IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Placing iFeatures from the Vault

The Vault has many features that make designing easier and among these is providing a common place  to place shared library files.  Common parts, iParts, iAssemblies are commonly stored and shared from the Vault.  Inventor 2014 offers the ability to place iFeatures directly from the Vault into your part design so now it is a good idea to also store iFeatures in the Vault.

It is up to you if they are entered them into a library folder or as a folder under the Designs folder.  I like to keep all standard assemblies, parts, iParts, iAssemblies and now iFeatures in library folders to make sure they do not get edited by mistake.

Make sure you add the iFeature path to your Inventor Vault project file either as a Library folder or a Frequently Used Subfolder if you decide not to place the iFeatures in a library folder.  Make sure you have also replaced the Inventor Vault project file in the Vault so others can "Get" the updated project file.

The process of placing an iFeature from the Vault begins by selecting the iFeature from Vault icon located under the Manage tab on the Insert panel.  The process is the same from this point on.

I like to make a shortcut in the Select file from Vault dialog box to make the search as easy as possible but you can use any search method you desire to find and place you favorite iFeature.

Showing Filled Text in an Inventor Drawing

Recently I was asked how to show filled text in an Inventor drawing without using a rendered view.  This is important to some users because they need a drawing for label creation and other operations that require filled text.  Below is an example of what we will accomplish.

The first step is to create your model with your desired text.  I suggest that you create an embossed feature from the text but this is not necessary.  Create your drawing and place your desired views.  At this point the text is showing as an outline only.

In the drawing browser, expand the view that contains the embossed text to show the part. 

Right click on the part and choose Get Model Sketches.

Navigate down the part features, and expand the Embossed text feature to reveal the sketch containing the text.  Right click on this sketch and choose Include to fill the text on the drawing.

This finished the process and your text is your drawing is filled.  I failed to mention that you can use most any text font.  In my example I used Tahoma which is a very common engineering font.  You do not have to use a special filled font.  Old English font works just fine but is not very practical.