ASCENT Blog

What’s New with the Inventor Training Guides from ASCENT for 2016 – Part 2

By Jennifer MacMillan

As a follow up to my Part 1 posting on what was new in ASCENT’s Autodesk Inventor 2016: Introduction to Solid Modeling and Autodesk Inventor 2016: Advanced Part Modeling training guides, this blog post covers the remaining standard Inventor training guides that have been or are about to be released.

Autodesk Inventor 2106 Advanced Assembly Modeling

As was previously discussed the majority of functionality enhancements in the Autodesk Inventor 2016 software affected the Advanced Part Modeling training guide. In this training guide I focused on the lecture content descriptions and making them clearer and to-the-point so that students can focus on what they need to learn to be successful when working with the tools. The only specific change to the training guide that was driven based on functionality changes,  was in Chapter 13 Inventor Studio. The workflow when dealing with lighting styles was enhanced and all the content in the chapter (lecture and exercises) reflects the changes.

Autodesk Inventor 2016 iLogic

There were no 2016 software enhancements that affected iLogic. My main focus when updating this training guide was working through all the exercises and making sure they were clear for students. For example, in Chapter 9 Project Practices I cleared up some instructions that had students use custom snippets to convert user-parameters to a custom iProperty. In the 2016 training guide, students now use the standard snippet that is available in the software to do the conversion (much easier!!). The iLogic training guide is now released.

Autodesk Inventor 2016 Sheet Metal Design

The Sheet Metal Design training guide isn’t yet released; however, all my work is now complete so I wanted to share some of the changes you can expect to see. Keep an eye out for its release in early July. The following is a summary of the changes:

• A zero bend radius is now allowable. For new users that are just learning the Sheet Metal functionality, they would not otherwise know that you were previously unable to create a zero bend radius, so I didn’t incorporate this too much in the training guide. I did however, add a new Bend Radius discussion in the Sheet Metal Terminology topic in Chapter 1 and mentioned that a zero value is allowable.
• In Chapter 9 I have also modified the content on the A-Side Definition discussion. When introduced in 2015 you could explicitly define the A-Side or when you flattened the model it was assigned for you as a node in the folded model. In 2016 the A-Side is still pre-defined for you if an A-Side is not defined; however, the A-Side node is no longer automatically added.
• Multi-Body Modeling! Yes, you can now do multi-body modeling in a sheet metal model. An entire chapter (Chapter 12) has been dedicated to this new modeling workflow along with an exercise (shown below) to allow students to practice.

 

                       

• The final change is in Chapter 14. When converting a part to a sheet metal part there is now an additional prompt that requires you to select a base face reference. Once selected this face is used to automatically measure the thickness of the model for you. The Sheet Metal Default dialog box is automatically opened and the Thickness value is updated with this measured value. Additionally, the Thickness from Rule option is cleared. If changes need to be made, they can be made.

I hope that this and my previous Part 1 blog helps you get ready for teaching with ASCENT’s Inventor 2016 training guides. Please let me know how you like the changes I have made or if you have any other suggestions or comments.

Jennifer

jmacmillan@rand.com

What’s New with the Inventor Training Guides from ASCENT for 2016 – Part 1

By Jennifer MacMillan

I am happy to say I have completed updating all of ASCENT's most commonly used Inventor training guides. With this and my next blog, I wanted to share some of the changes that were made to our training guides. This blog focuses on the Autodesk Inventor 2016: Introduction to Solid Modeling and the Autodesk Inventor 2016: Advanced Part Modeling training guides, both of which are now available for ordering.

Introduction to Solid Modeling

This year, there weren’t a lot of significant changes to the functionality of the Inventor software that impacted the introductory-level content.  This gave me time to focus on streamlining the content in chapters 3, 4, and 5. For any instructor getting ready to teach 2016 who were used to the older versions, you will certainly want to review the material before heading into class. My main goal was to reduce repetitive discussions of the sketch feature creation workflow, which is first introduced with base features in Chapter 2. I wanted to focus on exactly what the students need to know in each chapter after they have learned this workflow.

