views
For many Inventor users, an important industry standard is a leadered detail view (as shown below). With Inventor 2008, you can create associative leadered detail views much the same way we can do this in AutoCAD Mechanical. If you have sheet with multiple detail views, this option makes it easy to determine where the specific detail view came from.
Drawing Standards
With every release of Inventor we continue to focus on providing world-class standards support, and we continue to deliver with Release 2008. With this release, we are making it easier for you to create standards-based drawings by providing linear dimension thread notes, flared and half-flared arrowheads, text wrapping in radial dimensions, and the ability to apply hatch patterns in sectioned isometric views.
Summary
Autodesk Inventor 2008 contains over 25 user driven enhancements within drawing manager. These key productivity improvements demonstrate our commitment to enable you to create higher quality production drawings faster and easier, and spend more time creating innovative designs. Check out the list of enhancements below to see how you will be able to produce your drawings faster and more accurate.
1. Isometric View Dimension Support
2. General Dimension command to place dimensionally-accurate dimensions on any non-orthographic view
3. Radial Dimension Text Wrapping
4. Linear Dimension Hole/Thread note
5. Detail View Enhancements - cut shape control, full boundary, connection line
6. Hatch by Material Style
7. Slice View Operation
8. Crosshatch Clipping of Dimension Text
9. Crosshatch Support in Isometric Views
10. Hidden line Display in Shaded Views
11. Absolute (in addition to relative) View Rotate
12. Use Model Sketch as Section Line
13. Recover Model Sketch Text and Reference Edges
14. View Suppression
15. Cut-view Propagation Management
16. Recover Sheet Metal Punch-centers as Center- marks on View creation / edit
17. Bend Note for Flat Pattern Views
18. Bend Table
19. Punch Table
20. Bend centerline formatting
21. Sheet or File Scope
22. Reference iProperties
23. Revision Table Style
24. Rotate Tables
25. Copy / Paste Parts Lists
26. New Arrowhead Shapes
27. Mass in Title Block
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Inventor 2008 & Countdown #4 (Drawing Manager 1 of 2)
March 2, 2007 08:04 PMby Garin Gardiner
Without a doubt, drawing manager enhancements continue to be one of the most popular new features with each Autodesk Inventor software release. Inventor 2008 is no different with enhancements that streamline drawing creation so you can spend more time developing innovative designs. With Inventor 2008, we added over 25 key user-driven enhancements to help you achieve this goal.
Isometric Dimensions
Inventor 2008 now offers the ability to place isometric dimensions which can often reduce the time required to dimension drawings. One of our beta customer recently stated I am excited as [isometric dimensioning] allows us to use the impressive documentation abilities of Inventor in my sales dept. to generate impressive 3D documentation and sales literature.
BOM/Parts List Variables
How many of you have wanted to be able to inclue length, width and height (LxWxH) properties directly within the Bill-of-Materials in your drawing? From the many Inventor users I have talked to, this is a very common request that you will be able to do in Inventor 2008. In fact, now you can concatenate any property or variable in Inventor to use in any note and/or annotation.
Mass in Title-blocks
Probably one of the most requested drawing enhancements that we have added into Inventor 2008 is the ablitly to include properties from mass-properties (Mass, Area, Volume, and Density) to be used within title-blocks and annotations for both parts and assemblies. This ensures that your drawings are always up-to-date with any change to the 3D design, which removes the introduction of user-defined errors in drawings.
Summary
With over 25 user-driven enhancements in drawing manager, we are just touching the surface with all the new thigns you can do with your drawings. As one beta customer says My favorite part in Inventor 2008 is Drawing Manager.
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Official Inventor Podcast Episode #9
March 1, 2007 04:50 PMby Garin Gardiner
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Episode 9 Podcast Show Notes
Right click here and select "Save Target As..." to save a local copy
Its also located on iTunes.
News:
1. Putting a Face on Autodesk
2. Spy Gadget Design Contest
3. Augi Inventor Wish List
Technology:
1. Countdown to Inventor 2008
2. Inventor 2008 new favorite feature
a. DWG TrueConnect
b. Dynamic Highlighting
c. Update Mass Prop on save
d. Put Mass Prop in Title Block
e. NPT Threads
Tips and Tricks:
1. Convert a Design View to an LOD rep
2. Mirror Body
3. Turn assembly into a feature rich part
Garin Gardiner
inventor.blog.feedback@autodesk.com