IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

AutoCAD® Mechanical 2012 Product Announcement - New Features

This week Autodesk released product information for the next release of AutoCAD Mechanical. The 2012 release comes with some nice improvements that considerably expand the usability of the software. While the core tools that give AutoCAD Mechanical its leverage over plain AutoCAD have been available for well over a decade now, it’s nice to see the product feature set continuing to expand.

 

Productivity

Let’s start at the beginning and by that I mean Startup. With optimization for Windows 7, common grumble areas like startup time and overall responsiveness have seen a noticeable boost; there have even been some nice performance improvements with the Ribbon. The BOM Migration tool makes generating that Bill of Material data a snap by batch importing DWG™ data.

 

Model Documentation

For shops using AutoCAD Mechanical with other 3D modelers, the Model Documentation tools will streamline the process for creating and updating those critical 2D drawings from a list of popular 3D modelers, including Inventor®, Pro/Engineer®, and SolidWorks®.

 

Standards Updates

As is typical for each release of AutoCAD Mechanical, 2012 again brings the latest updates to the 8 international standards that are integral to the tool.

Updates for the recently updated ISO standard include:

•Dimensioning

•GD&T

•Leaders

•Parts lists (for example, 3040:2009)

         

Ease of Use

Fusion is now accessible from right inside the interface for those designers who want to experience a new standard in 3D modeling ease of use. AutoCAD WS has been integrated in allowing users to view, edit, and share drawing on many web-enabled devices. The Content Explorer provides easy indexing of your design content so it can be quickly located and reused. You can stay connected to the Autodesk design community with Autodesk Exchange.

     

Let's here what our friend Rob Cohee has to say about the new release of AutoCAD Mechanical.

What's in your Quick Access Toolbar? - AutoCAD 2011

The quick access toolbar is one of my favorite aspects of the Ribbon although most users I come across do not know how useful it can really be.

First off, I really don't understand why Autodesk put the Workspace pull down up here other than to help people use the antiquated toolbar system faster.  So that is the first thing I change.  Right click on the Workspace pull down and select Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

I do like having a pull down up there, just not that one.  What I add is the Layers pull down so no matter where I go in the Ribbon I can always have my Layers available to me without having to go back to the Home Tab.  To add that just right click on your Layers pull down and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

Some items are already considered by Autodesk to be customizable for the QAT.  If you select the far right arrow key on the QAT you can find some commonly added items courtesy of the CIP data.  I personally add Match Properties because I do not like its location on the Clipboard Panel.

When all is said and done I usually have my QAT looking like the one below with Layer Control, Match Properties, and Measure Geometry added to it.

Don't forget you can also display the QAT below the Ribbon if you find yourself using it a whole lot more.  For instance I suppose you could look at the QAT as your super tool bar and not need any of the old style toolbars.

In the next post we will take a look at how to add those old style toolbars to the interface without feeling forced to use the AutoCAD classic interface.

Feel free to post what you add to the QAT in the comments.  I would like to hear about some other perspectives.

 

Mechanical Advantage: Creating and Using Structure

With AutoCAD Mechanical there are a couple different ways to organize and reuse geometry from parts to assemblies and easily track their geometry.  Because let's face it, without 3D, you really are looking at lines and arcs all day in normal AutoCAD.  With Mechanical you can do this more effectively with Mechanical Structure.

When a mechanical design starts to take shape, the designer thinks more in terms of parts and assemblies rather than lines and arcs.  The whole process of working with lines and arcs all day really starts to detract from the designers actual overall design intent and starts to get rather mundane and repetitive really fast.  There has to be a better way to organize data for mechanical designs.

With traditional AutoCAD this may be done with blocks or layer groupings, all which are consistently inconsistent because there are so many ways to miss one thing in make the geometry stop making sense or not visualize correctly.  This problem compounds itself when designs are reused in a traditional external reference situation.  Mechanical solves all these problems and more and it all starts with Structure.

I put together a nice white paper on how to effectively start using Structure in designs and this is really just the beginning of oodles of productivity with the software.

Download Structuring Data in ACAD Mechanical

Also here is a short video of a very simple creation of a properly structured Part Component in AutoCAD Mechanical 2011.

