In the last installment of this ERP Cabinet Design Tutorial, we had problems with Inventor 2013’s graphics, but I have decided to plow ahead with Inventor 2013 anyway. So we will restart where we left off with the video of the code explanation, then move on to the face frame options sketch.
As of yet there is no word on what causes Inventor 2013’s graphics to go squirrely, but my best guess is that it has to do with sketch geometry being driven by an iLogic rule. At any rate, I’ve decided to move ahead with Inventor 2013 for the ERP Cabinet Design blogtorial instead of reverting back to Inventor 2012. I’m pretty sure there will be no functionality difference if you wish to continue using Inventor 2012, and if things go south again, we’ll use the discovered fix or insist that Autodesk fix the underlying problem 
I am shooting off an email to the company that makes the Inventor ERP Integration Software to see they will participate to some extent. My last contact with them was while creating models for a company that was participating in a live controlled production beta –six months ago. With any luck, the post that we got stalled will move to the front of the line tomorrow. If not, shortly thereafter.
This new feature for Inventor 2013 takes a bit of getting used to, but when it all boils down, it’s a nice addition to the program. In the old days, when you clicked on the Create 2D Sketch button, a new sketch was automatically created on a default plane that could be configured via the Application Options. The new scheme flies out the representation of the origin planes seen to the right where you click the plane you need and you’re off to the races. The program then spins the selected plane normal to the user, the plane representations disappear, and you are ready to create a sketch.
People who nearly always create their sketches on the same plane may not like the new feature as it would be a tad slower, but for Layout Part modeling and most other workflows it’s a time saver, and its slick as snot. Really, it is 
This new Inventor 2013 feature is new in the same sense as buying a used car. It is new to you –but has been around the block. What they have done is removed some of the preference that used to be only available while you were installing Inventor, and placed them in various places within the program. This not only benefits you with the access to these settings at all times, but also makes for a much smoother install. I can say from my recent (two days ago) experience installing Autodesk Product Design Suite 2013, that it installed flawlessly -without a single nag screen –a vast improvement over previous versions where Inventor alone was a nightmare to install (Product Design Suite 2013 has a huge amount of included programs, and all of them installed effortlessly and attended from a flash drive).
In the last installment of this Cabinet Design Tutorial, we started adding the iLogic code that can be tied in to a company’s ERP system. Eventually this particular tutorial will likely go down that road –if there is enough interest, but either way, the ability to tie into an ERP system is pretty important to companies that would like to turn a profit
The ERP system I worked with using Inventor 2011 and 2012 was still in beta, so I’ll look into where they are at, and hopefully add some tie-ins to their system. At any rate, whether or not we tie this model into an ERP system immediately, we should be able to do so at a later date without too much modification. We’ll begin today with a video…
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Decided to switch back to Inventor 2012. I don’t have the time to troubleshoot the cause of the Graphics Problem in Inventor 2013. I will keep this post “sticky” until I remake the part to this point and complete the post. Sorry for any inconvenience.
I just finished creating a YouTube video for the next post in the Automated Cabinet Design series, and started to write the post, when I ran across some bizarre behavior in Inventor 2013. I have been working on the Plan sketch with the Side Elevation sketch turned off for at least a week now –since before installing the production version of Inventor 2013. I needed to take a look at both sketches together so I turned the visibility of the Side Elevation on, and there it was…..a blob of blue spaghetti way off in the distance, with no way to get to it…
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