Inventor 2013 New Feature – Squirrely Graphics?

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…

The View Cube, the Home button, the Look At tool, nor any of the other view controls do anything more than make the blob pulsate……possibly angering it.

Zooming with the scroll wheel will eventually bring the ornery blob into focus, but even a slight tap on the 3D Controller will zip it off screen somewhere in space. The only way to get it back at that point is to use one of the View presets that center it off in the distance again, then slowly scroll it back into view.

After restarting the computer to no avail, I reinstalled Inventor 2012 (I’m using a 30 day trial because I the program thinks I am stealing it because of the reinstall), and an Inventor 2012 version of the same model from last year has no issues……. and the 3D motion controller’s action is quite a bit smoother. Very noticeable. Very weird.

Here is the older model’s layout part in Inventor 2012…

The same model also works fine (so-far) in 2013. I even added the same iLogic code and form to see if that was the problem, but it wasn’t.

I’ve seen things like this happen where an invisible part of the model is driven to a huge length, or the model is unconstrained to the Center Point and is floating a quarter mile away from it, but we were very careful to constrain the model to the origin, and it still remains rooted there.

I’m going to report the problem to Autodesk, and if cannot be solved, it will take about a half hour to create a new version of the model in 2012 and we will have to continue the tutorial series with that.

Some notes:

• When opening the file, it appears in a normal position for a bazillasecond, then flies off into the sunset.
• Windows 7 was a clean install when Inventor 2013 was installed, and had every available update installed.
• Graphics driver is latest version

 Bummer. I’ll keep you informed.

Update. I just heard from Lars Sandberg over on the Autodesk Inventor Users group on LinkedIn, who wrote:

“Ensure that you use a WHQL certified driver for graphics.
Go to Application Options – Hardware – LMB on “Diagnostics”, then LMB on “OK”
Additional detailed info is placed on the clipboard, to paste either here or in notepad
If pasted here I can look at it

Some temporare graphics errors, are often solved by re-initializing graphics via window “restore down”

Another tip for test is to enable “compatibility mode” in Application Options – Hardware

BR Lars”

The “restore down’ trick was tried early in the process to no avail –that would be for a display issue would it not? At any rate,  this is not a display issue., and appears to not be a Direct3D issue either, but I may be wrong.

 I also restarted the computer, checked drivers, changed video settings (including Compatibility Mode), tested the part with and without iLogic code, tested on 2012, etc.  etc., etc. None of the ‘usual suspects’ has made a difference.

Here is the info you requested:

Here is a link to the part itself. I’d like to hear how things look on other systems…

Automated Cabinet Design.ipt

More updates on the next page…

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