IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Autodesk Cloud - Collaborate More and Output Faster

Today, Autodesk released the details for the Autodesk Cloud.  With free services for anyone as well as premium services for their subscription customers.  Let's take a look at the important general cloud utilties as well as the Manufacturing specific.

 

Autodesk® Cloud documents - Formally Project Nitrous (cloud.autodesk.com) – Use this service to store your design documents in the cloud, so you can access them anytime, anywhere and easily share them with colleagues, clients and other users. Viewing capabilities enable users to open and review 2D and 3D DWF™ files through a web browser – without the design software used to create the files. 1 GB of storage space is available for free.* Autodesk® Subscription customers receive 3 GB of storage space for each seat of software on Subscription for the duration of their Subscription contract term.

 

Autodesk® Design Review mobile app – Access your Autodesk Cloud documents on the go with this mobile app. Review 2D and 3D DWF™ files on your mobile device. Redline and annotate 2D drawings while in the field or out of the office. Available free of charge.

 
AutoCAD® WS (www.autodcadws.com) - Design and collaborate across multiple platforms—desktop, web, and mobile devices—with full DWG™ reliability and compatibility. Upload files directly from AutoCAD to your online workspace. View and edit DWG files on your mobile device or on the web – no software required. Available free of charge.

 

Autodesk® Cloud rendering - Formally Project Neon (rendering.cloud.autodesk.com) - Reduce time and costs with this powerful rendering service that enables you to produce compelling, photorealistic visualizations in the cloud—without tying up the desktop or requiring specialized rendering hardware. Available with an Autodesk Subscription to Autodesk® Design Suite Premium, Autodesk® Design Suite Ultimate, Autodesk® Building Design Suite Premium, or Autodesk® Building Design Suite Ultimate.

 

Autodesk® Inventor® optimization (coming soon) — Extend ideation and simulation beyond the desktop by testing the performance of multiple design options in the cloud. Available with an Autodesk Subscription to Autodesk® Product Design Suite Premium or Autodesk® Product Design Suite Ultimate.  This is not available at launch but will be available shortly.

 

Autodesk® Streamline®—Deliver more effective project collaboration with this leading document, design, and model management solution that enables users to securely exchange MFG project information across companies, disciplines, and locations. Available with an Autodesk Subscription to Autodesk® Vault Collaboration.

What is the advantage for Autodesk® Subscription customers?
Autodesk® Subscription customers receive three times the amount of storage space in Autodesk® Cloud (3 GB per seat on Subscription). More storage capacity means you can store, view and share more design documents via the cloud. This translates into more mobility and more power to improve project results, increase collaboration, and accelerate innovation.

In addition, customers with an Autodesk Subscription to select products or suites have exclusive access to Autodesk Cloud services, such as:

• Autodesk® Cloud rendering (Design Suite Premium or Ultimate)
• Autodesk® Inventor® optimization (Coming Soon) (Product Design Suite Ulitmate)
• Autodesk® Streamline® (Vault Collaboration)

Where can I find out which Autodesk® Cloud services I’m entitled to use?

1. Go to http://accounts.autodesk.com
2. Sign in using your existing Autodesk ID and password, or click the button to create a new Autodesk account.
3. After signing in, if you are a Subscription customer, you might need to enter your product serial number to verify your Subscription and see all of the cloud services you’re entitled to use. (Note: To locate your serial number, look for the Help icon on your software’s toolbar – usually located on the top-right corner. Select the pull-down arrow beside the Help icon. From the Help menu, select “About.” Your serial number should appear in the pop-up window.)
4. Once you have signed in and verified your Subscription, you will see a list of the Autodesk® Cloud services you are entitled to use.

How do I access Autodesk® Cloud services?
You can use your Autodesk ID and password to access Autodesk® Cloud services.

If you do not have an Autodesk ID and password, you can create an account by clicking the “Sign In” button (shown below) in your Autodesk product.

