Every year we get thousands of class proposals for Autodesk University Vegas from customers, partners, third-party developers, and employees. This is an incredible testimony to the multitudes of passionate Autodesk evangelists that make up this great community. This year is no exception with almost 2500 submissions and about 250 just for Autodesk Inventor which is incredible. Proposal submissions have closed, and now we have opened Community Voting till June 25th. This is where each of you can vote for classes that interest you, and it is super easy to do. Simply click on the voting link and search by keyword, topics, or industry and click on the thumbs up voting icon next to each class. I have listed a few additional considerations around voting below to check out and be sure and cast your votes soon.

• Broaden your views – Autodesk University is a huge event; it’s unlikely you will be able to attend every class you are interested in. However, by voting for all classes you are interested in, it increases the chance for those topics/classes to be selected. This means even if you can’t fit them all into your schedule, the content will still be created for you to review later.
• Not Attending AU, you should still Vote – This is community voting, and your point of view matters to ensure the topics and classes of most interest get selected. Like the note above mentioned, classes that do get selected will have content created and shared on via AU online so that you can consume in the future.
• Get Inspired, Go Further – Spending the time to review the proposals and voting might inspire you to review or tackle a topic sooner than AU Vegas 2019. Since we can’t select every class, consider copying and pasting your favorite class descriptions to a “Go Further” digital notebook for future investigation.
• Gather the crew – Huddle up online or in a meeting room (have the boss spring for some pizza) and review classes and vote together. Use the time to create a key topics list of items the whole team is interested in. Informal gatherings like this might show areas where your peers need help sooner or items where a co-worker is already a guru but hasn’t told anyone about their secret skills

Community Voting ends June 25th, Vote Today.

AU 2019 Class Voting Link – http://bit.ly/AU2019Vote

Follow up this topic and debate your favorite classes with others online here Autodesk Inventor Users LinkedIn group.

Hope to connect with you here on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevlink/ or see you at Autodesk University Las Vegas 2019

Kevin Robinson

Business Strategy Manager

Design & Manufacturing

The post Make Autodesk University Vegas 2019 your own…..Vote today appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Are you interested in interoperability between Inventor and Revit or model states in parts and assemblies?

Would like to talk directly with the software developers and product managers who are responsible for these projects?

Can you travel to Portland on September 24th and/or 25th?

If your answer is yes, then you should sign up to attend the Inventor Portland Inside the Factory (ITF) Live event. The Inventor development team is putting on an event that will showcase the functionality concepts and allow you to test them with your datasets and workflows. You can talk directly with the Product Team to give your feedback and help us with the direction of both projects. If you would like to attend this event in Portland, please sign up here:

https://lnkd.in/dfeXmGz

Note: Space is limited; signing up does not guarantee you a spot for the live event.

ONLINE> You can’t make it to Portland? No worries, we will be covering most of this content online on September 26th. All you need to do is sign up for our Feedback Community using this link- https://lnkd.in/day-9Rq.  The Inventor team will reach out to you with a link to the online meeting.

Thanks,

Inventor Team

The post Inventor Workflow Feedback Opportunity – Portland Area or Online appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Have you ever tried to model a shape with Autodesk Inventor and failed? I have, many times!

In the previous post in this series, we learned about the 3D Modelling deadly sins of ‘Singularities’ and ‘Non-manifold Topology’ , and we learned how to avoid them!

In this post we’ll learn why Loose Tolerances aren’t helpful and bring the series to a conclusion.

The 3D Modelling Deadly Sin of Loose Tolerances

Autodesk Inventor is a highly accurate 3D CAD modelling system. When we import files from other CAD systems that work to different tolerances, Inventor must interpolate the geometry looking for manifold conditions and meeting geometry.

For example, when we use the ‘Stitch’ command to join surfaces together, Inventor allows a tolerance. In fact, Inventor doesn’t change the underlying geometry – it uses a tolerance zone to interpolate results.

You could image this tolerance zone as a tube for edges, and a sphere for vertices.

An illustration of tolerance zones

‘Loose’ tolerances could be considered geometry that shares a tolerance zone bigger than 0.1mm or 0.004in). This is not a problem in itself, but could cause problems when adding to the model downstream.

For example, thickening a face by a small distance could place a vertex outside the tolerance zone of an edge, but inside the tolerance zone of a vertex. This is likely to cause a modelling failure.

Loose tolerances are nearly always brought into Inventor from other CAD systems. If you need to allow a large tolerance to stitch surfaces together, this is an indication that you’ll have problems later. You may also see weird graphical anomalies around the problem areas where the shape delivered by ASM varies with the graphics generated to view on screen.

You can use the feedback from the stitch tool to identify edges that failed to stitch, which may need your attention.

The best solution is to return to the original CAD system, tighten up the tolerances and re-export the model. If this isn’t possible, you may have to re-build the problem surfaces in Inventor.

The Seven Deadly Sins of 3D Part Modeling – Conclusion

Now you know the 7 deadly sins of 3D part modelling and how to avoid them. They are:

1. High Curvature
2. Near Tangency
3. Near Coincidence
4. Sliver Faces
5. Singularities
6. Non-Manifold topology
7. Loose Tolerances (This post).

We can summarize these conditions with the following:

Avoid teeny tiny ambiguous features.

Maintain manifold Topology.

Get Smart with Inventor Part Modelling and the Seven Deadly Sins.

I hope that you found this series of posts helpful in understanding why Inventor works the way it does, and how you can get the best out of it. Click the links below to continue learning!

• Click here to read ‘High Curvature and Near Tangency | The Seven Deadly Sins of 3D Part Modeling 01’
• Click here to read ‘3D Modelling Terminology | Get Smart with Inventor Part Modeling 01’

If you’d like more information on this topic – please watch the Autodesk University class recording (Link below, it’s free to watch!) and download the comprehensive handout that goes with the class.

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, originally by Jake Fowler and later updated by Inderjeet Wilkhu and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
CP122682: The Inventor 7 Deadly Sins of 3D Part Modeling

The post Loose Tolerances | The Seven Deadly Sins of 3D Part Modeling 04 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

In post 04 of this series, we found out what the patch command does, and when we might want to use it instead of loft.

In this post we’ll focus in on filleting best practice. We will learn the best way to set fillets up, and we’ll find out what to do when our fillets go wrong.

What is a fillet?

In real life, we create a Fillet (Internal) or Round (External) using a machine tool to ‘soften’ the sharp edges of our product. The Autodesk Inventor fillet tool is designed to replicate this.

The fillet tool creates a set of curvature continuous faces which connect to the existing faces (Read post 01 for a definition of ‘Curvature Continuous’).

Fillets have a regular cross section. This method of calculating fillets is known as the ‘Rolling Ball’ method. You can imagine a ball being rolled along to faces so that the ball is always tangent to the faces, with a new face being created as the ball rolls along.

A ‘Rolling Ball’ Fillet in Autodesk Inventor.

What is Best Practice when Filleting?

The first piece of advice is to save your edge consuming features such as fillets and chamfers toward the end of the modelling process. This will help you to avoid problems with projected geometry losing the edges that you have projected.

Break single fillet features into multiple fillets.

Although you can define one fillet feature that contains multiple fillets of different radii, it’s probably a better idea to create multiple fillet features. If you create one fillet feature containing multiple fillet definitions, and your fillet fails, it can be hard to know which fillet was causing the problem.

Creating fillets of the same size individually can also help your colleges downstream. Often fillets are not needed for CAM programming. Creating fillets of different rads’ as separate features will allow you CAM buddies to suppress the fillets they don’t need.

