Autodesk Inventor iDoor Tutorial
Introduction
This tutorial requires Autodesk Inventor 2010 or later as it is based on a multi solid part. It is geared towards the beginner that wants to get up to speed quickly, or a more experienced user who may be looking to learn new techniques. The iDoor tutorial will serve as the anchor tutorial for several more tutorials that will each add functionality to the base design, and possibly a few prequel tutorials to explain in more detail any parts of the tutorial that are harder to grasp.
As is, a door like this can be published to Content Center, and numerous copies can be placed into an assembly (as many as you wish). All of the placed doors are then easily sized to the openings present, and at the proper time, all of the correctly sized parts can be created. A massively easier solution than in previous versions of Inventor. There can be as many parts per door as the design calls for, and even the most complex design can be accommodated via the robust skeletal framework.
Some of the features of the tutorial;
- If you hover your cursor over Green Text
you will get a little pop-up showing what a command or panel looks like. The Opera browser does not do this well, as the pop-ups appear far too high above the link. - Introduces skeletal modeling techniques.
- Most images are linked to a full sized representation, just click the image to enlarge.
- Orange Text are back links to relevant instruction. The link will open in a new window so you don't loose your place in a long tutorial such as this. These will be added on an on-going basis.
- The combo linkbox at the bottom of each page will take you to any page in the tutorial, and also has a forward and back arrow for in-line navigation (see bottom of this page).
- A video, and animated image.
- DWF version of the completed door for download.
If you don't own a copy of Inventor 2010, you can download a free 30 day trial. There is also a LT version of Inventor, but I'm not sure if it has the functionality to complete this tutorial. I know for sure that it cannot perform the next phase of the tutorial --producing the door assemblies.
Feel free to contact me via the email link at the bottom of every page if you have questions or to report typos, unclear instruction, or ideas for improvement.
PS - This door took about 1/2 hour to design as-is, and would take several
more days to configure into a model that could represent any door in a custom
cabinet shop. The same thing can be done for the cabinets as well, and I
will post a tutorial for that as well. The image below shows three iDoors
inserted into an assembly with the Place
tool. They were then converted to assemblies containing correctly sized parts.
Drawings could be automated from here, or output generated for CNC
equipment. More at the
end of the tutorial...
