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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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Gimme a Thumbnail!
June 10, 2009, 02:45 AM Garin Gardiner
As many of you have probably discovered, there are several great new tools in the Bill of Materials (BOM) for Inventor 2010. One that I find to be VERY useful is the ability to add Thumbnails for each part or assembly in the BOM dialog.
To do this, launch Inventor 2010 and open an assembly. Activate the Assembly tab if it isn't already active and select Bill of Materials from the Manage Tab to see the BOM.
Now for the cool part! To get Thumbnails in the BOM, select "Chose Columns" from the set of tools along the top of the screen.
Once you have the Customize panel up, scroll down to see Thumbnail column. Drag the Thumbnail column to the desired location on in the BOM dialog to display Thumbnails in your BOM.
In you want a larger or smaller image you can resize the column to get the detail you need from the thumbnail.
While you are here, notice the cross highlight, tabbing, right mouse button options and the ability to open parts and assemblies right from the BOM.
Enjoy!
4 Comments | Add Comment In the Machine > Tips, Autodesk Inventor
Comments
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June 10, 2009 12:09 PM Benjamin Wade
nice tip. A visual is always better.
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June 10, 2009 06:56 PM Brian Busse
At the risk (hope?) of starting a flame war, well, maybe only a glowing ember war.... All of the enhancements in 2009 and 2010 are nice and they improve work flows, but I think that they add surface gloss to a process that could use some significant enhancements under the hood. My laundry list is long, but I'll only mention a general concept here. The whole BOM/Parts List process is entirely part properties centric, without the ability to supplement or replace those properties in the BOM/Parts List with IAM, and occurrence in IAM, specific attributes. There is no ability to add information to the IAM that would simplify IDW Parts List customizations. I use the term attributes intentionally because the API provides for them. This extends to working in the IDW as well, balloons can have any part property I want in them, but I can't retrieve occurrence specific information and put it in a nice balloon like box. An assembly is a collection of occurrences, not just a BOM. If I want to put occurrence specific information on the IDW, leaders do work, but the appropriate time and place to record it is in the IAM, much like the value of a constraint. Brian.
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June 23, 2009 02:04 AM Garin Gardiner
Brian - this is great feedback. We always like to hear things that we can improve.
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June 25, 2009 11:52 PM alex tong
My question is simple. the main point of thumbnail is for what purpose??? For us as a user to view only? i believe this extra new features good for us also but when i tried to export to excel file... the thumbnail cant be show... it is no point only can show in INV 2010 not the export file...Because normally we need to export to excel and share with others to keep track/monitor TQ
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