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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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New Sheet Metal Video
April 30, 2007 04:49 PMby Garin Gardiner
The other day Charlie Bliss sent me this video of new sheet metal capabilities in Inventor 2008. For those of you that have done anything like this in the past it would have taken many more features.
Thanks Charlie!
Enjoy!
Garin
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Everyday Edisons and Autodesk on PBS
April 27, 2007 11:10 PMby Garin Gardiner
Autodesk is proud to partner with Everyday Edisons, produced by Bouncing Brain Productions, and set to air nationwide on PBS.
Premiering April 28, 2007, the Everyday EdisonsSM series follows seven aspiring inventors as they realize their dreams with the help of Autodesk® Inventor and Autodesk® AliasStudio software. See the entire processfrom idea to productionunfold on this televised, 14-part documentary.
Garin
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #13: Sketching
April 24, 2007 08:50 PMby Garin Gardiner
Article # 12 Sketching
The sketching environment inside of Inventor is perhaps the most widely used environment next to the Drawing Manager. This is one reason we are extremely excited about the new features found in Inventors sketcher. We were not at all surprised when the new sketching functionality received the biggest applause at our special Beta session at Autodesk University.
Who will benefit from the new sketching enhancements?
Its no surprise that most Inventor users came from AutoCAD and while many of you dont want Inventor to look like AutoCAD, many of you have requested AutoCAD-like functionality. One such user request is to add the ability to change line colors, weights and types for individual sketch entities similar to AutoCAD. Now in Inventor 2008 you will be able to create more intuitive and informative sketch layouts with this functionality.
Sketch constraints are also much easier to use inside of Inventor 2008. With new user interface improvements and a new constraint filter, users can easily display only the necessary constraint information enabling you to build more robust sketches. Not only can you filter out specific types of constraints, you can also window-select constraints and see cross-highlighting between each constraint and their affiliate geometry. Constraints are also now aligned to line segments and maintain associative positioning as the sketch evolves. Additional guidance is also provided with tools like display remaining constraints making it easier then ever before to quickly build the sketches you need.
What about those AutoCAD-like tools?
One frequently requested wishlist item is the ability to scale sketches up and down. There have also been requests to make the move and rotate features more robust and to provide options to relax dimensions and constraints. These are just a few of the enhancements in Inventor 2008 to the move/rotate features inside the sketcher. you now have the option to enter a scale factor to adjust a sketch or dynamically drag the sketch to the desired size. You are also also prompted if they would like to relax dimensions or constraints to offer more control to the operation. Does it stop there? Not at all! With tools like the new split command, you can now split a single line into multiple lines similar to the AutoCAD break tool.
What about the advanced users?
Not only will advanced users enjoy the new tools previously mentioned, you will probably be pleased to know we have made Project Cut Edges an associative projection in Inventor 2008. That means that when using this tool and making downstream changes to your model, the sketch will always update to give you a cut edge through your model at a given sketch plane or work plane.
Rave Reviews
Experienced Inventor users and AutoCAD users alike see big benefits from these new capabilities. A more intuitive and familiar environment helps AutoCAD users make an easy transition to Inventor and existing users appreciate the productivity enhancements in this frequently used environment. When asked to tell us about his favorite new feature, one Beta customer responded:
That's a tough choice this release. If I had to narrow it down to one, I guess I would have to say the improved sketch productivity. Much to my surprise, I found the 'display remaining constraints' very useful, or should I say re-assuring. - Inventor 2008 Beta Tester
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Technology Preview: Translator Add-ins for Autodesk Inventor
April 24, 2007 07:08 PMby Garin GardinerDo you need to share data between UGS and Inventor or SolidWorks and Inventor?
Available today on Autodesk Labs (http://labs.autodesk.com) you can download an exciting technology preview for translating Parasolid and UG-NX data directly with Autodesk Inventor 2008.
In the manufacturing environment, the ability to deal with heterogeneous CAD data is critical. The Translators Add-in for Autodesk Inventor greatly improves productivity and flexibility when sharing of design data for todays fast-track manufacturing projects. You can easily share product design information and communicate effectively with others throughout the design chain.
This technology preview streamlines projects that require opening files from vendors or customers in native formats. Now you can easily exchange data between Autodesk Inventor and other applications such as SolidWorks by importing and exporting Parasolid® parts and assemblies, and importing UG-NX parts and assemblies directly with Inventor.
Formats supported with this technology preview are Parasolid version 9-18 and UG-NX version 3-4.
When importing data from UG-NX and/or Parasolid, Inventor imports a base solid body with no features. Customers who need access to feature based data can download and use the Feature Recognition add-in available on Autodesk Labs to quickly identify and recreate features.
Those of you that need Native and Standards-based Interoperability - a recent Aberdeen report on mixed CAD environments found a big need for native CAD file interoperability. They found that when sharing data with customers and partners, manufacturers rely heavily on Native CAD files (69% and 70%) and, secondarily, on neutral formats (58% and 56%). By contrast, data from suppliers is most likely delivered in neutral file format (78%) followed by native formats (57%).
This should be a great tool for those of you that have need to communicate with other file formats.
Ehjoy!
Garin
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Sheet Metal Square-to-Round
April 21, 2007 06:45 PMby Garin Gardiner
I was recently in Orlando for partner conference and had a chance to see Terry Bradshaw in action. He spoke to us for a little over an hour and I am not sure how much of it was planned and how much was spontaneous but one things for sure, he is a very funny man.