Big before small

Create the fillets with the biggest radius first, then follow up with fillets that have a smaller radius.

Concave before convex

Try creating your concave fillets before your convex fillets (Rounds).

Filleting best practice – order of creating fillets.

Filleting failure tips

Automatic edge chaining

If you are fillet up to a complex junction. Try turning off ‘Automatic edge chain’. This will allow you to pick each edge individually. If you see a preview, that edge isn’t the problem! When the preview disappears, you have the culprit.

Face fillet

If edge filleting isn’t working, try a face fillet instead. The face fillet option uses a different algorithm to the edge fillet command. Face fillets will automatically find all faces which are tangent to the original faces and work out where the fillet should go without worrying about the edges.

Roll along sharp edges

If your fillet runs past another edge which is closer than the radius of your fillet, you may get a failure. Try turning on the ‘roll along shape edges’ option to help you out.

Autodesk Inventor Fillet command options.

Get Smart with Inventor Part Modeling

Did you find this post helpful? If you’d like to learn more about Autodesk Inventor and the way Inventor creates 2D and 3D shapes for you, click the links below to read this five-part series from the start!

1. 3D Modelling Terminology
2. Every Shape is a Sweep
3. The Secrets of Lofting
4. Loft Verses Patch
5. Filleting Best Practice (This Post!).

And please feel free to share this series with your colleagues and friends.

Paul Munford

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, originally by Jake Fowler and later updated by Inderjeet Wilkhu and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
CP122682: The Inventor 7 Deadly Sins of 3D Part Modeling

The post Filleting Best Practice | Get Smart with Inventor Part Modelling 05 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

We hope everyone has been enjoying all the great new features and enhancements that have been included in Inventor 2020.  We are back with more enhancements in 2020.1 that are going to speed up and improve your design workflows.  We are confident you will welcome them as they are based on your feedback through Inventor Ideas and the beta community. 

Part Environment 

Let’s begin in the part environment.  A new addition to the hole command makes it easier to select existing geometry.  With the new ‘Allow point creation’ option turned on, new sketch points are created automatically to anchor newly created holes.   

There is now the capability to quickly change the annotation plane of existing 3D annotations, with the new ‘Change annotation plane command.’ 

Extended part information has also been improved.  When you select ‘Display Extended information’ you will see extended information displayed after the feature name. This now works in the sheet metal environment as well as shells, splits, combines, patterns, and surface features.   

Assembly Environment 

To help you structure your assembly environment, we have rolled out the functionality seen in the shaft component generator to the remaining Design Accelerators.  With this option disabled, no folder or sub–assembly will be created on disk, and the individual components will be inserted directly into your assembly. This provides more options for structuring your assembly to suit your needs.  

We have continued to improve Frame Generator functionality with your feedback in mind. To make sure that the new frame member manipulator controls are always easily accessible, you will notice they appear on the frame member where you select.  There is also a new control icon to mirror frame members.  

A small but powerful enhancement to the BOM manager is the ability to create virtual components within the dialog, enabling you to create virtual components and fill out their iProperty information in one action. When you have virtual components to add, this will save you several picks and clicks!  

Additionally, you will notice that the order of positional representations can now be adjusted via drag and drop in the model browser. 

Drawing Environment 

In the drawing environment, you can now access the iProperties of a component directly from the browser context menu.  In the iProperties dialog, you will notice several improvements. The columns in the custom tab now automatically adjust based on the longest value in each column the next time you open the iProperties dialog.  The Inventor spell checker now checks your spelling in any text field in the iProperties dialog as you type and multiple custom iProperties can be selected and deleted at once.  

Conclusion 

Watch the video below to see the enhancements in action by Paul Munford and Luke Mihelcic.  If you would like a comprehensive look at what has been included in Inventor 2020.1, then check out the online help page.  Visit your account page to access the software download.

Thank you again to all of you who have taken the time to share your suggestions via Inventor Ideas and the Inventor beta portal in collaboration with the Inventor team for this 2020.1 release.  

Jim Byrne joined Autodesk in 2013 on the design and manufacturing marketing team. Prior to joining Autodesk, Jim worked at a local reseller for 14 years selling and supporting CAD, Simulation, and data management solutions. He also has three years of experience in the industry as a machine designer.

The post Inventor 2020.1 What’s New appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Why is parametric modelling so hard? One minute you have a perfectly good model, looking fine, the next minute EXPLOSION!

I know that this has happened to you – it’s happened to me too.

How to use Inventor properly?

When I’m teaching Inventor I’m often asked:

‘How do I use Inventor properly?’

Of course – there is no ‘Right’ way to use Autodesk Inventor. It’s a tool just like any other. We can use it for lots of different tasks, and in lots of different ways – all of them correct.

So, how can we quantify a ‘well modelled’ part?

I’ve given this a lot of thought – and I can only come up with two criteria.

1. The geometry must be correct (that’s a given).
2. The part must be easy to update (this is the tricky part).

The benefit of parametric modelling

Autodesk Inventor allows us to build parametric models. Models that can easily change by adjusting the value of a parameter.

This is awesome for building models that need to be adjusted in a predictable fashion (configurable designs). Or building families of components that are very similar (copy and paste, adjust a parameter, job done).

The problem with parametric modelling

The problem with parametric modelling, is that we must model in 4 dimensions.

We model in the usual three dimensions, and we must also consider Time, or the way our model might change over time.

This change over time is referred to as ‘Design Intent’. Building a model that can change in a predictable fashion takes a little thought and some planning.

The problem with parametric modelling is…

• It’s easy to unintentionally create relationships (Booby traps!).
• Editing a feature causes all subsequent features to regenerate.
• Part updates become unpredictable.
• Design intent is lost.
• Time is lost ‘fixing’ parts, or re-modelling from scratch.
• We would rather build our own parts, than re-use someone else’s.

Reliable modelling technique

Reliable modelling technique takes effort up front. Back in the day, working productively in AutoCAD meant mashing the keyboard faster.

Working productively in Inventor is more like playing chess. It pays to sit back and think about what we’re going to do before we start.

Reliable modelling requires a plan.

Reliable modelling gives us…

• Editable models – Design intent is captured.
• Obvious models – Design intent is documented.
• Reusable models – We would rather re-use than rebuild.

Design Intent | Reliable Part Modelling 02

Click on this link to read part 02 in this series and learn how to work productively with Inventor by Planning ahead (Coming soon).

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, by Luke Mihelcic and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
MFG226705: Reliable Modeling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor

The post Introduction | Reliable Part Modelling 01 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

If I gave you a model of a 50mm by 50mm by 6mm steel plate, with an M10 clearance hole through the middle of the face, and asked you to change the width of that plate – what should happen to the hole?

Using feature-based modelling we can decide how our model will change, this is known as ‘Design Intent’.

Click here to read part 01 in this blog post series for an introduction to Reliable part modelling.

Relationships

The key to creating complex models in Autodesk Inventor is maintaining control of relationships.

If you don’t understand the relationships you’ve built between parameters, sketches, features, bodies, parts constraints and assemblies – your model will not update in a predictable fashion.

The bad news is that Inventor won’t manage this for you (it can’t read your mind!).

The good news is that YOU have full control over this process.

Relationship rules

• No unintended Relationships
• Relationships are kept to a minimum
• All relationships are planned and purposeful
• All relationships are obvious and easily understood

Relationships, order of preference

Some relationships are more complicated for Inventor to work out than others. When you are planning your design intent, keep this in mind.

