Inventor – Hardware resource page

Are you having trouble with your computer while running Inventor?  Check this page out:

http://www.inventor-certified.com/graphics/

There is tested information about various hardware issues, that seems to be updated regularly, including 3GB switch info and Graphics cards.  Check it out.

News 4/7/2009

Wow!  It has been a busy 3 weeks.

Freak out for 1 week.

Work non stop the next.

And try to plug all the holes for another.

If you have submitted comments and don’t see the discussion I apologize.  I’m getting through it with my emails, but I will get it out there.  I get a lot of spam comments, and have to weed them out for the discussions.

Inventor 2009 Essentials

The new Complete Essentials level vBook has been completed and released to my publisher, and subsequently Autodesk. 

I was already Authoring the intermediate level vBook series “Inventor 2009”, volume by volume, when my Publisher said, how’d you like to have some fun?  I need a Basic, all inclusive single volume, for beginners and struggling professionals.  Oh and I want it now.” So here we are.

The information in this vBook begins at the Beginner’s level, and moves the viewer through some Intermediate topics.  The detail is not as intricate as the intermediate level 2009 series, allowing me to cover a lot more ground.

The information is all there, so I am continuing to go through everything and tie up any loose ends, and add content until it becomes counter-productive. 

Leave for AU 2009

I had to use all my leave due to the urgent nature of this particular vBook, so I have no leave to AU 2009.  That would suck!  Work this hard for something related, and have no leave left to go to AU.  All you brilliant people out there, someone post a solution to this one.

Inventor 2009 – 2D Environment

The publisher restructured while I was busy, and I found my first vBook link pointing to a Revit Book.  I like Revit and all, pretty cool stuff, but not what my link was supposed to point to.  They apparently have the new links out.

Inventor 2009 – 2D Environment link

I will continue to add content, and get back into the swing of things here, so please be patient.

Sleep? What’s that?

Ok, I just finished the Inventor 2009 Essentials vBook. That’s the thing I was going crazy over.

1 week notice.

5 Days – Create every last line and component from scratch

90+ Recordings, edited, and formatted

limited sleep and food.

I had started with a new skeleton outline, and a new way of structuring the lessons, but half way through I threw caution to the wind and just let one lesson lead me to the next.

It is being released in a slightly different way.  I’ll clue you in when i see the complete details.  It will be available next week.  I’m kind of excited on this one. 

Big thank you to the producer Mike Carris, my family, and my Boss, Allen Tucker at GCT, for the flexibility and understanding.  I was pushing a bit overdue.

Now, My boys and i have to go to Alabama, and get on a battleship for the night.  Fun, but being stuck in a steel box with 500 screaming kids is insane.

Where the h&*l is he?

Hello everyone.  I am sorry that I have not been updating for the past week, but I have been urged to complete a new vBook start to finish, with a week’s notice.  I went remote, and only stop to eat once or twice, and to sleep 6-7 hours.

Everything else has bee recording and preparation for 3 days now.  My deadline is today, and I am still pushing it hard.  I’m not done yet.  No big shock to anyone there.

I love doing this, but 4 days to produce a complete volume including drafting all the support information is a bit much.

I gotta get back to it.  I’ll let you know how it went if my producer doesn’t come through the phone and beat me down first.  Everyone is being pleasant, but the pressure is coming from way up the food chain.

Inventor 2009 – 2D Environment

The first volume of the vBook series for Inventor 2009 was released by the publisher, Retrieve Media, and is on the shelf today.

Inventor 2009 – 2D Environment is a complete reference covering the procedures and options regarding the beginning steps of creating Inventor parts. 

This volume contains detailed video lessons on:

• Sketching profiles and references
• Constraints and DOF
• Dimensions
• Parameters
• Edit features
• Inserting objects
• Application Settings and Options. 

We step through and explain every item and demonstrate the chapter exercises. You can download the exercise files, and follow along while you practice.

This reference is intended to give the Beginner a good head start with a solid foundation, and add some additional insight for the Intermediate skilled user as well.

The remainder of the series is in production, and will be released volume by volume, until the compilation is complete.