On to something that might actually be of benefit to you guys. I had a chance to talk to one of our reseller Application Engineers (Colin Heald from Imaginit) and he had a great model he created for those of you that need square-to-round sheet metal transitions. He has even tied it to a spreadsheet that can be easily modified to adjust the transition. If nothing else it can help you find different ways to create complex sheet metal parts.
Get the file here
Thanks again to Colin for this great file.
Enjoy,
Garin
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Russ Wicks and Autodesk make the news!
April 20, 2007 03:11 PMby Garin GardinerLast week KIRO 7 out of Seattle Washington profiled Russ Wicks "World Speed King" to talk about the world speed records he has broken and the ones he would like to break in the future. Autodesk sponsored Russ to help break the world speed record with a NASCAR and now hopes to break more records this year.
Check out this little clip and to see one of his new designs modeled in Inventor. If you see a funny looking guy in a black Autodesk shirt that is me.
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Mamod TE1A Animated in Inventor
April 19, 2007 10:14 AMby Garin GardinerCheck out this great little animation I ran across while looking on YouTube.
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #12: Migrating Files from Mechanical Desktop
April 17, 2007 07:40 PMby Garin Gardiner
Article # 12 Migrating Files from Mechanical Desktop
With Inventor 2008, those of you that use MDT will be delighted with a host of new improvements designed to help take advantage of the full power of 3D with Inventor.
More Modeling Power + New Translation Capabilities = Migration Success
Even before the release of Inventor 2008, Inventor offered the best path for migrating MDT data to a modern 3D software platform. We listened to many of your migration needs, and are delivering new functionality (similar to some beloved MDT features) that gives you more design power while also providing the ability to seamlessly translate more MDT files to Inventor.
We have added new part modeling features such as a bend (AMBEND) and revolve with face and workplane terminations (AMREVOLVE). We also added the ability to preserve insert constraints and midpoint assembly constraints during migration. And when working in Inventor you can now take advantage of a Midpoint mate constraint. A new and improved translation report offers confidence in the results of migration. One beta customer simply said The MDT import improvements will allow us to transform our database.
- Dave Smith, Engineering Manager, Unverferth
What about Drawings?
New migration capabilities in Inventor 2008 allow you to translate virtually any view, including base section views and even views whose parent view has been deleted. And since MDT drawings are DWG files they will work with our new DWG TrueConnect capability. Only Inventor provides you with so many approaches to accurate DWG interoperability, and only Inventor can properly and easily migrate all the templates, styles, blocks and symbols that many of you have built up over the years.
Due to my companies high volume of DWG legacy design data, I was impressed with the steps that Autodesk is taking to incorporate DWG to ease the transition of our MDT and AutoCAD users.
- Jonny P. Johnston, National Tube Form
Garin
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Length X Width X Height in the Description
April 13, 2007 01:20 AMby Garin GardinerOne of the new enhancements in Inventor 2008 that I am excited about is that we can now use parameters in iProperties to show things like "Length X Width X Height " in the description. Notice that in a part I can create a few parameters and mark them to be linked.
Once you have a part that has a few parameters that are marked for export, you can go into the parts properties and add the parameters into the description field.
From there you can create a drawing and place a parts list to see the parameter values in the description of the part. This will automatically update as the parameters change so there is no need to update these values manually.
Just another great little feature that can be found in Inventor 2008.
Enjoy!
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Inventor 2008 Countdown Article #11: Linking Conceptual Design and Advanced Shape Description
April 12, 2007 06:11 AMby Garin Gardiner
Article #11: Linking Conceptual Design and Advanced Shape Description
In addition to marquee features such as Sheet Metal design and DWG TrueConnect, Inventor 2008 includes many enhancements for those of you that need to make design a competitive advantage. Integration with AliasStudio, new part modeling tools and numerous improvements to existing tools, save time and enables you to easily create parts with complex shapes.
AliasStudio Interface
Historically, its been difficult and time consuming to transfer data from concept design tools into the 3D mechanical design tools used by engineering. With the addition of AliasStudio to our product family, Autodesk is closing the gap between these two key stakeholders in the product development process.
The 2008 products provide a quick and reliable way to transfer concept designs into Inventor from AliasStudio. AliasStudio 2008 now outputs surface and 3D wireframe data in the DWG format which can then be read directly into the Inventor modeling environment. This workflow will streamline the product development process reducing the time and effort required to move from design concept to a 3D digital prototype. The result is increased innovation and a reduction in time to market.
Loft Enhancements
A new Area Loft option in the Loft tool enables designers to pick points along a center line and define either cross sectional area or scale factor at each point. This is very useful for folks that design hydraulic and pneumatic components and can also be used to place and scale sections at will in order to tweak the shape of the loft for aesthetic purposes.
There are some additional important improvements in the Loft algorithms that improve the quality of lofts, in particular, boundary conditions now influence the entire loft instead of a single section providing smoother, more organic shapes.
Enhanced Revolve feature
The Revolve tool has additional termination options that can be used with work planes and faces to control the extent of the resulting revolve feature.
New Bend Tool
Sometimes you may just want to add a bend to a simple part, especially if you came from MDT and know the AMBend feature. Inventor has a new Bend Tool which does precisely this. This is one of a set of enhancements that weve made to make Inventor more appealing to those of you who have used Mechanical Desktop.