Create simple parametric relationships where you can, create complex feature to feature relationships only when you have too.

Parametric Relationships

Inventor is a computer programme. Computers are really, really good at Math. It may come as no surprise that the simplest relationship for Inventor to manage is a mathematical one.

Parameter1 Drives Sketch1 Geometry.

• Can you express a relationship in your design as an equation?
• Could you use iLogic to describe complex formulas?

Sketch to Sketch

If you can’t express a relationship mathematically, and you need to express it geometrically, the safest way is to relate a sketch to another sketch.

This is known as a ‘Horizontal’ relationship – both sketches are on the same level. We are minimizing the number of feature relationships Inventor must calculate, and therefore reducing the opportunity for error.

Parameter1 Drives Sketch1 which drives Sketch2.

Sketch to Feature

Creating a sketch on the face of an existing feature is a common workflow. It’s not wrong to do this, but it’s worth recognising what you just did.

Parameter Drives Sketch1 which drives Feature1 which drives Sketch2.

We have now created a far more complex sequence of events which Inventor must calculate to get a result.

Powerful, certainly, but frustrating if we unintentionally created a relationship we weren’t aware of.

Feature to Feature

Feature to feature relationships are the most complicated relationships for Inventor to calculate, because it must calculate two ‘branches’ of features before it can compare the two branches to get a result.

These Feature to Feature relationships can be the trickiest type of relationship to edit parametrically, because you must make sure that all the contributing features make sense in order for the final feature to make sense.

Parameter Drives Sketch1 which drives Feature1 which drives Sketch3 which drives feature 3.

Parameter2 Drives Sketch2 which drives Feature2 which also drives Feature 3

Planning design intent

If you are going to spend even a day modelling a design, it’s worth spending 20 minutes thinking about it before you start.

Back in the mad, bad old days of 2D CAD we were more productive when we mashed the keys quicker. This approach won’t reward you when creating parametric part models.

Productivity in Inventor is more like playing chess. Thinking about your design intent, and planning ahead will help you to create more stable, more useful, more reliable part models – which will reward you and your colleagues for the duration of your project.

Preparation | Reliable Part Modelling 03

Click on this link to read part 03 in this series and learn how to prepare your team for success by setting up your templates, application options and CAD standards for reliable part modelling.

(Coming soon!)

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, by Luke Mihelcic and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
MFG226705: Reliable Modeling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor

The post Design Intent | Reliable Part Modelling 02 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Daniel Youd first gained experience with BAC in 2015, and ever since has strived to be a part of the innovative work the company produces. Fast forward to 2019 and Daniel is now using Autodesk software on their latest project, the Mono R.

The Mono R is a higher-performance, lighter and more advanced GEN2 Mono single-seater supercar. Weighing only 555 kilograms, it is the first production car in the world that incorporates the use of graphene-enhanced carbon body panels. The car was launched at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 4^th, where Daniel told us about his involvement with this exclusive supercar.

Using Autodesk Alias, Daniel is putting his knowledge to the test and creating concept sketches for the wheel arches on the Mono R.  “Alias was a big transition for me as I hadn’t used Autodesk software before,” he said. “However, now I have also used Alias to analyse how those surfaces interact with each other and what we need to do to change the existing bodywork to make better bodywork”.

When discussing the skills gap, Daniel explained his journey with Alias, from having limited knowledge, to feeling fluent in this surfacing software. “My experience with Alias before joining the industry was extremely limited, but it soon felt like it was an intuitive piece of software to use. I am at the point now where I feel comfortable using it and able to come up with different ideas to move forward the creative process.”

For BAC, Daniel believes the use of different Autodesk software has gained the team a better understanding of the Mono. “We now have the ability to instantly analyse the surfaces and see how they interact with each other” he remarked.

Alongside working on the Mono R, Daniel has also immersed himself working with customers on bespoke requirements. Due to his innovative mindset and fresh pair of eyes, his role has transitioned further into helping these customers achieve the best possible result for them. “In terms of working with these customers and bringing it from a concept to a finish product, it is a really heartfelt moment for me,” Daniel said. “It is also an opportunity for me personally to get working in different software like VRED. In VRED you get to see the car in 3D with realistic lighting and you are able to make super realistic photo renderings of the car, which is great to send off to the customers, so we are able to make any simple changes that are needed.”

Daniel gave his advice for people aspiring to be in his position, encouraging people to play around with Autodesk software and not to be intimidated by them. “I understand that for young people, they can get Autodesk products for free, so I would simply say download them, look at tutorials and don’t be scared of all the different features they have.”

For Daniel, his future within engineering is bright, as he hopes to develop amongst BAC’s ambitious team. “The best part of this job is getting to work on unique and interesting concepts, with a company that is really passionate about innovation, pushing the boundaries of technology and moving forward,” he said.

The post How young engineers are using Autodesk software to address the skills gap appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Autodesk University is always a great event for networking and learning, but 2019 is a special year for those of us who have been working with Autodesk Inventor for a while. In the fall of 1999, I was just starting my third month working for an Autodesk reseller in Cincinnati, OH. On a Thursday afternoon, I had just finished teaching a Mechanical Desktop class and headed back to my desk. A colleague of mine, Phil was listening in to conference call on his desk phone, using speakerphone mode (sigh…). My desk was right next to his, so I didn’t have much of a choice in terms of listening in . While annoyed at first, my attitude quickly changed, as I began hearing about a new technology referred to as Rubicon aka Inventor R1. As the junior application engineer, I wasn’t yet in the need to know camp, but I heard enough to get super excited about the potential to learn another new CAD tool…… Fast forward 20 years and I am lucky to be part of the Autodesk Inventor team, then, more importantly, hundreds of customers and thousands of users I have engaged with since that first moment I learned of Inventor. Next week Autodesk University Las Vegas registration will open on the 7th, and you will be able to check out the 50+ Inventor classes in the catalog. Chris Hall, myself and the rest of the Inventor Product Management team is very excited about this year’s Inventor track, and we hope you will make the most of it. We hope to see you in Vegas to celebrate 20 years of Inventor and our incredible users. Have a look below for a sneak peek of the class titles ahead of the catalog going live.

Extra credit questions for a few random Inventor shirts/stickers……

·      When and Where did you first learn about Autodesk Inventor?

·      What release did you start on?

·      Which Inventor Workflow / Feature would you claim bragging rights vs your co-workers/peers on?  Or maybe a favorite feature. Engineer’s Notebook is mine, see image above for the time machine view

Class title preview

1.    A Civil Engineers Guide to Navigating Inventor and the Infrastructure Parts Editor

2.    Single File, Kids! – Building Adaptive Assemblies in Inventor

3.    Simulating with Nonlinear Materials like Hyperelastic and Isotropic Polymer Material

4.    Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical Working Together

5.    Autodesk CFD & Inventor Nastran – best tools to design eco-friendly electric cars

6.    Inventor to Revit Family

7.    Inventor Sheet Metal From Start To Press

8.    Best Practices for Inventor & Revit Workflows

9.    The Mechanics of Motion Automation

10. Authoring & Publishing Custom Content for Inventor Professional

11. Ask the Inventor Developer

12. Hidden Secrets of Automating Drawing Using Inventor

13. Getting Started with Generative Design for Inventor Users

14. AnyCAD and the Exchangeability of Inventor

15. Inventor workgroups: 10, 100, 1000 users working together, worldwide

16. Saving time and reducing errors by automating designs with Inventor iLogic.

17. Factory Design Utility Workflow – From zero to hero

18. The virtual commissioning in the factory

19. Looking into the Crystal Ball: The Future of Autodesk Inventor

20. Ask the Inventor Product Manager Panel

21. No more Tutorials – Time for Real “Blank Sheet of Paper” Design Work with Inventor

22. Inventor: Back to the Basics

23. Getting the Most Out of Your Inventor Templates

24. Delivering an automated precision manufacturing facility for offsite housing product

25. Inventor Template Management through the iLogic API Looking Glass

26. CADZilla Returns!!! – Fighting (and winning) with Large Assemblies in Inventor

27. Finding the right fit with Autodesk Inventor Tolerance Analysis [Lab]

28. Finding the right fit with Autodesk Inventor Tolerance Analysis

29. Taking It To The Next Level – Drawing Automation with Autodesk Inventor

30. Let’s Take It From The Top – iLogic Best Practices and Fundamentals for Success

31. Preparing your Inventor and Fusion 360 3D models for use in AR/VR/MR with 3ds Max

32. Up and Running with Autodesk Inventor Nastran

33. Making the Content Center Do More for You!

34. Better machine design with Autodesk Inventor Design Accelerators

35. 60 Inventor Tips in 60 Minutes

36. It’s STILL All in the Details – Tips & Best Practices of Detailing in Inventor

37. Understanding the impact of changing the role of simulation

38. Inventor Nastran: Roadmap for Successful Dynamic Vibration Analysis

39. Leveraging CAD skills for effective design simulation

40. TMT Journey to the stars

41. Inventor migration from previous releases. All steps for optimal success!

42. Choose Your Own Adventure – Inventor

43. Get your Welders and Designers Connected (20+ Tips on using WELDS in Inventor).

44. Process Modeling: Key to Factory Layout Optimization

45. Supplementing Your Designs with Inventor CAM and Inventor Nesting

46. Getting Through the Pain to See the Gain

47. Designing for Manufacture. OR Keeping the Production Team Happy

48. Closing the Information Gap in the Supply Chain

49. Mesh Geometry, What can I do with it? How do I turn it into a solid model?

50. All you do in one platform- CAD to Nesting to CAM in Autodesk Inventor

51. Automate Product Configuration and CNC-Machining with Inventor CAM and Fusion 360

52. Process Modeling essentials for Industry 4.0

53. What to Automate: Assessing Automation Projects with Examples

54. Applying Integrated Factory Modelling at the automotive start-up e.GO Mobile AG

Written by Kevin Robinson

Go To Market strategy, planning and execution for Autodesk Inventor and Product
Design & Manufacturing Collection.

The post Autodesk University Vegas 2019 – Celebrating 20 years of Inventor users with the best Inventor class track yet appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

When my drawing office moved from 2D CAD to 3D CAD with Autodesk Inventor, we noticed a significant upturn in productivity. Why?

AutoCAD has a single document environment. If one of your colleagues is working late on a project, it’s really hard to help them out.

Autodesk Inventor has a distributed file system. This means that we can split the work up amongst our colleagues and work in parallel on the same project.

One colleague works on these parts, one colleague works on those parts, one colleague could start putting parts into assemblies – you might even be able to start laying up drawings early in the design process.

But – for this to work, you need to be working as a team, and teams have ground rules, in this post we will take a look at the preparation you can do to  set your team up for success.

Click here to read part 02 of this Blog post series, to learn about design intent for Reliable part modelling.

Preparation – Modelling Standards

You don’t have to agree with me on standards such as parameter naming or model orientation, but you do need to follow industry standards, or at least get everyone in your office to agree to work the same way!

Here are some topics that you’ll need to consider. Please feel free to copy and paste from this section for your CAD manual.

Tip: Click here to download the handout from class ‘Reliable Modelling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor’ on Autodesk University online (It’s free) for a checklist to help you set up your environment.

Preparation – Orientation

Traditionally Engineers have always drawn components from the front. This makes the coordinate system:

X = Left/Right

Y = Up/Down

Z = In/Out

This is how Inventor is set up.

Traditionally Architects have always drawn their building layouts from the top. This makes the coordinate system:

X = Left/Right

Y = Forward/Backward

Z = Up/Down

This is how AutoCAD is set up.

Engineering = Y Up

Architecture = Z Up

If you work with AutoCAD or Revit users, or you often share files with colleagues in the Architecture/Construction, you may want to model with ‘Z up’.

You can prepare your Inventor template to use ‘Z up’ by adjusting your view cube orientation and saving your file as the ‘Standard’ template (remember to do this for Parts, Assemblies and presentations).

Preparation – Origin Planes

You can’t edit or delete the Origin planes, but you can re-name them. Rename the Origin planes in your template files to match your view cube orientation to subtly reinforce your modelling orientation standard.

Preparation – Parameter naming

Parameters in Inventor represent placeholders for values that can change. Parameter names must follow some rules set down by Inventor.

To improve communication between users, it’s a good idea to agree on some conventions for parameter naming.

You might also want to consider if there are any standard named parameters that should be in every model file? If so – include them in your template (and should they be set to ‘export’ so that they can be read into the BOM/Parts List?).

Shorter parameter names are easier to remember and to type as you are modelling but can get obscure. All User Parameters should have a comment, to explain their function.

Parameter naming rules:

1. Parameter names are case sensitive (length & LENGTH are both acceptable).
2. Parameter names must start with a letter (but can include numbers).
3. Parameter names cannot contain spaces.
4. Parameter names can only include the Underscore ‘_’ and Colon ‘:’

Some parameter names are reserved by Inventor and cannot be used. Please see the help for details.

Tip: Don’t forget that you can rename parameters on the fly. Type the formula:

‘Parameter name = Parameter Value’

into any input box to rename the parameter as it is created.

Feature Naming

If you have more than a few features, it can be difficult for the next person who opens your model to work out how the features are related.

By renaming your features, you can provide an easy ‘Breadcrumb trail’ to guide your colleagues through your model’s structure.

In preparation to start modelling, give a little thought to the features in the design. Can you give them obvious, distinct and unique names?

Remember that Inventor will not let you give two features the same name, even if those features are of different types, so append the feature name with the feature type

Example Feature suffixes:

Ext = Join Extrusion
Cut = Cut Extrusion
Rad = External Fillet (Radius)
Fil = Internal Fillet
Rev = Revolve
Mir = Mirror
Pat = Pattern

Tip: The ‘Show Extended Names’ Option will show additional information next to your features such as extrude length or Fillet Radius.

Turn on extended names, by clicking in the model browser > Hamburger menu > Display preferences > Show Extended names.

Or by visiting, Tools > Application options > Part [Tab] > ‘Display extended information after feature node name in browser’ [Check box].

Execution | Reliable Part Modelling 04

Click on this link to read part 04 in this series and learn how to structure your part model for reliable parametric updates, that capture your design intent (Coming Soon).

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, by Luke Mihelcic and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
MFG226705: Reliable Modeling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor

The post Preparation | Reliable Part Modelling 03 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

In part 03 of this series, we learned how to set up our environment for success, by adjusting our templates and application options and standardising our parameter and feature naming schemas.

In this post we will imaging that you are finally ready to start modelling…

Before you start STOP! Let’s take a few minutes to plan our model. What do we need to consider before Execution?

Tip: Click here to download the handout from class ‘Reliable Modelling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor’ on Autodesk University online (It’s free) for a checklist to help you as you model.

Center Point

In cartesian coordinates, the Center Point (or Origin) is the 0,0,0 point of your model.

Modelling around the origin allows us to reference the Center Point as a fixed datum, around which our part can change in a predictable fashion.

The center point may be in a different spot for every item you model, but it should be something you think about before your start modelling.

‘Where do I want the origin to end up, when I’ve finished modelling this thing?’

Layout Sketches

If anything goes wrong with your Inventor model, it’s likely to go wrong with a sketch.

When you learned Inventor – you were probably given the advice:

‘One sketch per feature’

This advice is meant to guarantee simple sketches, which only contain one closed loop. When you edit the design, Inventor is unlikely to pick the wrong loop if there is only one choice!

The downside of this technique is that single feature sketches are unrelated, which means that Design Intent is not captured.

The other extreme is overly complex shared sketches which can be difficult to edit and difficult to diagnose when things go wrong.

A layout sketch could be thought of as a ‘Skeleton’ which contains the main datums for a component.

Feature sketches are related to the layout sketch with projected geometry. When the layout sketch is driven by a parameter change, the features sketches go with it.

All sketches should be fully constrained.

There – I said it. You can take it from me. Quote me on this:

‘Fully constrained means fully predictable’.

If you’re sketches aren’t fully constrained, you can’t predict behaviour when you edit your component.

Note the indicator in the bottom right of the sketch environment to see how close you are to being fully constrained.

You may also notice a ‘push pin’ icon on your sketch nodes in the browser. This is a great way to check to see if a sketch is fully constrained without having to open the sketch first.

If you don’t know what you need to do to fully constrain your sketch, use the degree of freedom indicator or the Auto-dimensioning tool to help.

Datum Features

When we build a model by relating each sketch to the preceding feature, we can unintentionally build a house of cards.

When the Base Feature changes, all dependant sketches and features will also update. This can be extremely powerful (if this is what we intended) or extremely frustrating (when it isn’t).

Instead of basing a sketch on a feature, we can isolate the sketch from the preceding feature by basing the sketch on a datum plane. A datum plane can be a UCS, work plane or surface extrusion, which is driven by a named parameter or our layout sketch.

The link back to the layout sketch preserves Design Intent. The datum plane isolates the sketch from previous features, allowing us re-order the feature tree, or even delete features without upsetting our model.

Feature build order

This idea of grouping similar features comes from Dick Gebhard’s ‘Resilient modelling strategy’. When I trained students using this technique we found maintaining feature groups to be problematic – features must be in the right order to get the desired result!

However, working through Dick’s exercises with my students, we found building your model with feature order in mind works well and can lead to better structured, more stable components.

Tip: Although you create the features in the following order, this is not necessarily the order which they will end up in the feature tree. Use the ‘End of Part Marker’ (EOP) to place features in the position they need to be for your desired result.

Feature grouping

When working on a multibody file, it can be helpful to group features together that belong to the same body.

Sadly, we don’t have folders or feature grouping for the model browser in the Inventor part environment.

Instead I use 3D sketches, which I name in ALL CAPS and then turn their visibility off. This gives me just enough of a visual cue to be able to skim up and down the browser efficiently.

Flex your design

Test your designs! If you have invested effort building a component which can change over time – don’t simply assume that your model will update predictably!

Don’t forget, it could be you who must perform a quick Friday afternoon update to a model. No-one wants to be dealing with an exploding model when they have a deadline to meet.

I’ve stolen a term from Revit designers here, they call this testing ‘Flexing’ the model.

Flex early, flex often, flush any unpredictable behaviour out of your design while the design intent is fresh in your memory.

It’s far more difficult to correct mistakes when you are revisiting a component after a few months working on other projects.

Communicating design intent

Well done for making it this far! Only one more post to go

Now you have built a reliable, parametric Inventor part model, how are you going to prevent you colleagues from messing it up!?

The answer is with good documentation. Before your model is complete, you need to spend some time communicating your design intent through good documentation – and that’s what we will discuss next…

Documentation | Reliable Part Modelling 05

Click on this link to read part 05 in this series and learn how to communicate all the hard work you put into your design intent to your colleagues (Coming soon!).

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, by Luke Mihelcic and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
MFG226705: Reliable Part Modeling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor

The post Execution | Reliable Part Modelling 04 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Click here to read part 04 of this series ‘Execution’, in which we learned what we need to consider when building reliable part models, during the modelling process itself.

In this post we will learn how we can add documentation to our models to aid communication of our design intent to our colleagues.

Don’t forget – it could be you who opens this design in three months’ time and has to figure out how to make a change!

Parameter comments

The first thing we want anyone to do upon opening our model – is to open the parameters manager and look for useful parameters.

If we have created a named parameter called ‘Length’ and our colleague wants to change the length of the component – the design intent is obvious. Your colleague will thank you for making their life so easy!

It’s often not possible to capture the entire design intent in a parameter name, so add a comment to clarify what the parameter is controlling.

Tip: Create user parameters that capture your design intent before you model anything. If you can’t think of them all up front, don’t worry – just come back and add more user parameters as you need them.

If you want to keep track of a parameter (for example, in an equation), but it won’t be a driving parameter. Use the ‘Parameter name = Parameter value’ formula to rename parameters as you go along.

Communication by Adding Notes

The more information you can embed in your design, the more likely that your colleagues will be able to figure out your design intent.

Maybe you want to leave a note in your file to say:

‘I’m not finished with this model yet!’

Or

‘Use the imbedded iLogic form to edit this model’

We have several options available. I suggest that you discuss this with your team and pick one that everyone can use consistently.

Engineers Notebook

Right click on any part file in an assembly, or any sketch edge of feature in a part file and pick ‘Create Note’ from the context menu.

You will automatically be taken to the Engineers notebook, where you will find a screenshot of your component, and a text note for you to add your information to.

More information in the online help:
https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2019/ENU/?guid=GUID-19FA6297-F980-456D-A53F-226DA9870B73

Model based Annotation – General note

Model based annotation is relatively new. If you haven’t tried it out yet – give it a go.

My favourite is the ‘General Note’ tool, which creates a note which sits in the corner of your screen and remains there – even if you rotate the model.

Sketch notes

It’s old school – but it works. Leave a note by adding text in your sketches to help your colleagues understand your design intent. For example, you could label your features:

iLogic forms to communication of design intent

Even if you take the time to name and comment your key parameters, it can be confusing for your colleagues to trigger the change they need.

A really simple way to communicate design intent is to use an iLogic form to control the part.

1. Open the iLogic browser
2. Create an iLogic form
3. Drag and drop parameters
4. Click on the button to trigger the form.

iLogic form pro-tips

Limit choice to the available sizes by making parameter multi value.

Edit the name of your form. The name of your form can be seen on the button that triggers your form to appear.

Edit the control type to ‘slider’. A slider control has minimum, maximum and increment properties. This will limit users from picking a value which is out of range.

Note: Your parameter comments become tooltips – no effort is wasted!

Reliable part modelling conclusion

Parametric modelling with design intent in mind isn’t easy. It requires thought, planning, preparation, testing and good communication.

But – you read this far, so I’m guessing that you are the sort of problem who likes a puzzle and loves a challenge!

I hope that you have found this information useful. Let me know how you apply it to the projects in your company.

Introduction | Reliable Part Modelling 01

Have you found this series useful? Click here to read part 01 in this series for an introduction to reliable part modelling.

This blog post is based on an Autodesk University class, by Luke Mihelcic and Paul Munford. You can watch a recording of the class, and download a handout that goes with this presentation from the Autodesk University website here:
MFG226705: Reliable Modeling Techniques for Complex Part Design in Inventor

The post Communication | Reliable Part Modelling 05 appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Inventor Tolerance Analysis 2020.1 update and new Inventor Tolerance Analysis Forum

Since the release of Inventor Tolerance Analysis on November 2019, we’ve gathered user feedback and added some key functionalities that reduce workarounds and make the tool easier to use.

Prior to the 2020.1 updates, automatic loop detection failed for any assemblies that used the insert constraint, offset, or subassembly. Users had to define the stack up manually, increasing the time to get results. The 2020.1 update solves this issue. Now, automatic loop detection works for any stack up with these relationships or subassemblies.

We’re very happy to announce the launch of the new Inventor Tolerance Analysis Forum:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-tolerance-analysis/bd-p/6058

This forum is the central hub for all things Inventor Tolerance Analysis for users of all levels. Ask us questions of all types (i.e. learning, interpreting results, something not working, etc.).  We’re excited to jump in and help!

Written by:

Chris Hall has been with Autodesk, Inc for 14 years.  In his tenure, he has worked in consulting, technical marketing, education, and product management. He has industry experience in product design, machine design and automotive.

The post Inventor Tolerance Analysis 2020.1 update and new Inventor Tolerance Analysis Forum appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Are you interested in manufacturing and attending Autodesk University in Las Vegas? Keep reading for a list of four classes you should consider.

Launching a new product is no small feat.  The same amount of engineering goes into defining the manufacturing processes as the product itself. That includes process and manufacturing engineering, process modeling, assembly line design, line commissioning, and more. Knowing more about these processes helps designers ensure their products are easily manufactured at a low cost and satisfy the highest quality levels. These Autodesk University classes provide invaluable insights into best practices around manufacturing engineering and help designers and product engineers build better products.

• TR322283 – Applying Integrated Factory Modeling at the Automotive Start-up E.GO Mobile AG
• IM322995 – The Virtual Commissioning in the Factory
• PM323173 – Process Modeling Essentials for Industry 4.0
• IM322819-L – Factory Design Utilities Workflow—from Zero to Hero

We’ve recruited industry experts to give you access to the best resources possible for these topics. Don’t miss out!

Ryan McMahon

Director of Product Management, Industrialized Construction

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcmahonrw/

The post Manufacturing classes at Autodesk University appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Are you attending Autodesk University 2019? Great! I know that you’ll have great fun exploring new ideas, learning about Autodesk software and connecting with your peers…

Luke and Paul are so excited about #AU2019!

If you haven’t signed up for Autodesk University 2019 yet – Click here

What’s that? You CAN’T go to AU2019? I’m sorry to hear that! Scroll to the video at the end of this post – I have some tips for you too!

Autodesk Inventor Classes at Autodesk University 2019

There are so many super cool opportunities to learn, connect and explore at Autodesk University, we know that you’ll have like – 60 things you could be doing at any one time!

But we don’t want you to miss out!

Here are @InventorLuke ‘s recommendations for Autodesk Inventor classes that we don’t want you to miss out on!

Click here for the full YouTube playlist for all the videos from this blog post, plus more recommendations from Luke, and Paul’s recommendations for Factory design utilities and Tolerance analysis.

MFG318999 – Finding the Right Fit with Inventor Tolerance Analysis

TR323048-L – Fusion 360 Introduction to Generative Design

FAB322732-L – Inventor Sheet Metal from Start To Press

Connect with the Inventor Team

When I was an Autodesk Customer, one of the most valuable (and fun!) things to do at Autodesk University was to connect with the team that make Autodesk Inventor.

Autodesk University gives you an unprecedented opportunity to speak to the team that makes YOUR CAD software and let them know what you think!

Here are three classes you will want to make time for during AU2019.

IM318154-R – Ask the Inventor Developer

IM323052 – Looking into the Crystal Ball: The Future of Inventor

IM323065 – Ask the Inventor Product Manager Panel

Connect with the Vault Team

Do you use Autodesk Vault for data management? (or do you think you SHOULD be using Vault for data management!)

Good! You’ve come to the right place

We all know that there are many ways to learn, connect and explore at Autodesk University – and I don’t want you to miss out. So here are three vault classes I want to make sure you know about.

MFG321646 – What You Need to Know Before You Go: Tips and Tricks for Transitioning to Vault

MFG324340 – Vault Enables Effective, Efficient Design-Engineering Process at Global Manufacturer

IM321580 – Looking into the Crystal Ball: The Future of Vault

Hey! I can’t go to Autodesk University 2019! How can I learn Connect and Explore?

I’ve been a big fan of Autodesk University since my first trip in 2004. It was simply the best education I could get for my money – anywhere in the world.

But – I haven’t been every year! It’s expensive! and I couldn’t afford it. In the end – I missed it so much I became a speaker so that I could get in for free!

So, if you can’t make it to AU, I understand, and I sympathise. In this video I’ll give you some tips on how you can learn, connect and explore even if you can’t get to Autodesk University this year.

Do you want to attend AU2020? Tips on how – Links below the video:

Learn

Most classes from the Autodesk University conferences around the globe are recorded. Typically, they will be uploaded within two working weeks of the conference – so if you see a class that you like the look of, but you can’t attend AU 2019 in person, make a note in your calendar to check Autodesk University Online in the week commencing 9th December.

AU online: https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/au-online

Livestream

All the mainstage presentations, and a select few classes will be live streamed directly from the conference. Pull up a seat, grab some popcorn and watch the show – LIVE!

Livestream: https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/conference/live-stream

Connect

Follow the Autodesk University social media accounts and follow the hashtag #AU2019 for live updates from the conference attendees!

AU Instagram account      #AU2019 Instagram

AU Twitter Account           #AU2019Twitter

AU LinkedIn Account         #AU2019 LinkedIn

Is there an Autodesk University near you?

In addition to the main event in Las Vegas, there are eight Autodesk University Conferences happening worldwide this year. Visit the Autodesk University page for details.

Autodesk University: https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/

Do you want to go to Autodesk University 2020? Start planning now!

‘Biggest User Conference for Autodesk Customers in the world?’

‘Okay…’

Best education for Autodesk Products – anywhere in the world?’

‘Okay…’

‘Connect with the brightest and best CAD users from all over the world?’

‘Okay…’

‘Oh – and it’s in Las Vegas!’…

‘Okay – NO!’

How many of you have had THAT conversation!

Don’t wait until next year to try and convince your Boss that Autodesk University is worth attending – check out the link below for help and advice on how to make the case for attending #AU2020

Convince Your manager toolkit: https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/conference/las-vegas/convince-manager

See you at AU 2019?

I hope to see you at Autodesk University 2019. If you are there – come up and say hi!

If I don’t see you at Autodesk University 2019. Please feel reach to connect with me on social – I look forward to it!

Click here for more information about Autodesk University 2019.

The post Autodesk University 2019 – don’t miss out! appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

What Does the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection Have That You Need

Not that long ago, a colleague mentioned that she had struggled to explain the “hype” about the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection to one of our costumers. I don’t blame her as she is from a completely different department of Autodesk.

I thought, with my 25+ years in design and manufacturing and too many CAD/CAM certifications to plaster on the wall, this would be an easy task to explain. Was I wrong…

Like any good engineer, I started with the break down: “The Product Design and Manufacturing Collection is a group of Autodesk products, including…”

• Inventor
• AutoCAD
• Fusion 360
• Inventor Nastran
• Inventor Tolerance Analysis
• Inventor Nesting
• Inventor CAM
• Vault
• Factory Design Utilities
• Navisworks Manage
• 3DS Max
• Recap Pro
• HSMWorks
• Autodesk Rendering
• Autodesk Drive

Now, if you think this is an impressive list, then you and I have the same mindset. But I was not ready for her next question: “Why do you need so many products?” What a great question! I have to admit that I had to take a step back and think for a little while. Here is my answer:

Unsilo Your Engineering Department

Back in the conventional engineering days, each task had its department. And, each department followed a strict set of parameters of what they did and did not do—a department of mechanical engineers, a department of finite element analysis experts, the visual crew who were working closely with marketing and sales.

Each department was acting as a lone tribe, making the constant struggle of working together with one of the common goals.

Shift focus from teams to individuals

Team collaboration is crucial for any business’s success, but, at the same time, today’s individual workers are more autonomous than ever before, handling workloads that would have taken an entire team’s attention just a decade ago. The key differentiator, of course, is technology.

With the Product Design and Manufacturing collection, it starts with the Inventor at the center. As engineers, designers, fabricators, innovators, or whatever we want to call ourselves, we usually are not an assembly line of designers, spitting out new concept models every hour.

When breaking it down, we work on projects. These projects are different most of the time, and they present us with different challenges and obstacles.

As we have to figure out different solutions to various problems, we can use different tools to get the job done.

The best way of breaking down the “hype” of the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection is by breaking our projects into categories where different tools team up to solve problems.

Design & Make:

• Inventor (Design)
• AutoCAD (Design)
• Inventor CAM (Manufacturing)
• Factory Design Utilities (Assembly line layout and validation)
• 3DS Max (Rendering software for design visualization)

-The ability to bridge the workflow from 2D AutoCAD to 3D Inventor has changed many customers’ workflows. With AnyCAD available, individuals can now share design changes without worrying about lost data.

-When adding Inventor CAM inside Inventor, the customers’ 2D parts, all the way to workholding and fixture design, are in one environment. Directly going from lines and arcs to the g-code for the CNC machine.

-With Factory Design Suite, you are able to assure that your new machine or equipment will not collide with cross beams and other parts of the building. You can also maximize your throughput, and AutoCAD and Inventor drive everything.

-The ability to create visual assets will enhance collaboration and communication. 3DS Max has the tools to help bridge the message across internal communication and assure customers’ full buy-in on projects.

Research & Develop:

• Inventor (Design)
• Inventor Nastran (Simulation aka FEA)
• Tolerance Analysis (Tolerance stack up)
• Fusion 360 (The power of cloud computing with Generative Design)

-Nothing will ever replace real-life testing. However, the fact that you can get critical feedback within Inventor makes Nastran the tool that can change your cost for bringing products to the market. When using Inventor Nastran, you can receive feedback on possible risk and failure before spending time and money building your prototype.

-If you are in charge of bringing a product to life that has more than two components, you know that tolerance on the manufacturing floor can be the factor for success or failure. Being able to see and adjust to the tolerance stack-up before the design goes for the approval process ensures mistakes get caught before leaving the design space.

-Generative Design has raised the standard for the design process. You have an intelligent tool available to deliver validated designs for your team to pick and choose from faster-than-you-can-come-up-with-one or two design alternatives.

Connect & Share:

• Inventor (Design)
• AutoCAD (Design)
• Navisworks manage (Large scale project review software)
• Vault (Data management and collaboration)

-Earlier in this article, I brought up the 2D AutoCAD to 3D Inventor workflow with AnyCAD. One tool will never fit every task, project, or person. Being able to connect and share is of the utmost importance within the team and among your customers. It is our job to do the 2D-to-3D work as seamlessly as possible.

-Including Navisworks in the Design and Manufacturing Collection helps you open large designs and combine your 3D models from different CAD tools, letting you navigate it all in real-time.

-When I started using CAD in the nineties, I never envisioned that I would have thousands of CAD files to store and manage. My Internet Explorer soon resembled my attic in my house. I have an idea about most of the stuff up there, but I could not tell you where it is precisely. That is not the way to run a professional design department these days. Vault will help you not only keep things organized, but also react much faster and avoid mistakes when the customer calls with a change. And, as you already know, they always call with a change.

Automation:

• Inventor (Design)
• Inventor Nesting (Manufacturing Layout)
• Inventor CAM (Manufacturing)

-The first tip has to be iLogic within Inventor. If you are not utilizing this tool today, you should spend an afternoon educating yourself. iLogic will let you save time and automate your design process. And the best thing about incorporating this into your day-to-day workflow is that it will trickle down into the other tools in the collection.

-Nesting is about one thing: efficiency in saving space. And saving space equals money in your pocket. If you are in the business where your product is fabricated out of a sheet of steel or wood, nesting will automatically layout your components to save material. Don’t rely on the shop floor for this task, as they are often not as knowledgeable about cost and pricing as you might think. (This is from a shop floor guy, yours truly)

-The ability to generate CNC g-code from within Inventor lets all the work be done by the one-person shop using one software, and the design department gets toolpath time for quoting jobs. But more exciting, with the automation of iLogic, you can get suggestions for pre-validated tool paths and needed material sizes. Now you are utilizing automation from your design tool, all the way to the finished product.

Conclusion:

When businesses shift from one conventional CAD tool to a flexible, accessible, collaborative system, the benefits are measurable: stronger employee engagement resulting in improved efficiency and productivity and greater revenue over time. In short, empowered workers are effective workers. By providing them with the tools they need, you put your business in a position to achieve its full potential.

Written by: Lars Christensen

Lars Christensen is an award-winning Design & Manufacturing Expert who helps people that haaa-ate struggling with their CAD&CAM Software.
Through his totally-addictive blog posts and videos on his YouTube channel, he shares his experience so people can create and make their product in greater happiness. He has shared his know-how around the country, featured in manufacturing magazines as well as influential online engineering sites. And when he is not teaching and sharing in the design and manufacturing space, you can find him with his nose in the latest business/development book and is occasionally spotted indulging in scoops of ice-cream. Explore his YouTube channel to get the power to add “chop-chop” to your next design and manufacturing project.

The post What Does the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection Have That You Need appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

It’s funny how ‘trending’ is directly associated with social media nowadays, but let me tell you what else is trending: Manufacturing. Think about it. In the last 30 years, we went from 2D drafting to 3D modeling to simulation, to subtracting manufacturing, to additive manufacturing, to VR, and all the other trends that we adopted and are using every day. Manufacturing is much en vogue that AEC wants to mimic our robust and proven ways to bring a product/project to life. How about that!

If you are serious and passionate about what you are doing/creating, and about how you are doing it, by now, you know that Autodesk University is the place to be to learn about the trends and what is coming.
Autodesk is a pioneer, and we want to share our vision, and what we are foreseeing so you can be better equip and ready for what’s next for you and the industry.

Product Design and Manufacturing Keynote

Product complexity is rising, but the business of developing and delivering new products is also increasing across multiple dimensions.
The customer needs/requirements are changing more rapidly, and the demands are increasing significantly.
Manufacturing products have also gotten more dynamic. A vast majority of manufacturers are experiencing more frequent supply chain/manufacturing partners changes.
Each of these is challenging, but it’s essential to recognize these challenges are happening at the same time – and the cumulative increase in complexity is enormous.

The Product Design and Manufacturing Keynote is the perfect place to be to experience the future of making.