Creating Structure with AutoCAD Mechanical from Mark Flayler on Vimeo.

I will post more things in time about other aspects of why Structure is very powerful to the mechanically inclined.  Look forward to topics of advanced commands, automatic BOMs, and Hide Situations.

Mechanical Advantage - Structure Browser Icon Reference

I often get asked about the icons found in the Mechanical Browser of AutoCAD Mechanical.  Before I used to recommend the Help system...that is until I looked in the help system and found more than one command had the wrong icon reference in it.  So I went ahead and created my own reference.

Download Structure Browser Icons

Use this reference to help aid in learning AutoCAD Mechanical Structure.

Autodesk Product Updates - Where's My Discs?

Starting with 2010 Autodesk products, all subscription customers will be able to download their software directly from the subscription site.  This will be the only way of obtaining the software unless you manually go into the Subscription site and choose to receive media in the mail.

As the subscription account holder, log into subscription center and you will see a specific area on the screen.  If you are not the subscription manager you will not see the options below for Future Upgrades.

When you select your preferences for future upgrades you can choose whether to receive the download or the box.  The latter will just take longer to get to you as it has to be shipped obviously. 

Now there are benefits for waiting for the box, but that doesn't mean you can't also download it from the site when it becomes available anyway.  I always like to have the box around so I don't have to store the installation files on my computer or external drive anywhere.  It is also a great thing to have around if you are subscription and you want some of your users to have the Home Use license.  That way they can just borrow the discs and bring them back after their install.

A home use license is a stand-alone license based on a primary license. The primary license can be either a stand-alone or network license. A home use license based on a stand-alone primary license will have the same serial number as the primary license. A home use license based on a network primary license will have a different serial number, which you must obtain from Autodesk.

Click on Contract Administration if you have a valid license type and product and click on Request Home Use.

Download HomeUse_ProductList

Download HomeUse_FAQ

Vault 2010 Service Pack 1

Autodesk has released service pack 1 for Vault 2010. This service pack is for any “flavour” of the Vault including Vault Workgroup, Collaboration, and Manufacturing.

So what’s in it?

Mostly it’s a collection of all the hotfixes released for the 2010 Vault product family and you’ll need this service pack before you will be able to install any future hotfixes.

A couple of the new issues addressed include fixes for an issue when running Vault on Windows Server 2008, an issue with blank entries when extracting properties, and an issue of licenses not being released properly. As always check out the service pack readme for all details including installation instructions.

This service pack also reintroduces the file lock icon that was present in 2009 but it not behaves slightly different.

Anything of note?

If you do apply the service pack it needs to be applied to the server and ALL clients. Also remember that it is ALWAYS a good idea to ensure you have a backup prior to applying any hotfix or service pack.

The Inventor Subscription Bonus pack and / or Inventor Service Pack 1 need to be installed prior to installing Vault 2010 Service Pack 1

When you extract it you’ll find multiple .msp files to install… one for the server, one for the client, and two more for Inventor (one for the subscription bonus pack and one for service pack 1… when you see them it’ll make sense)

Where can I get it?

You can find the service pack here

Using AutoCAD and AutoCAD Mechanical with Vault

Thanks to Michael Thomas again for another great blog post on the Vault line of products.  Without further ado...

We had a gentlemen phone in the other day looking for something to help him manage his AutoCAD drawings and the hundreds of images he is using.  The first thought…. what about Vault?

Many people associate Vault with Inventor and perhaps even with Civil 3D, but forget about AutoCAD. I think this has to do with Autodesk’s marketing and positioning of the Vault product line but the truth is that Vault is very well integrated into AutoCAD.

One of the strengths of Vault is how well it manages files and file references.  This is very true with the Vault and AutoCAD data as Vault will manage any of the external reference attachments that AutoCAD uses.  This includes XREFS (DWG), raster Images (like .bmp, .jpg, etc), DWF underlay, DGN underlay, and the new 2010 option for PDF underlay.

So what’s in it for you to use Vault with your AutoCAD?  Here are a few reasons.