What are Cloud Units?
Cloud Units are used to measure how much cloud computing capacity you have used with Autodesk® Cloud services, such as rendering or Inventor® optimization, which use computers to perform computationally intense tasks. Cloud Units help you understand how much capacity you have used.

Are there limits on my use of Autodesk® Cloud services?
Yes there are limits on the use of some Autodesk® Cloud services. 

• The Autodesk® Cloud documents storage space is limited to 1 GB for free* accounts. Subscription customers receive 3 GB of storage per seat on Subscription for the duration of their Subscription contract term. 
• Services like Autodesk® Cloud rendering and Autodesk® Inventor® optimization are limited to a total of 100 Cloud Units per eligible seat on Subscription, per year.

All Autodesk Cloud services are subject to the terms and conditions accompanying them. For all Autodesk Cloud services, it is important that you monitor your use and do not exceed service limits.

Where can I see how much storage and/or how many cloud units I have used?

You can see how much storage and how many Cloud Units you have used by signing in to your account at http://accounts.autodesk.com.

Inventor CAD Standards: Curing Metadata Mishaps - Preventative Mainentance

Now that we have identified our problem, treated it, and know the dangers involved with the incorrect fudging of data, how can we increase our productivity of using the software and avoid missing data fields and taking the easy way out?  There are actually a couple of options here ranging from the free to paid add-ins.

So what is the best way to make sure your design team is filling out the data required for your tracking?

The above cartoon would open up all kinds of headaches let alone HR complaints.  So there must be a better way.  Let's try some iLogic.  There is some new stuff in 2012 to really opens up the easy of use across your install base. 

First off, here are my source files that make this work.  Enjoy them, there is a decent starter drawing template as well as some free coding included.

Download Sample Templates

What we have in these templates is a few Custom iProperties and settings that help us track our design we want to (AS400DESC, Item Number, Category Number, and Drawing Number).  As well as a Rule that will take whatever we put into Description to automatically become the Part Number as well instead of the default Inventor way of making the Part Number equal to the File Name.

Disclaimer: This might not be YOUR way of tracking or even the same properties, but I am big on ideas here.

Let's start by looking at the existing rules in the Part file.  Go to the Manage Tab and select the Rule Browser.  There are only a few but very potent rules here.

Let's look at how these rules fire.  Click the Event Triggers command to examine.  Here I used Before Save Document because it works with Vault better this way with the Check in and out protocols.  I also have iProperty Change firing another rule to make my Part Number equal to the Description.  So that when Description is changed the Part Number follows suit.

So where does the iPropertyEnforcement fire?  To find out, examine the iPropertyTriggering rule by right clicking on it and selecting Edit Rule.

If iProperties.Value("Custom", "AS400DESC")="" Then

iLogicVb.RunRule("iPropertyEnforcement")

End If

If iProperties.Value("Project", "Description")="" Then

iLogicVb.RunRule("iPropertyEnforcement")

End If

If iProperties.Value("Custom", "CATNO")="" Then

iLogicVb.RunRule("iPropertyEnforcement")

End If

If iProperties.Value("Custom", "ITEMNO")="" Then

iLogicVb.RunRule("iPropertyEnforcement")

End If

If iProperties.Value("Custom", "D.N.")="" Then

iLogicVb.RunRule("iPropertyEnforcement")

End If

In this rule if any of the Values are empty (signified by the empty quoation marks) then the iPropertyEnforcement rule will automatically fire upon trying to save and leave the file.  So what's in the iPropertyEnforcement rule then?  What's got 5 fields and keeps us tracking our data?

This guy...

iLogicForm.Show("iProperties")

This form is created with the new iLogic Form creator that was added to Inventor 2012.  To examine the Form go to the Form tab in the iLogic Rule Browser, right mouse click on iProperties and select Edit.

If you are using 2011, this isn't impossible, its just harder to set up and very time consuming if you don't already know how to create a VB form outside of Inventor.

To examine the iProperty tracking further we head on to the Drawing sample I have provided.  Here are a couple different rules.  Here we only have one rule: iPropertyCopying.  The idea here is to get the values from the original modeling file to be copied directly over to drawing environment not only for Title Block mapping, but also for indexed Vault searches.  It is not uncommon to do a search in Vault and if the copying is not complete, then an additional step is needed to find either the source model or the linked drawing.

The single rule here will fire upon Drawing View Changes and Before Save Document and contains logic to not fire if values are already copied correctly or if no view exists.

' exit rule if no part or assembly is in the drawing yet

If (ThisDrawing.ModelDocument Is Nothing) Then Return

'get the filename of the doc the drawing points to

modelName = IO.Path.GetFileName(ThisDrawing.ModelDocument.FullFileName)

iProperties.Value("Custom", "I.N.") = iProperties.Value(modelName, "Custom", "ITEMNO")

iProperties.Value("Custom", "D.N.") = iProperties.Value(modelName, "Custom", "D.N.")

iProperties.Value("Custom", "CATNO") = iProperties.Value(modelName, "Custom", "CATNO")

iProperties.Value("Project", "Description") = iProperties.Value(modelName, "Project", "Description")

If iProperties.Value("Custom", "D.N.")="" Or iProperties.Value("Project", "Description")="" Or iProperties.Value("Custom", "CATNO")=""Or iProperties.Value("Custom", "I.N.") = "" Then

i = MessageBox.Show("One or more of the iProperties for Description, Item Number, Category Number, or Drawing Number are blank.  To update these values modify the Inventor IPT/IAM/IPN file that the view originates from.", "iProperty Enforcement", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Asterisk, MessageBoxDefaultButton.Button1)

End If

If the file that has been placed in the drawing is missing ANY of the required information a prompt will open stating that the user must return to the original file to make changes to the iProperties so that they will copy over correctly for Title Blocks as well as Parts Lists.

If you receive an error when this rule runs then you will see a potential downside to this usage.  What if the source file didn't come from our team and therefore did not contain any of the original tracking parameters?  Or perhaps it is an older migrated file?

Well, you got 2 choices.  Add the values to the source file, or suppress the rule so it doesn't bug the heck out of you.  I prefer the first choice and the Design Assistant is an easy way to Copy Model iProperites from a single source file to a series or folder of files so they can be tracked correctly.  You can also use Vault to force a parameter to exist that doesn't already.  To keep this post from running out of control, I will stop yammering on at this point and just point out this is one pretty tight method to make sure tracking data is getting filled out correctly in a design.

I also mentioned at cost methods for this as well.  Well, if you are interested, head over the MCADforums site and check out iPropWiz.  You won't be disappointed.  It is not free like this quick method, but it will also not break the bank.

Inventor CAD Standards: Curing Metadata Mishaps - Treatment

In the last post we identified a problem with our iProperty tracking were values were being overridden in careless abandon due to user inefficiency or improper understanding of iProperties.  These mistakes lead to incorrect part order or incorrect fabrication depending on the particular tracking data.  In this post we will see how to treat the issue and look at how to reverse this problem when we see it.

After identifying the overridden value and switching it back to the linked value by toggling off the Static Value, the best course of action is to return back to the original file and change the data in the original part or assembly.

There are actually a couple of different ways to get back to the source.

1. Right click on the file in canvas
2. Rick click on the the Model Browser
3. Use the Bill of Material

The first two methods are a little tricky if you don't know your design intimately enough.  In order to find the file in the Model Browser you have to know exactly where it is in the hierarchy of the design and will involve some digging through some expandable nodes.

The other one means you have to know visually what the component looks like.  If you happen to know this then you can simply select it in the canvas and select Open.  But my cursor doesn't select parts in my drawing Mark, just faces and edges.  Well, here is another free tip.  Hold Shift and right click your mouse and your Selection Filter will pop up to change the priority of your drawing selection for your left click.

The easiest way to fix these problems with the metadata is to force the update right from the drawing instead by using the Bill of Material.  This command is one of the most powerful for tracking data in a design and allows for quick changes across the file set without having to open every file or having to hunt down the correct file in a list or model tree.  There are two ways to get to it in a drawing; right click on the Parts List, or right click on the Assembly or Presentation View in the drawing.

