IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Multi Bodies - One Part

Here at the IMAGINIT blog, we love using multi-body solids.  Mark wrote a great post on the theory and practice of multi body solids a while back.  And while skeletal modeling is one of the most common ways to use multi-body solids, it seems like I am always finding a new use for them.

Take this part for example.  It seems simple enough, but the side walls both angle in towards the center and run from the quadrant points of the lower arc to the quadrant points of the upper circle.  Hmmm…interesting.

I am sure that there are many ways to accomplish this, but I used multi-body solids to get the job done.  Here is how I did it.

I first created the top cylinder and the bottom half cylinder.  The dimensions for the side walls were based off of this, so it made sense to me to start there.

 

As I mentioned before, the side walls slope in two directions.  I will start with the slope in towards the center. What I am doing at this point is drawing the front view of that side wall.  I will not join this solid at this point.  Instead, I will use the New Solid option on the extrude dialog box to create a new solid. This creates a new solid body in this part file that can be edited separately from the rest of the part.  That becomes important in a moment.

Now I will mirror that to the other side to create the other side wall.

 
 

Of course, this is not the final shape.  To fully describe the shape of my side walls, I will create side view of the side wall on the plane running down the center of the part.

Now I can extrude this sketch.  Using the Solids button on the Extrude dialog, I can control which solid(s) are going to be affected by this extrusion.  I will choose the existing side wall, and I will choose the Intersect option.  This will keep whatever is common to the two solids.

Now I can use the Combine tool to join the sidewalls to the rest of the part.  A few more extrusions, holes and fillets later and boo-yah!  A shiny new part created using multi-body solids.  Cfunk out.

 

 

Inventor 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack

Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Inventor 2011
Release Date: 2010-09-29

The Autodesk® Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk® Inventor® 2011 extends the capabilities of Autodesk® Inventor® 2011 software. It includes more ease-of-use tools, better data interoperability, expanded tools for building product fabricators, and an expanded tooling library*.

Extend the capabilities of Autodesk Inventor 2011 with:

* Ease-of-use tools—Use dynamic sectioning, feature auto-name, and flexible drawing view orientation.
* Tools for building product fabricators—Build custom applications to automate export of Building Information Modeling (BIM)-ready content for BIM applications.
* Enhanced interoperability—Gain enhanced support for Rhino translators, 3D DWG in/out, iLogic Copy Design.
* Expanded tooling content libraries*—Gain access to more mold bases and components from popular vendors and expanded coverage for Meusburger mold bases and components.

http://download.autodesk.com/us/subscri ... entor.html

Expect more on this from me soon.  With a more detailed breakdown.

The Curious Case of the Missing Green Dot

I was visiting a customer site when the following question came up, "Did Autodesk change the way that the sketcher works in Inventor?"

Confused by the question I asked, "What do you mean?"

"My green dot is gone."

And it was.  The familiar and comforting green dot that appears when snapping to the endpoint of a sketch line refused to show its face in any of the customer sketches.  Worse than that, his sketches were consistently in need of Sketch Doctor because he was unable to snap correctly to endpoints.

"No problem," I said. "It is just one the settings that we need to turn on."

But which one?  The applications options did not have a green dot radio button to check.  Ditto the document settings.  And Inventor Help does not even have an entry for Green Dot. 

By now I felt a bit foolish.  Then, in a flash of genius, I remembered the constraint options.

If you right-click while in sketch mode, a context menu appears.  One of the items on the menu is Constraint Options.

 

Sure enough, the coincident constraint option was turned off.  Turning it back restored the green dot to its former glory.  Case closed!

Issues with Inventor 2011 Visual Styles?

Hopefully you are loving Inventor 2011's new Visual Styles and Image Based Lighting as much as I am.  Unfortunately sometimes companies do not upgrade their CAD Monkey's computers as often as they do their secretaries and marketing folk.  Those users are left with a few issues with Inventor 2011.  Here are some settings that may help you out if you are one of those unfortunate with an aging machine...

First off lets go to our Hardware Tab of the Application Options.  Here we find some new options for Inventor.  Quality, Performance, and Compatibility.  All sound like good things right?  Well let's make sure we pick the right options.

• Quality: This setting favors graphics presentation over system performance. For machines running Windows 7 or Vista, turns on anti-aliasing and improves the visual quality of the graphics display.  There is no impact or difference between Quality and Performance for machines running Windows XP.
• Performance:This setting favors system performance over graphic presentation. Anti-aliasing is turned off for machines running Windows 7 or Vista. This is the default setting.
• Compatibility: This setting uses the same graphics processes as the Inventor 2009 and earlier releases. Advanced display options, such as Visual Styles and Realistic Appearance materials, are not available.
• Software graphics: Specifies the use of software based graphics processing rather than hardware based. The setting has often been seen as a last resort for graphics choices. However, if the machine has an older graphics card, but a newer operating system, Windows 7 or Vista, then it would be possible to use this option to access DirectX 10 supported features.

Remember, Autodesk is throwing away OpenGL because its just too much darn work to program for everyone and Micrsoft has pretty much dumped it too.  Long live DirectX10!  Good riddance to code based on a 1997 programming structure with a horrible API to work with.  Doing this has also opened a lot of doors for more cost effective graphics cards that are found a lot cheaper than Quadros or FireGLs which are built on the same overall GPU structure so users can use more name brand cards and not be punished by the software for doing so (cough, cough SolidWorks).

 

Some other settings to adjust if you are actually one of the privileged with newer system specs (I got my new HP Elitebook four weeks ago and I love it), then there are some settings with the Visual Styles you might also want to check out.  You can control the behavior of your files by use of Document Settings found in your Inventor templates or use predefined Application options to make the software open the same way each time.  If you choose to allow the App Ops to control everything you can fire up the settings button shown below and predefine Visual Styles, Shadows, Reflections, Projection, Model Edges and well you can see the image so I won't bore you.

Do some upfront testing to see how your system behaves and then set your options accordingly.  Personally, I run my interface Shaded with Edges, Ambient Shadows only, and the background to the Winter Day single color.  When the time calls for it though, it is pretty easy to switch some of these options quickly to get a quick render right from the interface instead of Inventor Studio.  You can actually export a image file right from your modeling space by using the Export option in the Application Menu.

AutoCAD... Back in Mac

Autodesk announced that AutoCAD will be returning to the Macintosh operating system starting with AutoCAD 2011.  Not only will it be available on OS X, Autodesk has also slated Project Butterfly to graduate from Autodesk Labs to become AutoCAD WS for use with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch mobile devices.  source: Autodesk

Autodesk has slowly been providing support back to the Mac for some time now.  Some programs becoming native like Autodesk Smoke, and others showing support in bootcamp or parallel modes with a Windows license.  Not only will Autodesk fully support the product on the OS environment, it will also provide full 100% DWG compatibility between Windows and OS X.