1. Check-in / Check-out:  This helps stop inadvertent changes as you are prompted to check out the file before you are allowed to make changes and save the file.  If someone else is working on the file you will not be able to make changes until they have completed their changes have checked the file back into the Vault.  You will also know who is working on the files.
2. Where Used:  Pick on a file within Vault and instantly see each and every location that file is used
3. Reference Management:  Move or rename drawings, images, pdfs, and any other attachments and the Vault will automatically correct all references where that file is used
4. DWF Visualization:  As an AutoCAD drawing is checked into the Vault it can automatically generate a DWF which can be viewed within the Vault client without having to use AutoCAD or some other CAD product.
5. Searching:  Vault uses a SQL database to store meta data (title, subject, author, part number, etc) and as it is SQL based searches are extremely quick making it easier to find files and reuse designs.

Here are a couple shots of an AutoCAD drawing being checked into the Vault.  Notice how it automatically detects all attachments, even the nested attachments, and checks in the entire collection into the Vault.

Once checked into the Vault neither the drawing nor any of the attachments can be modified as they will be set to read-only until checked out.

Files stored in the Vault can also be directly attached to a file right from within AutoCAD, including a find option. The find function is Vault wide and extremely quick meaning if it’s in the Vault you will find it.

When checked back into the Vault a DWF is also created for others to view

Once stored in the Vault you can use the Vault Explorer to view information about the files like “uses” information to see which files are attached to a drawing and “where used” information so you can see EVERY single place a drawing, image, or underlay is used within the Vault. So if you’re considering changing something why not check what the change will impact first?

Renaming a file within Vault auto-corrects the reference in each file it is used… that’s right I said automatically so if you rename something or move it there are no worries about your drawing not finding the references in the future. An extremely powerful tool!

In the images below the file “FoundationDetail_16b.tif” was renamed to “FDetail.tif” using the Vault Explorer. When the main drawing is reopened in AutoCAD there is no prompting or repathing as the AutoCAD drawing is already aware of the changes.

What about some of the other AutoCAD based products? Outside of AutoCAD LT (which has no Vault support) any of the AutoCAD “flavored” products can use Vault (for example AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechanical). Some have their own additional integration with the Vault

For example… AutoCAD Mechanical has the extra bonus that AutoCAD Mechanical structure components and part references that are used to build the AutoCAD Mechanical Bill of Material (BOM) and Parts List integrate completely with Vault Manufacturing and its item master.  Although you have a single AutoCAD drawing Vault Manufacturing can extract the BOM components.

The following image shows an AutoCAD Mechanical Parts List.  This was built using the data of the drawings part references and structure components.  Notice how Vault Manufacturing can extract this information from the single AutoCAD Mechanical drawing and build the corresponding items.

Wrapping up, the issue for the gentleman considering Vault to help manage his AutoCAD and raster data is not really about using Vault but what is the best approach to get it.  Vault is included with AutoCAD Mechanical, AutoCAD Electrical, Civil 3D, and the Inventor suite of Products…. not AutoCAD.   It’ll probably be the easiest for him to upgrade to AutoCAD Mechanical (and if he chooses run it as a “vanilla” AutoCAD) which will not lose any functionality that he currently uses and will even allow him to continue using his Raster Design.

If you are considering Vault don’t forget about your AutoCAD data.  If you are using AutoCAD or some flavor of AutoCAD why not take a look at Vault to manage that data for you.  And remember IMAGINiT is always available to assist.

Why Doesn't Inventor or AutoCAD do...?

One of the most common questions I get is the title of this post.  There are a lot of reasons depending on the person asking the question and the nature of the reasoning for asking the question in the first place.  First off, there have been a lot of wacky patents thrown about in the software industry with everything from a method of licensing software to how a user actually clicks around and uses software.  Secondly, there are so many unique uses of these general design and manufacturing software that it is rather difficult to expect what everyone wants in the software.

Now what to do about all this?  Sit back and wait for the next release of Inventor and hope they read your mind telepathically from Lake Oswego?  Maybe get a weejie board out and try and predict your wishes?  Maybe make a Jump to Conclusions Mat and see where the cards fall?  How about something a bit more practical.  Here are a couple ways to get your opinions and suggestions heard...