• In Chapter 3 I focused on breaking up the additional sketching tools into individual topics, instead of incorporating it into a workflow discussion again. There are topics on additional entities, editing tools, constraints, and dimensions. As you are teaching, I would refer back to how each of these fit into the overall workflow. The exercises all support sketch creation and using the tools.
• Chapter 4 continues with the more advanced sketching tools and preferences, similar to the 2015 training guide.
• Chapter 5 has also been reworked. I added a short discussion to remind students of the sketched geometry workflow, but the main focus is on how secondary features differ from base features. For example, placement planes can now be a face, geometry projection, slice graphics, and depth options. I really wanted to get rid of the repetitive discussion and focus on what you need to know for secondary features. I hope that you like this and that it is clearer for students! The comments I have been getting so far have been positive.

Throughout the remainder of the book, I looked to make things cleaner and easier to understand, fix any errors or inconsistencies (of course), and incorporate new 2016 functionality. These functionality changes include:

• New discussion of Parting Line Draft options in Chapter 9.
• New functionality for creating an exploded view in a presentation model. The Tweak functionality has been moved into the mini-toolbar, and works similar to the Move and Rotate tools.

  

• Chapter 25 covers creating views and discusses the new Drawing View dialog box for Base view creation. The main change is that all of the view orientation controls are activated on the drawing sheet using the ViewCube, as shown below. Additionally, you can now create a drawing file directly from a model file (Finally!!).

 

Advanced Part Modeling

The majority of the enhancements that have been included in the 2016 release affected this training guide.

• In Chapter 3, the Silhouette curve discussion now includes the new Exclusion area that enables you to decide whether faces, straight faces, or internal faces are to be excluded in the curve.
• In Chapter 7, the new Ruled Surface type is discussed. This option creates a normal, tangent, or swept surface where a straight line lies at every point on the surface. Common uses for this type of surface includes creating parting surfaces for mold design, creating surfaces that can split a body, or adding pockets. I am sure that there will be many students excited about this addition! 

         

    

• I added two new surface exercises in Chapter 8 that will allow students to trim, delete, patch, stitch, delete faces, and create solids.

The end of the book is where I made the most changes to incorporate the new AnyCAD functionality, Associative DWGs, and Freeform tools.

• Firstly, I moved all the information on importing and editing CAD (and surface) data together.
• Chapter 11 explains the new Import functionality and how to use the new streamlined dialog box to convert geometry or reference other CAD data. Import by reference is the new functionality that allows you to keep an associative link to the source CAD file. The new exercise in this chapter shows how you can import a CATIA assembly and then update the imported data after changes are made in the CATIA source file.
• Both the Base Solid and Direct Edit editing tools are discussed in Chapter 11, including information on the new Scaling tool.
• Chapter 12 focuses on working with imported surfaces and using the repair environment. Students will learned how to use the Import dialog box to customize surfaces for inclusion or not.  An additional exercise has been added that focuses on importing and working with a CATIA model.
• Chapter 13 is a completely new chapter, which deals with working with other Autodesk data, with an emphasis on AutoCAD. It discusses the differences between opening and importing, as well as outlining how to use DWG underlays to create geometry (shown below). The exercises support practicing all of these tools.

• The final chapter in the course covers the new enhancements to Freeform. The additional tools warranted the addition of its own tab in the interface. This new tab is discussed, along with all of its new tools. The existing exercises form the foundation of what you need to be able to do to create and edit the geometry, and a new exercise was added that now shows how you can convert existing geometry into a freeform, and then create a solid from it.

 

I hope that this helps you prepare for any upcoming 2016 classes and that you like the changes I made. I will post the same type of informational blog about the Autodesk Inventor 2016: Advanced Assembly Modeling content shortly.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer