IMAGINiT Manufacturing Solutions Blog

Attending AU2015 for Inventor tips?

If so, or just thinking about it (time is running out though), come and attend one or both of my classes this year.

(CP10152) CADZilla—Taming Large Files in Inventor

Do you often find yourself waiting on your files to upload because they are very large or complex? Ever wish you could speed up that load time? Users who work with large complicated part or assembly files waste vast amounts of time waiting for these files to generate and build upon activation. The causes for this can be anything from sub-par hardware to default application settings that don’t support your needs to poor file maintenance practice. Making a few changes in the software settings and workflow practices can greatly reduce this wasted time and make you more productive.

 

 

(CP10149) It’s All in the Details—Best Practices for Detailing Drawings

Do you wish detailing your drawings took far less time? Do you wish there were quicker, more-efficient ways to get your detail drawings completed? This class will go over some tips and tricks you can use when creating your drawings, as well as best practices, the setting of standards and items you tend to use often, custom symbols creation and use, efficient dimensioning, and the use of design views and level of details to help speed up the detailing process.

 

These Instructional Demos are geared towards beginners or intermediate users.

Hope to see you there.

Want more info on these classes? Post away, I'll do my best to answer your questions.

Inventor Assembly Components - Managing Their Visibility

Within a large Inventor assembly it is often a challenge to view and work with components because they are either hidden by other components or they are just too hard to find.  One of the best ways to overcome some of these limitations is to make components restricting your view invisible.  I know you can select one or more components in the browser or graphic screen and turn off their visibility, but this is a very intensive mouse clicking process.  This article would like to focus on a faster process of managing component visibility.  The Inventor "Isolate" command is perfect for this task. 

The "Isolate" command is only available after selecting one or more components in the assembly and is located on the right click menu.

The command functions by turning the visibility off of all the components except the selected ones.  The components disappear from the graphic screen as well as the browser component icon changing to a shade of gray indicating that they are hidden.

Once you are ready to return all components to a visible state, simply right click on top of the graphic display and choose "Undo Isolate".  This will return all the invisible components to a visible state.

But what if you would like to turn off the visibility of all the components except the one(s) you select.  The process is same but there is an extra step.  After selecting one or more components you would like to make invisible, hold down the Shift key and press the right mouse button.  In the context menu select "Invert Selection".  This will reverse your component selection set.

The "Invert Selection" command is also located on the drop down menu located on the Quick Access Toolbar.

From this point on the process is the same.  Select "Isolate" from the right click context menu and "Undo Isolate" when you wish to restore the visibility of all components.

There is another command that is very similar to the "Isolate" command called "Isolate Component".  To use this command, first select an assembly relationship (formally known as a constraint) and right mouse click.  Selecting the "Isolate Component" command will turn off the visibility of all components not are involved in the selected relationship.  This makes it much easier to work with the relationship either to edit it or understand how it was applied.

To return the visibility of all components, right click and select "Undo Isolate" from the context menu.

It is important not to execute the "Isolate" command twice in a row without using the "Undo Isolate" command between them.  Inventor only records the components involved in the most recent "Isolate" command so if you execute two "isolate" commands in sequence, without an "Undo Isolate" command between them, the visibility state of the first "Isolate" command will not be available when you try and execute the "Undo Isolate" command.  The command will be grayed out prohibiting you from selecting it.

If you find yourself in this situation, you can use the "Find Assembly Components" dialog box to select all the assembly components that are invisible and then right click and turn their visibility on all at one time.

These Inventor commands will help you quickly navigate the most complex Inventor model allowing you to focus on the exact components will removing all others from the display.

 

Moving to the Cloud...

Should You or Shouldn't You?

When it comes to moving a part of your business out to the World Wide Web, there are many considerations to weigh.  Will our data be secure in a datacenter?  What elements of our business would work better on the internet?  Will the cloud give our company an edge over our competitors?

These questions and more will be answered in our free online discussion happening on Wednesday, October 28^th.  We invite you to attend and bring all your questions.  Learn more here:

Leveraging the Cloud

As technology and the Internet of Things continue to evolve, it becomes less a matter of "if" and more a question of "when" to make the shift.  This event could answer the question, "Is now the time to move our business to the cloud?"  We have the answers you need.

Register Now and decide for yourself.

Register Here for the discussion

Using Revision Clouds for AutoCAD Paper Space Viewports

You are creating your AutoCAD paper space layout.  The main viewport border is placed on a non-plotting layer.  You have a detail viewport in your layout that just does not look right without a border so you create their viewport border on a layer that will plot.  Below is an section of a drawing to illustrate.  The red arrow is pointing to the detail viewport border.

I get tired of seeing the square edged viewport border.  Not only is it boring but it sometimes becomes part of the detail view.  This article to written to show you how to use an AutoCAD revision cloud as a viewport border.

The first step is to create your revision cloud with the shape and size you desire.  There are many ways for creating revision clouds and various styles that can be applied but that is not a part of this discussion.  I made my revision cloud by drawing a circle and converting it to a revision cloud.  I want the viewport border to plot so I placed in on my object layer.  Note: the red arrow points to the main viewport border which does not plot so the overlap will not be a problem.

From this point on, the process is the same you would use to create any paper space viewport.  I will step through it to make sure everyone is up to speed.  Select the "Layout" tab in AutoCAD, then select the dropdown arrow in the "Layout Viewports" panel and pick on the "Object" option.

When prompted, select the revision cloud you will be using for your viewport border.  The viewport will now show the entire model space view.  Double click inside the viewport border and zoom and pan to the area you desire.  Last set and lock the viewport scale.  The locking of the viewport is often forgotten leading to a myriad of issues.

When the drawing is plotted, the detail view will stand out not only making the drawing more interesting but making things clearer also.

Autodesk Inventor Joints - Between Two Faces

When Autodesk introduced Inventor assembly Joint command, it seemed to be an improvement over the basic assembly Constrain command.  As I used the Joint command, I found that I could not select component origin or workplanes as connect selections.  I have always use these two features for numerous assembly constraints especially when I want to center a component with another or to the base assembly.  A good example of this is shown below.  The wedge component must fit on the midplane of toolpost.  If the components origin planes are modeled along the component centers, they can be used by the Constrain command to assembly the parts.  This is not possible when using the Joint command.

The Inventor Joint command can still handle this particular situation if you are aware of a simple mouse right click option.  Start the Joint command and choose Planar as the type of joint desired.  The command will try and select the correct joint automatically but in a lot of cases it will get it wrong.  In this case there is already a ball joint between the two spherical surfaces and the program would automatically select a rigid joint which will conflict. 

Before my first connect selection, I will use my mouse right button to display the context menu and select "Between Two Faces".

I then will select the two faces of the wedge component to define the center plane.  To finish the first connect selection, I select a point on the center plane of the component. This will complete the first connect selection.

Before I begin selection for the second connect, I must remember to right mouse click and select the "Between Two Faces" option again.  I then select the two inside faces for the slot in the toolpost and a point to describe the midpoint between them.

Finish the joint by selecting "OK" in the Joint Dialog box and the wedge will be centered correctly in my assembly. 

It would be nice if the Joint command would allow for the selection of origin and workplanes because there are a number of occasions where two surfaces do not exist.  The joint command has become my favorite assembly tool even if I have to drop back to the Constrain tool once in awhile.