Getting Thin...

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  Getting Thin...
  October 12, 2008, 01:44 PM Jay Tedeschi

  Well, I’m back after a two week swing through Canada where I helped to deliver the Digital Prototyping message to audiences of Inventor users as well as users of our competing products. After presenting 6 times, in 6 different cites there was one dominant theme… the next generation of tools that Inventor users will have at their disposal are available right now on \\Labs. The new Autodesk Inventor Plastic Features Technology Preview is fundamentally different with respect to basic modeling tasks, different enough that it deserves some serious column time in the coming weeks.

  Today I am going to look at what will most likely be the first departure from the typical modeling methodology that you will encounter when using PFTP… hey, I know, not the best acronym ever, but it is significantly easier to enter on the keyboard. Anyway, consider the simple extrude command…

  

  Not quite as simple as it once was when I have additional things to consider with regard to wall thickness. For those of you who do a lot of plastic parts however, THIS is the ideal workflow as the part essentially understands that it is a thin walled part.

  In creating this electronics housing I will first need to cap the open top and bottom you see in the image above. In selecting the new “Thin” tab I have access to controls for plastic feature specific characteristics. With this part, I want to close the top and bottom and open the ends.

  

  If you look at the image above you can see that I first deselect the “Open Faces” From and To terminations. Next up I have to now select the faces, or more specifically an edge of the faces that I want to open.

  

  In selecting the “From Profile” option I can now open up the faces that you see in the image above. Ahhh, sweet success… the “finished” start of my electronics housing package.

  

  Next in this series I will look a bit more in depth at additional functionality of the PFTP. Hope you tune in to check it out.

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