The Dan Miles Idea Factory

Improving Inventor Content Center Performance

Most people find that using the out of box content center libraries within Autodesk Inventor are often slow.  The standard libraries contain hundreds of thousands of items in them making them very large.  Often most of the items in the libraries will never be used by you.  There are some crazy items in there that maybe only a few people would use.  The best way to improve performance and usability of the content center libraries is to create your own library.  You would first create your own library within the ADMS Console and then copy the items you use from the standard libraries into your new custom library.  Then you would change your Autodesk Inventor project file to connect just to your new ones.  This will greatly simplify the content center and increase performance for your company.

Hope this helps you out

Dan

Inventor Drawing Template Sequence

When you create your own custom Inventor drawings templates either in IDW or DWG format make sure you first start with modifing the styles as needed before creating geometry.  I always make all of my adjustments to the text, dimensions, layers, and etc within the styles and standards first.  This way when I start to create geometry and text like titleblocks everything is placed on the correct standard.

Dan

Better Fillets in Autodesk Inventor - Smooth

There are two different styles of fillets available within Autodesk Inventor.  Within the standard fillet dialog you can select either a G1 or G2 fillet type.  The default is the standard G1 and the G2 option became available a few releases ago.

The standard G1 fillets are tangent to the adjacent faces.  As you can see in the image below the fillet face starts right at the edge of the other faces.

The standard G2 advanced fillets are curvature continuous to the adjacent faces.  These types of fillets cause changes in curvature to occur gradually, resulting in a much smoother and more aesthetically pleasing transition between faces.  As you can see in the image below the fillet gradually occurs.

If you create consumer products give this a try to improve your product.

Dan

Importing Polygon Mesh Data Into Inventor

This could be very interesting!!!!  Yesterday SYCODE released several new import and export translators for Autodesk Inventor.  The new add-in translators allow you to import polygon mesh data into Autodesk Inventor and export polygon data.  Here are the new import options:

• STL Import (Rapid Prototpying)
• 3DS Import (3D Studio)
• 3DM Import
• OBJ Import (Wavefront Object File)

I have not tried this out yet but will very soon and let you know how they work.  I think there could be a very interesting workflow here to create what I would call a de-featured model or a srink wrap model for part components or assemblies.

Here is the a link to their site where you can download a free trail.

Stay tuned

Dan

Setting Up Your Inventor Common Folders

If you are using Autodesk Inventor within a group of people there are a few things you should setup to ensure eveyone is using Inventor the same way.  For about 90% of the companies I setup the following folder structure is used to share common items Inventor requires.  I would recommend putting this on a network somewhere.

The "Design Data" folder is used for storing your style libraries and other files like the thread.xls for example.  You will need to change your application options or project file to point to this new location.

The "Templates" folder is used to store all of your startup file templates.  You will need to change your application options or project file to point to this new location.

The "Catalog" folder is used to store all of your iFeatures.  I would recommend coping the out of box catalog folder to this new location as a starting point.  You will need to change your application options to use this new catalog location also.

The "Preferences" folder is something new I started doing in Autodesk Inventor 2008.  Inventor 2008 allow you to export and import your application options settings in the form of an XML preferences file.  I generally make a common starting point file that is used to deploy new clients and etc.  You would copy all of these XML files here are you export them from Autodesk Inventor.

For more information on this topic please referance my "Implementing Inventor White Paper" in this  blog post.

Implementing Autodesk Inventor White Paper

Have a good one

Dan

How do you go 64-bit?

64-bit computing is not the future anymore and I believe will become mainstream for CAD use during 2008.  The two biggest advantages to using 64-bit are:

• Faster processing during true 64-bit applications and processes.
• Direct access to more physical memory than 32-bit system. (More then you can afford to buy!!!)

In order to go 64-bit you need a few things to take advantage of the power.  Here are the three key elements:

• Computer with a 64-bit processor
• Microsoft 64-bit Operating System (XP or Vista Only)
• 4GB or more of physical memory

So if you are in the market for a new CAD system get ready and go 64-bit!!  Also be on the lookout to hear more about this in the coming months from Autodesk.

Dan

Digital Coach the New CAD Manager

Seth Godin posted this weekend on something that you might be able to relate to on his marketing blog if you are a CAD Manager, trainer, or consultant.  He used the word "Digital Coach" which think is a great term I think with what is going on in the PLM marketplace today.  Over the past few years I have seen a decline in companies having full time "CAD Managers" like everyone had back in the 90's.  I think a "Digital Coach" would add tremendius value to a company.

Take a look at Seth's thoughts

P.S.  Seth Godin is the man I read his blog every day and have all of his books.

Dan Miles

Return to Top Within Inventor

Here is a simple but useful tip that some people may not know about because it is hidden a little.  There are two types of "Return" operations for exiting a component edit within your assembly model.  The two different types are "Top" and "Parent".

The default method is "Parent" which takes you back one level within your assembly structure.  The "Top" option will return you back to the top level of the active assembly document.  Sometimes this can save you a few clicks.

One kinda important note is the last selected return type because your default when hitting the normal "Return" button.

Dan

Model Parameters in File iProperties

Garin from Autodesk posted a nice Podcast today to his blog site for how to use model parameters in file iProperties.  This is create for stock lists for weldments and lengths of tubes and pipes for example.

Adding Parameters into iProperties - Garin Gardiner

Dan

Temporary Turning off Auto Sketch Constraining

About 90 plus percent of the time you want to have Autodesk Inventor provide auto sketch geometry constraints while sketching.  There is an application option under the sketch tab that allows you to turn the auto constraining off but often it is not worth messing with because you only want it off for a second.  You can temporary turn off the auto constraining by holding down the “CTRL” key on your keyboard while sketching.

Default Auto Contraining

What Happens while holding down "CTRL"

Dan