Join the Beta program

Start by signing up here: Autodesk Beta Programs

When you enter into direct beta testing you are able to talk directly with the project managers and programming gurus at Autodesk to help shape the next release of the software and test for gross oversights and missing functionality.  Granted, if you don't get involved in the beta test early enough you may not be able to exact change in their internal builds.  So if you signed up and they are on Beta3 already, just be happy you got to see it early.  Now that doesn't mean your suggestions should stop.  In fact they look in this group of passionate users for ideas that eventually make it into the Subscription Bonus Packs as well as the next release of the software after the one that is being beta tested.

Also remember to swear the secret oath and to not reveal anything unless Autodesk does a press release first or major marking junket.  Or else the men in black suits will find you and put you in a bunker in Oregon.

Add an Augi Wish List Item

Surf your mousy thing here and click --> Augi Inventor Wish List, Augi AutoCAD Wish List

These wish lists are voted upon by members of the Augi (Autodesk User Group International) community and are a usually looked at with as much vigor as the beta forums.  So if you just can't find enough time or passion in your life to be a beta tester, the next best thing is to provide a wish here.  Now, you may sometimes see a wish in here that actually already exists in the software.  Well, we can't all be geniuses right?  But feel free to provide a wish after you have thought about it enough and tried everything else (discussion forum support or your local neighborhood Spiderman...er reseller I mean).  Twice a year they run a voting for the wish list and then you can rank everyone's wishes on a scale from 1 to 10.  As a reseller myself you can imagine that I get a few off the wall requests and a few common sense ones.  When I provide my feedback to Autodesk I do so through my direct method, but I also double it up here as to get more recognition of the wish.  The more visible the need, the higher the priority to Autodesk.  However if you ask Inventor do something that takes a complete overhaul of the software or takes the software in a direction that has nothing to do with Mechanical Design, don't be surprised when your wish upon an Augi never comes true.

Provide Direct Feedback

When I say direct feedback there are a couple of methods to go about this.

1. Submit a wish/feedback directly to Autodesk: Product Feedback
2. Use the Discussion Forums: MFG Community 
3. Tell your reseller:  They usually have a lot of high level conversations with Autodesk and can get your wish or feedback in their ear a lot faster and through a lot less red tape.

Lastly, remember, if you do nothing your wish will surely not become a reality or even discussed.  Autodesk does not yet employ telepathic programmers, although I hear of a beta project called Crystal Ball that sounds promising.  You know how I knew...the Beta forums.  Get involved today!

Get Productivity When You Need It With ProductivityNOW

Monday mornings can be a tough on any 9-5 worker, but are especially rough when you have to finish the work a co-worker didn't finish before he left on extended vacation last Friday.  As was the case with a friend of mine and long time blog reader Justin this week.  I call him Justin to keep him and his co-workers safe.  I get an email from our dedicated support team to help out with an in depth question that they know I have experience with.  They know I have taught many Inventor classes over the years and that I am a hard guy to stump.

Justin had just returned to Inventor after being away from the software for about 6 months and had not used it since his company upgraded from 2008 to 2010.  He had a problem with his sketching geometry not remaining constrained to itself.  Essentially the sketch would not create automatic geometric constraints.  This aggravated Justin very much so he pulled out his support contract and gave us a quick ring to our Support Number.  Although he did have a lot of other options instead of a phone call, but this is usually a more preferred direct contact method and too small an issue for our Remote Desktop log in.  Here you can see all the options available to a ProductivityNOW member.

Now this is a common troubleshooting issue to a lot of returning or new users to the software and once you see the solution it makes total sense.  Now since Justin had been away from the software for a while he didn't have time to dig in the Help system for an answer and no one to ask at work.

After taking Justin's call and hearing his story I immediately took it upon myself to help Justin get reacquainted with the software and our solution options.  I quickly pointed him to a section of our Ascent course ware to help him find the correct solution and even a quick data set where he could try out a solution.  Since we keep a running data base of all our sister company's course ware in ProductivityNOW it allows Justin to not only read about a topic in a more practical and less technical way but to also develop his own personal development agenda to get back up to speed on important updates to Inventor.

