Hopefully you've seen some of the enhancements with Vault 2019 and maybe even have a plan on how you might use them. I’ve talked about the Thin Client Update and Vault’s new Project Sync tools. Today let’s take a look at the updated reporting capabilities in Vault 2019. Prior to this year’s release of Vault if you wanted to report on vaulted data it was difficult to change from the default report designs. The supplied report templates were in a format that could only be edited using Visual Studio 2008’s report designer, which is fine except that Visual Studio 2008... Continue reading

There is definitely a lot more than a check box new to Vault 2019! However, I want to tell you about a seemingly small change that could have a large impact to the way your company uses Vault outside the engineering department, by hiding old files. It's interesting that, even if you’ve read the release notes and various – What’s New in 2019 – blog posts for Vault, you probably haven’t seen this discussed. So far, I’ve only seen this feature noted as one sentence in the official help file for what’s new in 2019. So this post is for... Continue reading

If you have updated Vault Workgroup or Vault Professional 2018 with the 2018.1 subscription update this year then you’ve likely noticed a big change in Vault; The new Shared Views panel. This new feature is the gateway to easy collaboration with anyone who might have input regarding your designs. If you need to work with your manufacturers or customers on a potential design, and you are using Vault to host your CAD data, this is for you. The shared views tool allows Vault users to publish 2D and 3D design views to the cloud where you and the recipient(s) can... Continue reading

If you are an AutoCAD P&ID drafter then chances are you have had to redraw common sets of P&ID symbols to represent a typical process, or arrangement of components, across multiple projects (let’s call these common sets of symbols assemblies for simplicity). You can speed your effort somewhat copying and pasting these assemblies from past project drawings but that can complicate documentation and tagging. I have a third option that you might find even more helpful. That is to group symbols together and add them to a custom tool palette so they can be placed as easily as any other... Continue reading

If you are a Vault administrator you probably aren't receiving any status notifications from Vault regarding scheduled backup routines. If you are, then the notifications probably come to you via email using a custom script or application. Outside of third party server backup tools, this has been typical for Vault backups. What I have been increasingly faced with is administrators that don't want more emails. From anywhere. A Vault backup email notification, while important, is probably sent once each day (every time a backup is run) and hopefully it's just a note on a successful backup. You begin to see... Continue reading

Have you wanted to use Vault to track things like engineering tasks or processes? You might be thinking you already do. Maybe you're putting PDFs or Office documents into Vault that represent a process like NCR’s or maybe you’ve tried Vault ECOs. These are both valid options, however, files are still single objects in Vault and in the case of ECOs, maybe too nuanced to be easily adopted. Often neither option is fully representative of a particular process. Perhaps your engineering team has to deal with non-conformance reports or corrective action requests and other similar design engineering issues. You need... Continue reading

One of the most anticipated new features for Autodesk Vault this year was the inclusion of out-of-the-box PDF publishing. This has been the top feature request on the Vault Ideas forum for some time. Now that PDF publishing in Vault has arrived what do you need to know to get it implemented? I have taken a look at the nuts and bolts of creating PDFs using Vault 2018. While it is fairly straight forward there are a few details I want to share so you can navigate the implementation of this new feature smoothly. PDFs are created in Vault 2018... Continue reading

I spend a fair amount of time working with Autodesk Vault and performing consulting services around product data management. Most current Vault implementations make use of the Task Scheduler and command line scripts to perform things like database defragmentation, Vault backups and SQL Maintenance. The command line answers a need to automate these routine tasks at a basic level but lacks some advanced functionality such as reporting, configurability and notifications that can be achieved by using Powershell instead. Powershell is a server side programming language that can be scripted and run in a similar fashion as batch files are with... Continue reading

As you build up the complexity of your AutoCAD Plant 3D model, you need to be thinking about things like XREFs, model complexity, networked files, computer hardware, etc. These are examples of things that can negatively affect modelling performance in Plant 3D if you aren’t careful. In this post I am going to take a look at how to use vendor supplied equipment models so they have a minimal impact on modelling performance in Plant 3D. In many cases you will have access to detailed CAD models of the equipment used in your projects. But manufacturing CAD models of pumps,... Continue reading

One of the nice things about using AutoCAD Plant 3D is that there is a wide range of available piping and component catalogs available to help your modelling and documentation efforts. The most common catalogs, such as ASME, AWWA and DIN, come out-of-the-box while many more like Victaulic, Pharma, Grayloc, etc. can be downloaded freely from Autodesk’s App Exchange. Both the out-of-the-box catalogs and any additional content packs downloaded are added to Plant’s content directory located on your computer at C:\AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017 Content. Unfortunately this is not usually the best location to set as Plant’s content directory if... Continue reading

