Anything that helps protect Intellectual Property is a welcome addition to Inventor. I will run the plug-in through some tests and report the results here –most likely over the coming weekend. You can find the download over at labs if you want to give Inventor Simplification a shot.
Autodesk Inventor 2013 is hot off the presses, and the ODP will be featuring a mini-post series that will describe them in-depth. The good, the bad, and the ugly –we’ll show them all. Some will be in normal post fashion, and some will include video to better show the new functionality. The new feature count for Autodesk Inventor 2013 is about 82 (I haven’t counted features only available in ‘Professional’ version or that are merely informational). The sketching environment received twice as many new features as any other environment, which I appreciate greatly. We will be in the sketch environment quite a bit in the Automated Cabinetry Blogtorial that will begins this Thursday (03-29-12) where we will be making the Layout Part –which also serves as the rigging for the modular components. There’ll be lot of sketching in that part by the time it’s complete!
I will be posting a little mini review of every single new feature over the coming months –some of which will be quite scintillating, and some of which will be as boring as watching grass grow. It’s all in what you do. If you model in a bottom up fashion (still), the assembly features (4) will be of utmost interest (yawn). If you are like me and model using a top down strategy, then you’re in luck. Between Sketching and Parts which dominate the Layout Part modeling schema, there are 36 new features –24 and 12 respectively.
Not to worry though……every new feature will be given it’s due respect. So without further ado, here is the list of New Inventor Features for 2013:
I just heard from Richard over at TigerStop, and he informs me that their software engineers are going to make the Autodesk Inventor .csv output a default profile in TigerStop’s Workflow Manager!What this means for us Inventor users is that there will be no farting around configuring things in TigerStop’s software, all we will have to do is pick Autodesk Inventor from the list of programs during setup, and we are on our way. Sweet!
Now the thing to do is figure out a reliable way to automate the output from Inventor via iLogic, and maybe some additional help from the Inventor API –possibly triggered by the Rev. number? I could see having a company’s drawing templates having a Rev number set to -1 until RTM, at which point the trigger would be pulled and the Rev number would go to 0 –which would fire an iLogic rule that send the cutlists to the queue. If that can be done relatively easy, even smaller shops could implement the start of their own mini ERP systems!
I imagine the code would look similar to this…
Templates are a very productive way of reusing modified Inventor files. For example, LENGTH, WIDTH, and THICKNESS iPropertes for woodworkers that normally create cutlists. Or you can have a company standards FX part pre-inserted (something I do). If you only work with a certain material, your template file can have that material already applied. You get the gist.You can literally have hundreds of modified part, assembly, drawing, presentation, and weldment files that are preconfigured for a certain client, a certain work-flow, or what have you. As I told a reader In the comments yesterday, I keep folders of template files for specific companies that I subcontract for in an archive, and when I again do business with them, I drop their folder into the Inventor Templates folder and voila!
To begin this iLogic tutorial the first thing we need to do in this is to define the hanger bolts. A look at McFeely’s turned up the following list:
1/4-20 x 1 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 2 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 3 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
1/4-20 x 3 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 4 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 4 1/2 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
5/16-18 x 5 Hanger Bolt Dry Lube
With the list of options on-hand, we can get modeling. We could actually not model anything at all and still have the hardware show up on the parts list and the BOM, but we’ll leave that for another day. The shape of the hanger bolt is incredibly simple, so all I will do here is say that you should make it to roughly three inches long, and have the following constraints added (during drawing if possible, otherwise add them)…
Hey Mark,
Happy New Year! I hope things are going well.
I had a question – maybe it would be good for your forum – I’m not sure. If you think so I can post it there – just let me know where would be appropriate…
Basically I’m trying to make a simple parametric half lap joint. Like the image below:
The way I’d like this to work is to boolean intersect the two members involved to generate the overlap. Then take that resulting solid, thin it by 1/2, and boolean it with each part to form solids for the joint. Eventually I’m hoping to have more complex curved parts that intersect – but this is a good beginning point.
From your earlier tutorials I know I can create a new solid from the intersection. What I was wondering if there’s a way to involve an existing in a new boolean operation. That is take that intersection piece, cut it in half, then boolean it with the other parts.
I hope that made sense!
Thanks,
Mark
……which will kick off a new feature here at the ODP, the Autodesk Inventor and iLogic Question Form.
Here’s the thing….. I get tons of questions via email, and I answer the majority of them, but there is a problem with that approach in that the same questions keep coming up because they were answered in private.
The whole idea of this website was to explore Autodesk Inventor in a public forum. So now all questions must be submitted via the form, and posted on the front page. Right here.
A link to the question post will be placed in an ‘Open Questions’ thingie over on one of the sidebars (should be ready tomorrow). From there, the question will be answered (if possible) my either myself or someone smart. This way all questions (unless I reject it outright) will get answered publicly so that some fine learnin’ can be had by all.
So look for the question queue thingamajig coming to a sidebar near you soon. Mark needs this question answered.
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