By Jennifer MacMillan
Once again it’s the time of year when I share with you how the 2015 Autodesk Inventor curriculum has changed. Similar to last year, I will divide the information over a few blog posts covering the titles that have released so far. In this post I am going to focus on the Autodesk® Inventor® 2015 Introduction to Solid Modeling and Autodesk® Inventor® 2015 Update for 2013/2014 Users training guides.
Autodesk Inventor 2015 Introduction to Solid Modeling
General Interface Enhancements and Training Guide Changes
- There is a new My Home tab, which can be used to create new files, activate project files, and access recently used files. It’s discussed and used throughout the training guide.
- Images have been updated in the training guide as needed to reflect the software changes. The majority of these involve images of the Ribbon in the 3D Model and Sketch tabs.
- A new practice has replaced the practices in Chapter 1. This new single practice combines the three that were in the training guide.
- The Primitive Base Feature topic and its practice have been moved to an Appendix.
- In the Loft and Mirror material new practices have also been added to replace the older ones.
Sketch Enhancements
- Edges that lie on a sketch plane are no longer projected by default. All of the materials in the training guide have been updated to reflect this. Students are asked to project edges as needed.
- The changes to constraints are discussed throughout the training guide. Images have been updated to reflect the new constraint symbols. Relax Mode is covered and is covered in a practice.
- The new Constraint Settings dialog box, which contains all of the settings in one convenient location is also discussed.
- The Offset command functionality also covers how as entities are now automatically removed from the offset selection set as they dragged to a zero length.
Part Enhancements
- The ability to automatically remove edges from a fillet selection set if the radius value is not acceptable has been updated in the training guide.
- The sweep material in the training guide now covers how Twist can be added to sweep geometry.
Assembly Enhancements
- There were not any major functionality changes in the Assembly environment. However, one convenient enhancement was introduced to Joint Connections, which enables you to create a green joint origin between faces and offset from a selected origin. These options are covered and are used in the practice.
Drawing Enhancements
- Many of the drawing enhancements that were introduced in the Autodesk Inventor 2015 software do not impact new users, but in some cases notes were added in the margins and in the body of the material to explain the enhancements. The biggest change is that Foreshortened dimensions are now covered in the Dimension topic.
Autodesk Inventor 2015 Update for 2013/2014 Users
The Autodesk® Inventor® 2015 Update for 2013/2014 Users training guide introduces the new concepts and solid modeling techniques that have been added to both the Autodesk Inventor 2014 and Autodesk Inventor 2015 software. The training guide covers enhancements to the most commonly used environments and contains practices for practicing the new concepts. It assumes knowledge of the Autodesk Inventor 2013 or 2014 software.
- The training guide begins with changes to the overall interface and enhancements that cover global settings and import/export support.
- Chapter 2 covers the sketch environment and contains many topics that have been added to ease sketch creation and cover how you work and control constraint settings.
- A number of enhancements have also been added to existing and new part modeling tools. These changes are covered in Chapter 3. In addition to changes made to existing features, such as fillets, sweeps, threads, and iParts, new workflows for simplifying models, attaching point cloud data, and using direct edit to make changes to a model are also covered.
- Chapters 4 and 5 cover all of the changes to the assembly environment. These include changes to component placement, setting up relationships using Constraints and Joints, and assembly simplification tools. Additional assembly enhancements to section and design views and the new ability to reuse frame members are also covered.
- The final chapter in the training guide covers the drawing environment. The topics are divided so that all of the view and annotation enhancements are covered.
- The training guide’s Appendices introduce the Freeform part modeling workflow as a non-parametric design methodology and also cover the changes made to the Sheet Metal environment.
We have also released the Autodesk Inventor 2015 iLogic training guide. There were no changes to the Autodesk Inventor 2015 software that impacted this training guide.
I hope that this summary helps you when preparing to teach any of these Autodesk Inventor classes. Stay tuned for the Advanced Assembly, Advanced Part, and Sheet Metal training guides, which will be released over the coming months.
Jennifer