With the release of AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017.1 Plant 3D users on subscription have the ability to tie their 3D piping spec to their P&ID drawings for the first time using Plant 3D’s new spec driven P&ID feature. After installing the 2017.1 update Plant users will see some small changes to the interface. A new size and spec drop-down selector on the Schematic Line panel (inside your P&ID Workspace) will be visible and a new node in your project manager palette called Pipe Specs will show all the specs defined in the current project. When placing schematic lines, in the... Continue reading

We have seen how Inventor 2017’s part modelling environment can be used to reverse engineer mesh files to make parametric models. There are new sketch projection selections for mesh geometry and a new surfacing tool that can convert mesh vertices into an Inventor surface body. However, you may find that the enhancements to Inventor’s assembly environment mean that you don’t have to convert a mesh part into a parametric model at all. We can now insert and constrain meshes in an assembly file directly. In my last entry I converted the top half of a quadcopter body into a parametric... Continue reading

This year there are a number of new features in Inventor based around mesh manipulation and the shape generator. Taking an overall look at these features we can see that they are all centered around enhancing Inventor’s abilities with generative design and handling mesh outputs from simulation environments. There are a number of reasons why you might end up needing to work with a 3D mesh model in Inventor though. Here is a mesh model I downloaded from instructables.com for making your own 3D printed quadcopter. The design is fairly simple and serves its purpose well but what if we... Continue reading

Thus far in this series on creating an Inventor Tube and Pipe style I have looked at the steps required to prepare and publish a model for the Tube and Pipe environment. Before we can successfully use a customized component in a piping run, the steps in part one to three of this series must be followed to create connection intelligence. There are four steps in all to create a custom Tube & Pipe style: Modelling a custom part (conduits and/or fittings) Authoring a part as a Tube & Pipe component Publishing a part to the Content Center Creating the... Continue reading

It’s been a few weeks since my last post on creating a custom Tube & Pipe style. In the first two posts on the topic I demonstrated how to model a custom part for use in a tube and pipe style and then how to author that part so Inventor understands it as a tube and pipe component. There are four steps to creating a custom Tube & Pipe style using custom parts: Modelling a custom part (conduits and/or fittings) Authoring a part as a Tube & Pipe component Publishing a part to the Content Center Creating the custom Tube... Continue reading

In a continuation from my previous post on creating a custom Tube & Pipe style I stepped through the required modelling steps to create a conduit for use in the Inventor Tube & Pipe environment. There are four primary steps to creating an entirely custom Tube & Pipe style: Modelling a custom part (conduits and/or fittings) Authoring a part as a Tube & Pipe component Publishing a part to the Content Center Creating the custom Tube & Pipe style In this post I will step through authoring the previously modeled conduit so that it is ready to be added to... Continue reading

I have heard from a few clients recently that have encountered difficulties authoring components to use in Inventor’s Tube & Pipe environment. While the Tube & Pipe environment has remained unchanged for some time it can still be a challenge to author new components and create custom piping styles. There are strict requirements for parameters, units and workflow etc. that are not obvious unless you dig through the help files or other documentation found online. While I realize this blog does not help that scenario much I will try to be concise and summarize the key requirements for authoring Tube... Continue reading

Attending AU this year? It is only a few weeks away! Are you an Inventor user that needs to create quality renderings without leaving Inventor? Consider attending my class: CP9782 - Techniques for Rendering Realistic Models In Inventor. There are still spots left! This class will focus on how to use Inventor to create realistic rendered images and videos. A good rendering is as much about details in the model geometry as it is with the rendering setup. First we will look at some tips to prepare a model so it will be a good candidate for a high-quality rendering.... Continue reading

In my last post I looked at Inventor’s new 3D Print environment and demonstrated how it can be used to setup an STL file to send to a specific 3D printer. New functionality is always exciting, especially when it occurs around other new technologies like 3D printing but there are existing features in Inventor that are also useful to validate designs before production. One of the key factors in a design for 3D Printing is the minimum allowable wall thickness. Depending on the material and process that a part will be printed in there are different needs for thicknesses, gaps... Continue reading

3D printing, as a part of the manufacturing design workflow has made that transition from an expensive process option to a cost effective way to prototype a design. In fact with costs down so much companies are buying their own 3D printers and using them to create and iterate ideas early on, not only to validate prototypes. This is an exciting trend since it allows more creativity during the design process and as a designer myself I always find it rewarding to see the physical result of a virtual model come about. So, with the proliferation of 3D printing in... Continue reading

The release of Inventor 2016 has seen a wide range of improvements and new features._One of the environments to get a refresh this year is the presentation environment. In years past the presentation environment, while valuable to design documentation and visualization, had some productivity limitations. From the what’s new in Inventor 2016 documentation Autodesk mentions the following points as the primary improvements to the presentation environment: Auto Explode command is updated Tweak command is redesigned with direct manipulation tools Creating and editing of trails has been simplified Component selection is improved The first change that can be seen when starting... Continue reading