Over the course of the phone call I ended up answering four more questions for Justin and got him back on track for his companies project he needed to get started.  I showed him how to log Support Cases for email response and if he really gets in a jam with his Content Center how to request Remote Access for our experts in our Solution Center to diagnose.  At the end of the phone call he asked..."Is that you in that picture on the left side of the page?".  Inside ProductivityNOW we also stream all of our blogger's RSS feeds, IMAGINiT news releases, and Autodesk hotfixes and service pack updates.  This opened up another issue Justin found and noticed the Service Pack was designed to fix it.

In just under 30 minutes we were able to quickly address Justin's issue, solve 4 more he didn't know he had and get his Inventor patched and all up to date.  He thanked me and said if he needed anymore help he now knows where he can start.   There are many ways our Solution Center can help with your questions and design questions ranging from the quick response answer to a more in depth study of parametric design.  Take a look at the support options and overview of the different levels of ProductivityNOW (click below to enlarge).  You never know when you will be Justin...Justin Case.

 

Multiple Vault Clients, One System?

From the way up north comes an AE with superior Autodesk Data Management skills. Michael Thomas from our Saskatoon, Saskatchewan office in Canada brings us a great tip on the Autodesk Vault product line. Mike is PSE and ATC certified and was one of the first to complete IMAGINiT's TakeAIM certification. With over 10 years of Autodesk software experience and his strong communication skills, he is highly regarded within the industry.

With the 2010 product offering from Autodesk we saw the introduction of new “flavors” of Autodesk Vault. This included Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration, and the renaming of Autodesk Productstream to Autodesk Vault Manufacturing. With these new products came tighter restrictions on how the different versions of Vault can communicate with each other.  In the past the Vault Client was able to log into a Productstream server and perform basic Vault tasks. However with the 2010 products  each version of Vault can now only talk with a Vault Server of the same type. This means, for example, that a Vault Collaboration Client can not log into a Vault Manufacturing Server and vice versa.

So you might be thinking so what? You’ve already got your Vault Server in place and your Vault Clients are communicating happily and everyone is checking –in and –out data to their heart’s content. But what happens if your customers or vendors do not use the same version of Vault? If could even be internal to your company, one division uses Vault and another division uses Vault Manufacturing. One of the advantages of using Vault is always having access to the most current version… i.e. live data…. and searching the database quickly. No one really wants to go back to email and ftp and being concerned with stale out-of-date files.

This is where post TS1106987 (Connecting to different versions of Vault 2010 (Server) from the same client) in the Autodesk Cracking the Vault blog caught my eye. It states that to work with a mixed environment of Vault types you need to install the corresponding client applications. What it is saying is that if you want access to a Vault Manufacturing vault you’ll need to install the Vault Manufacturing Client.

In the image below you can see that I’ve started two different Vault Explorers, Vault and Vault Manufacturing on the same system. The login information is different (note the server name) as each corresponding server is installed on a different system. In fact I can have both logged in and running at the same time!

Having multiple client types installed does not change the functionality of each client. The Vault log will not have any of the Vault Manufacturing functionality. 

What about licensing? With the advanced versions of Vault (Workgroup, Collaboration, and Manufacturing) the license actually comes from the server you log into. So if you have customers or anyone else outside the organization who require access to your Vault all they will require is the client. When they log into your Vault the client software on their system will “pull” a license from your server via your license manager.

This is all “fine and dandy” but what about the CAD Application (Inventor or AutoCAD)? When the Vault Client is installed a Vault add-in is added to the CAD application so that it can communicate with the Vault directly. How does this work when multiple Vault Clients are installed?

It turns out that the CAD add-in behaves very similarly to the Vault Explorer Client. The Vault type that you log into determines the available functionality within Inventor or AutoCAD. In the following screen shots you should see that by simply logging out of one Vault and into another the functionality available to Inventor is adjusted automatically. Notice the additional icons in the ribbon (Control Panel) as well as the slight difference in the Vault browser (Vault Manufacturing highlights checked-out files in blue). In fact the “Go to Vault” icon will even launch the appropriate version of Vault Explorer!

So even if you can no longer use your Vault client to log into Productstream this does not mean that you are limited to access to only one Vault type.