Inventor – Loft Angle and Weight

Lofting….I don’t know about you, but this has been one of the things I learned to hate.  Maybe because the application seems to have more control that I do during the process, or because I had some bad experiences with 3DS 10 years ago (pre MAX).  Whatever the reason, I just never liked Lofts very much.

Lofting is an extremely useful tool.  While you can reproduce the model by other means, the pain involved would be extensive.  The Loft Feature has so much control over the process, by weighted interpolation, there is no reason not to use it.  The trick is to control the interpolation to accomplish your goal.

Today, we’ll use Angles and Weights to create a transition between 2 other features, that would normally take a bit more time and planning to complete.

In the image below, you should see the part I needed to tie into another loft feature, with a specific angle at the transition.

While a Sweep around an extruded Feature might normally get a similar job done as easily, you would need more than 1 rail, adding complexity to process.  The Right side view (below) shows the problem with fillets and sweeps.  The rear edge is offset farther than the front, and the upper edge is not a typical fillet This is a perfect candidate for a Loft.

Inventor – Match Shape and Open Profiles

The Match Shape, and conversely the Match Contour option is available in the Extrude and Revolve Features.  These are not rocket science options, but do occasionally present confusion, either by the situation they are used with, or by the Inventor help available.

When an Extrude feature is created, it expects a closed loop profile, from which it will add a feature perpendicular to the plane the profile lies on.  Alternately, an open profile can be selected.

In the image below you should notice a small tray with a sketch containing an open profile dimensioned 20mm x 20mm.  The sketch was created on the face of the tray bottom.

Open Profiles

Notice in the image, the purple 2D sketch geometry that was referenced from the existing part geometry, and projected automatically when we selected the part face for the sketch plane.  This comprises a closed loop profile.  What will happen when we try and select the open profile in the corner?  This…

Inventor – 3D Intersection Curve

We recently reviewed Garin Gardener’s 3D sketching post, and highlighted the 2D and 3D sketching.  There was 1 point remaining that we didn’t have time to get to:

3D Intersection Curve

3D Intersection Curve is a feature that intersects in 3 dimensional space, the projected geometry from 2D sketches on intersecting planes (did that make any sense?)

Here we have a 2D sketch as well as a work plane created for the second sketch.

 

We need a new 2D sketch on the work plane. Don’t forget to project the geometry needed to work from (I used the endpoint of the line in the first sketch.  See below)

Inventor – 3D Sketch tips

Recently Garin Gardener posted a podcast on 3D sketching.  Normally I would bypass this topic, but I decided to give it a look.  I’m happy I did.

It was such a good podcast, that I decided to highlight the big stuff rather than just linking you to it. I put a bit more detail into my sketches, to show a few other details along the way.

The discussion covered the following:

• 3D sketching in 2D and the effects of a sweep feature
• 3D sketching in 3D and the effect of a sweep feature
• 3D Intersection Curve (we’ll cover this topic later)

3D sketching in 2D

One way to prepare a 3D sweep, is by constraining various 2D sketches together, that are created on different planes.

In the following example, you should be able to see there are 4 2D sketches, all created on different workplanes (planes visibility is hidden):

1-3 are constrained at endpoints, and #4 is the profile for the sweep.

Inventor – DWG wizard Selective import is empty

Here is a problem some VISTA users have.  The DWG import wizard viewer “Selective import” control is empty.  One reason is of course VISTA, but another may be because of constant uninstall and reinstalls of Design Review.  I have not confirmed the latter, but I do suspect it.

I went looking for some info on this, and found the ‘known issues’ list in numerous places.

The DWG import wizard viewer “Selective import” control is empty: You may notice in the DWGIN wizard’s viewer page that the “Selective import” control is empty (this control lists the layers in a DWG file). This indicates that a module needed by the viewer is not registered (because a lack of user privileges).

In Click Start > locate the program for “Command Prompt, ” and right-click it as run the program with the option “Run as administrator”

To register You cannot start the cmd.exe from Run…” menu for this procedure. When the command prompt is active, navigate to where dxoemviewer.arx is located (c:\program files\aoemview 2008, by default), and then enter the following:

Regsvr32 dxoemviewer.arx

link to the source information