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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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Don't Forget the Bowtie
January 31, 2008, 06:29 PM Garin Gardiner
I am sure most of us need to create splines from time to time and as you are aware, splines can be a little tricky to work with. Have you ever tried to create the same spline twice? Have you been able to control the spline just as you wanted to? There are a few little tools in Inventor that can help out with these issues.
We will first start out with a few horizontal lines that we want to blend together with a spline.
From here I want create the spline that connect the two lines with a smooth contour. I don't really want to have to add several point and try to move them around to adjust the spline so we will use something we call Bowties. First lets create our spline that starts at one line and goes to the other. Initially it will look like a line although we will adjust that shortly.
From here we can right click near one end of the spline and turn on the Bowtie. We have a few options how we will control the spline although for now we will just turn on the Handle. From here we can select the handles and drag them around to adjust how the spline will look.
I can also add various constraints to the handle such as vertical, parallel, equal to name a few as well as adding dimensions. This is a great way to be able to recreate the exact same spline segment several times.
Here I added horizontal constraints to the handles as well as made them horizontal so both the top and bottom look the same. I could also turn on curvature and add dimensions to adjust the curvature of the spline.
This should help you learn where some of these tool are located. If you haven't played with bowties yet, play around a little with these options. There are several more tools that will allow you to edit and manage your splines so don't stop here!
Garin
Comments
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February 1, 2008 06:57 AM jeamy baena
I can't see the images!
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February 1, 2008 03:48 PM Chris Robinson
Your post is often the bright spot of my day; however, in an office with no windows some images would be nice. Splines is a good topic too. Have you got a good way to explain how to remember all the ways to locate work-features for someone just starting out?
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February 4, 2008 05:22 AM Marco Caprez
Can't see images either!
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February 4, 2008 05:34 AM Jakob Lysemose
Good topic, however I Can't see the images...
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February 4, 2008 02:40 PM Garin Gardiner
I am looking into the image issue. I have tried it on a few machines and see them without any issues. We have recently made some changes behing the scene that might have caused it. Please let me know if they show up.
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February 6, 2008 09:14 AM Marco Caprez
Images are OK now.
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