In this Tech Tip, we are continuing our deep dive into the Plastic Part commands of Autodesk Inventor. This time around we are going to take charge of our plastic parts with the Boss command. At the end of this post you should be able to tackle tough plastic part designs...like a Boss. This tool is just about the best thing for plastic connection methods for Autodesk Inventor designs. What is fantastic about it as a tool in general is that includes so many options for building a Boss feature that eliminates long history trees in your model browser. This... Continue reading

In this Tech Tip, I wanted to continue discussion on the Autodesk Inventor Plastic Part Design tools. These tools as you recall are mysteriously powerful and need more exposure. The focus on this post is the Rule Fillet command which I use quite a bit actually even though I make more metal parts than I do plastics. Remember this though, the first rule about Rule Fillet is you do not talk about Rule Fillet. Well unless you are awesome, then yes talk about Rule Fillet with your colleagues and make your design for change intent that much more epic. The... Continue reading

In this tech tip, I propose a treasure hunt of sorts. There are some very mysterious and powerful commands in Inventor and their mystery is only exceeded by their power. Okay, well maybe that is overdoing it. These commands have been in Inventor for some time now, but more recently they were hidden away from general view in favor of a more streamlined interface. Viewed as niche and pigeon holed into obscurity somewhat, the Plastic Part commands now belong to a hidden Panel in Inventor. In this blog post we are going to focus on the Grill command. Now, this... Continue reading

This past year one of our clients (Jayco) was asked to assist with an Autodesk endeavor to educate communities and schools on what design methods are available today and how accessible it all really is. Jayco was nice enough to loan him a prototype of a new RV they will be producing and allow Autodesk to wrap it up with dynamic signage. If you have a desire to learn more about 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, and other current design realities, then I would encourage you to check out TJ's journey. 100+ scheduled stops. 8 months. 1 writer. A million stories.... Continue reading

Ever wonder if you could modify the Inventor InfoTip? You know that thing that appears when you hover your cursor over a file in trepid anticipation before opening your design in an Inventor window or in Windows Explorer? Need to check on some iProperties before opening a file or if a Manager approved a design without triggering iProperties or opening the file and checking? Well you are in luck, thats what we are going to look at in this post. First off we need to understand the scope of what CAN show up here. There are standard iProperties (not all... Continue reading

One of my favorite uses of iLogic has to be the automation of filling out a Title Block in Inventor. I commonly see a customer run into a tired method of using Prompted Entries in their TBs. While this is very reminiscent of AutoCAD, inside Inventor it is actually a poor way to fill things out. If you need the same Prompted Entry across mulitple sheets, then you essentially run into the problem of having to retype it over and over again. If you were to use Custom iProperties, then it will carry through the entire sheet set. This is... Continue reading

Maybe its spring cleaning, maybe I am just caught up in the tv season finales, but I have sweep(s) on my mind. So here is a deep dive look at sweep information and how to push our software to give us more than what is currently availble in the interface. Here is my design intent. I have a length of PVC, copper, or maybe some pool noodles, I don't know. But what I do know is that I have to get a total length of this stuff reported in my bill so purchasing can buy it. Sure I could just... Continue reading

Come join us for our next virtual event and learn about the technologies that are important to you and your company as well as emerging trends in collaboration. We have 5 manufacturing sessions led by some of the best and brightest here at IMAGINiT. Oh and its FREE! Manufacturing Sessions and FREE Registration Poor communication and lack of collaboration on design projects are common problems for companies in the architectural, civil and manufacturing space. Attend IMAGINiT's Problem Solved online conference and hear from experts as they dive deeper into the issues that typically arise when working with internal and external... Continue reading

In this post we are going to look at some things that add more sanity to our daily life by making us only marginally more productive. Why? Because throughout your time using Inventor the little stuff adds up to minutes, hours, days. These tips probably fall into the minutes category over the course of a year, so its more for my sanity of daily operation. Starting new part files sometimes has the nuisance of not being zoomed out far enough to see the sizing of the part that you want to build. This is a quick fix in your part... Continue reading

The other day I was asked how to place diameter symbols on dimensions that show a revolved modeling feature so that the user didn't have to modify it with each dimension. Well we can do this a couple different ways, we can simply add a diameter override to each dimension (boring and you will give yourself repetitive click syndrome). We could aslo just add a dimension style that has a prefix of the diamter symbol for the entire style and you just use that one when you want. We can also force a Linear Diamter by right clicking the dimension... Continue reading

One of my favorite tips for creating better pieces of screen grab images or Studio renderings from Inventor has to be this little diddy. Most people know there is an ability to change the view orientation of the graphics interface from Orthographic to Perspective. In fact I use it so much for my training documents and design presentations that I keep it on my Navigation Bar at all times. To those of you that don't use this setting that often it will start to bring back fond memories of that manual drafting class in which you had to make vaishing... Continue reading

Autodesk announced the kick off of a new beta for the next evolution of technical documentation of products created in the Fusion 360 product or your existing designs you transferred into Fusion 360. This technology has a very similar look and feel to it that the Inventor Publisher desktop application has but has even more capabilities for working with your design data. To participate in this beta you do not need a Fusion 360 account and there are even a bunch of sample files in the beta project dashboard. You will also get access to the iOS new Publisher app... Continue reading

Budding off my Autodesk Flow Design post on monday I thought I would follow it up with talking about the newest addition to the Force Effect family of Apps to the Apple Store. Now, unlike the other Force Effect Apps, this one is not yet available on the Google Play store, but that doesn't mean it won't be sometime in the future if history tells us anything. Powerful 2D flow simulation software on your iPad with Autodesk® ForceEffect™ Flow. Create freehand concept designs or use object detection technology to instantly capture geometry from your environment, and then simulate the aerodynamic... Continue reading

Continuing my discussion on in canvas modeling tools from last week, I want to turn your attention to the Assembly Environment and the updates to finding and working with constraints in Inventor 2014. With the latest update to Inventor we have several new tools such as Show Relationships and Show Sick Relationships as well as a revamped Free Move command. How do you update a Free Move tool? It seems so simple a tool to use, what can you change about it? Well you can add the ability to see and work with the constraints that are affected by that... Continue reading