Inventor 2019.2 Updates - Did You See It?

With Inventor 2020 and Inventor 2019.4 update on the very near horizon, let's take a moment and remember the awesome updates we received in Inventor 2019.1 and 2019.2.  What about 2019.3 you ask?  Well, that one was all stability and performance updates with no new features or shiny buttons.  Some users still don't have 2019.1 installed and its been out for a long time.  Sometimes updates get missed, it happens.  So let's take a look at what was added in 2019.2 and get some of the Inventor updates installed while you wait for 2020!

Previous post on 2019.1 Updates

Content Center Enhancements: Multiple Search Enhancements

• The Advanced Search and Basic tab categories are now located in the Quick Search pane in the Content Center Editor.

• You can now save a Content Center search query when the search results are displayed.

Tube and Pipe Authoring: You can now author a part with up to 30 connections. Previously, the maximum was 10.

More Frame Generator goodness!  The Frame Generator tools received a lot of love in 2019 and you can see that through 2019.1 and 2019.2 as well as the released changes coming to 2020.

• Application Options: The File tab has a new File Naming Defaults section for frame generator.  In the File Naming Defaults dialog, click the Add Attribute drop-lists to configure your naming scheme.

• Miter: The option to Select Multiple Frame Members is added to the dialog. Enable the option to miter multiple members at the same time.

• Notch: The option to Select Multiple Frame Members is added to the dialog. Enable the option to include multiple members in the same operation.

• Change: New selection and editing behavior is introduced to the Change command. In previous releases, you could not select or edit the attributes of reused components.  You can now select reused members of any group to modify the distance and rotation angle values. All group members participate in a size or family change.

Constraint Settings Now Persist Across Sessions: The values specified in the assembly Place Constraint dialog box now persist across sessions of Inventor.

Model Browser Access Enhancement: Access points for the model browser have been added for all document types. When the browser is not displayed, you will see this icon in the upper left of the graphics display. Click the icon to show the available browser panels for the active document.  No more going to the View Tab to turn it back on!

Spell Check: The Format Text dialog box now provides Inventor with spell check functionality. When Spell Check is turned on, a red squiggly line displays underneath the text to indicate the word is not in the active dictionary. Right-click to access options for managing the selection.  Access options for managing Spell Check and custom dictionaries from the red squiggly line's context menu (Spell Check Settings) and from the General tab in the Application Options dialog box.  The Spell Check is turned on by default but can be disabled in the Application Options.

Solid Section Texture: In Application Options on the Colors Tab, Section Solid Texture allows you specify a texture map to use with the capping faces that are used in model Section Views. The default is a Gray color. To use another color, create an image and select the image to use it as a Section Solid Texture.

iLogic: A checkbox, Detailed Trace, is added to the iLogic Rule Editor dialog box and to the Advanced iLogic Configuration dialog box. When selected, log messages are automatically generated when running a rule at the Trace level. This setting controls the value of the API property iLogicVb.Automation.LogControl.RuleEntryExitMessageLevel.

Drawings Performance Improvement: Update performance for cut views is improved by updating only the affected parts. This improvement is most evident when updating views such as section views, but includes detail views, broken views, breakout views, and cropped views.

Drawing Presets for Existing Commands: You can use Presets to create reusable drawing annotations for End Fill, Weld Symbol, and Surface Texture Symbol for 2D and 3D annotations.

Overlay View Enhancement: You no longer need to use a Positional Representation to create an Overlay View! You can now use any View Representation to create an Overlay View. This workflow is useful when the position of the components do not change, but you want to emphasize a particular part or assembly in the view.

In the following image, the parent view is the shaded handle assembly and the Overlay is another View Representation that shows the rest of the components as dashed lines.