Once inside the Bill of Material, you can customize the columns, change the BOM structure, add new iProperties, modify material properties, and for our purpose change any data that is linked from the modeling files.

...and just because I don't spend ALL day in my CAD package, I do forget to turn on the CAPS lock key.  So it is awesome that the right click on a cell has the option to Capitalize for me as well as some other Excel type functions such as Find, Replace, and Cell Fill.

A quick check on our Parts List will verify this is a linked value and not a static one and our last step to treat our metadata mishap is to save the drawing and approve the change to be make to the original file and perform a save on the linked modeling file.

Now that we have treated the problem, tune back on Friday for some preventative maintenance.

Inventor CAD Standards: Curing Metadata Mishaps - Diagnosis

Autodesk Inventor has inherent data included with every file called iProperties that aid in documentation and searching of files.  Often times this data is needed for Bill of Material columns, Title Block automation or indexed Vault searches.  However the realistic problem with iProperties is the human factor involving in the task of filling them out appropriately or consistently.

Lets say we have a few iProperties we need filled out for every drawing for our Title Blocks and Bills of Material.  These can consist of standard iProperties as well as Custom ones we create since Inventor doesn't ship with the terminology or content we require for our documentation.

If these values do not get filled out we often spend time afterwards having to open files and fix them.  In some cases draftsmen and engineers may take the short cut and override them or simply add text on the drawing.  This is a horrible practice because it makes these values specials for the drawing they are in when that part may be used in 50 other assemblies.  We certainly do not want that attitude in our design group because items will no longer update they way we intend them to and simple typo mistakes or incorrectly cross-referencing a file can lead to manufacturing mistakes and ordering of incorrect parts.

First let's see if your designs have problems right now.  After we find out there is an issue we can fix them for legacy designs and put in safeguards so it doesn't happen again in the future.  Open up a completed Assembly drawing of one of your designs with a Parts List on it.  Edit the Parts List and take a look at what you see.

A little bit of blue text here is not a bad thing.  If we need to specifiy overides for a part for a special case, then this blue text is okay.  If we need to have the value be the same in every drawing where this part is referenced, then this is a VERY bad sign.  To check what the actual iProperty value for a cell is, simply right click on the cell and toggle the Static Value option (iamge below).  If it is blank, then the actual part or assembly file does not have the information saved in it.  If the cell returns a value but not the right value then the problem could be worse than we thought.

Incorrect data can be more costly than adding an additional inch to an extrusion, due to incorrect ordering, frieght invovled with shipping and returning the items whether it be a purchased part or incorrect raw stock.  We hope that our purchasing department see these mishaps before that happens, but even if they catch it in time, there is still downtime involved with the mistake and egg on your department's face. 

With the blue overide in place it also makes it harder to search for that value in any other design using either Design Assistant or Autodesk Vault.  Data that doesn't exist anywhere in the iProperties is not indexable and therefore not searchable.

Wednesday we will take a look at how to put the Band-Aid on the problem for your legacy designs, and on Friday I will show you how to setup the automation on the front end of your designs so this does not happen again.  Let's stop throwing money away.

Empty Presentation Files after Inventor 2012 Service Pack 1

I am on an 80's movie kick lately, and this tip reminded me of one of my favorites growning up (yes, I am not even 30 yet).  After installing Inventor Service Pack 1 for 2012, when you go to create a Presentation file recording you get a big fat goose egg for file size.  Which takes me back to the days of campy spoof movies like...UHF with Weird Al.

On the set of Wheel of Fish...What's in the Box!

 

Nothing!  Absolutely nothing!

 

Should have taken the Red Snapper.

Now to fix your empty Presentation file, until Autodesk releases a fix for it, go to your Application Options and navigate to the Hardware tab.  Set your graphics to compatability mode and restart Inventor.  Then you should be able to get out a recorded IPN.