For example, during Autodesk University 2017, Stephen Hooper was stating that « … we don’t believe you can separate design from manufacturing. The two are intrinsically linked… » while exposing how the Digital Engineering department can leverage the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection to extend their digital assets across the rest of their organization.
As an example, companies deploying non-linear simulation studies to analyze the operational performance of their products.

During that same presentation, Fusion 360 and Inventor interoperability – using AnyCAD – was discussed as well as how Vault could be used to manage data for both.

Click the image to access the recording

Another gem happened, last year, during the Product Design and Manufacturing Keynote at AU2018 when Thomas Nagel – Chief Digital Officer at Claudius Peters (100-year-old equipment manufacturer serving the cement industry) – showcasing their use of AutoCAD, Inventor, BIM 360,  but more importantly how they are experimenting with Generative Design. Thomas was introduced to the technology the year before (Au2017) and immediately started testing the technology.
To their surprise, and after some modification in Inventor, the alien part behave even better after FEA analysis.

« The electric light was not an improvement of the candle. We have to do things completely different than before to make a real change. »

Click the image to access the recording

AU is the place to be… or to watch

And I am sure you came up with that conclusion too.

Autodesk University is the perfect setting to learn from industry experts – Design & Manufacturing,  Architecture, Engineering and Construction, and Multimedia & Entertainment – with 700+ specialized courses, industry talks, and meetups. Learn about leading-edge technology and get ahead of the curve, with direct access to the latest technology and trends that you can take back to the office. Finally, you will find everything you need to improve the efficiency of your workflows.

If you can’t make it to AU this year – make sure it’S in the plans for 2020 – you can watch some of the sessions through the live stream. It’s simple; you have a choice of keynotes, technical classes, and short talks. Add it to your calendar as a reminder, et voilà!

Bottom line: your boss wants results. AU provides the knowledge and skills to help you perform better and faster.

Feel free to use the ‘Comments’ section and, if you enjoyed it and you think it contains valuable information that could help a friend or a colleague, please share it with them.

Written by:

Marc B. Sauro

Product Marketing Manager

Marc joined Autodesk in 2014 as a Design & Manufacturing Technical Specialist. Recently he joined the Product Marketing team. He is responsible for product marketing for the design and manufacturing software that makes up the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection but, more specifically, the collaborative tools (i.e., Vault and Fusion Lifecycle).

Before that, Marc spent nine years at one of the largest SolidWorks VAR in Canada and one of the largest in the Northeast region. This experience has built a solid foundation for his understanding of sales and business development strategies.

Also, Marc worked in the Automotive Industry as a Project and CAD Manager where he gained an in-depth understanding and appreciation of the R&D and manufacturing process.

You can find Marc on Instagram, Twitter, Medium (@marcbsauro), and LinkedIn.

The post What’s trending? Not just for social media but for manufacturing too appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Inventor 2020.2 Update

On November 14^th, the Inventor 2020.2 update was available. This update focused on delivering on user requests. All in all, over 15 user-driven enhancements were implemented with this update. Here are a few highlights:

Part Modeling

Based on your feedback, we continue to add functionality to the Hole Command. This update includes a “Return to Hole” icon in the ribbon to make it even easier for you to switch between sketching and hole creation when in the Hole Command.

A toggle option for “Allow Center Point Creation” was also added into the command panel.

Solid Sweep was also improved to help users create more complex designs as well as improve performance when impacting multiple solid bodies.

Interoperability

You can now import and export .JT format with graphical PMI data. So the design intent captured with MBD/3DA can be passed when using .JT.

Assembly Modeling

Frame Generator and Tube & Pipe usability improvements continued to be enhanced with Inventor 2020.2. Content filtering, content placement, route definition, and in canvas interaction have all been improved.

With prior updates, we had added additional options when performing an Axis-Axis Constraint. And you let us know you liked the new options, but still wanted the ability to select legacy default behavior. We have now added the legacy behavior of Undirected as a default option.

Last year Tolerance Analysis inside of Inventor was added for Product Design and Manufacturing Collection subscribers. With the latest update, we have improved how constraints are recognized and added the ability for sub-assemblies to be supported in the stack-up detection. We have also added some in-product awareness as we found many of you were not aware you had access to the Tolerance Analysis toolset.

For a complete list of enhancements and fixes, please refer to the online Help and Release Notes.

Looking beyond Inventor 2020.2 – The Inventor Public Roadmap

The Inventor team is excited to release our public roadmap. This past September marked 20 years of Inventor in the market. Many of you have been with us since day one. Many of you have been asking for a public roadmap for Inventor over the past couple of years. Our fellow Autodesk products have begun showing their public roadmaps for a bit now (Revit, 3ds Max, and Fusion 360), and we felt it was time we did the same with Inventor. We want to use the public roadmap as an extension of the Inventor Ideas page, Inventor Forum, and Inventor Feedback Community to show a high-level view of some of the projects in the queue. Many of you have provided feedback, tested alpha and beta builds, and engaged with the Inventor team throughout the years…and we love it. Hopefully, you find the public roadmap valuable and are excited to hear about what is coming in Inventor.

Before we get started, there are a few things our legal team wanted to remind you about:

This roadmap may make statements regarding future events and development efforts for our products and services. These statements reflect our current expectations based on what we know today. Our plans are not intended to be a promise or guarantee of future delivery of products, services, or features, and purchasing decisions should not be made based upon these statements. We do not assume any responsibility to update this roadmap to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the publish date of this roadmap.

How do we decide what to develop for Inventor?

A good place to start is sharing how the product team delivers enhancements. We shifted how we deliver new functionality to our customers, starting with Inventor 2016. Rather than having you wait 12 months, we now look at how we can deliver enhancements as soon as possible throughout the year with product updates. The team has been hyper-focused on delivering on customer requests with each release. The result of this focus: since March 2016 the Inventor team has delivered over 275 customer-driven enhancements over the past 16 updates.

For a refresher on what is in each update, check out the Inventor What’s New from 2016 through 2020.2 here

The next thing we hope to share is how we choose the investment areas in Inventor. We try to have a balanced approach that provides value to existing users, introduces technology to meet industry requirements, and help us attract new users to Inventor.

The way we look at investment areas for Inventor is through the approach of:

We hope that gives you a bit of background. Now onto what we are working on next…

Goal of the Inventor Public Roadmap

The public roadmap is intended to be a snapshot of some of the projects we are working on. This public roadmap, by no means, is a comprehensive list of everything coming in Inventor. Our goal is to show you areas we are working on delivering, so you understand our direction and product focus.

Experience

Inventor 2020 delivered a refreshed UI that featured a “Light Theme.” The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. The one thing people did ask for: a “Dark Theme.”

Based on this feedback, the team has been working hard to deliver a Dark Blue Theme for Inventor that will give users who use both AutoCAD and Inventor a consistent look and feel.

Performance has been an area of focus for the Inventor team over the past few releases. The faster we make Inventor, the larger, more complex designs you create in Inventor. We consistently have users working on assemblies of over 400,000 components and have many users exceeding 1,000,000 component assemblies on a regular basis. Inventor will continue to have a focus on performance. Going forward, the team will focus on specific workflow bottlenecks our customers are seeing.

Recent Inventor releases and updates have also had a focus on Frame Generator and Tube & Pipe improvements. Based on your requests, we know we aren’t done enhancing these two design areas of Inventor and have targeted some key areas for improvement. Frame Generator notch types, geometry filters, in-canvas interaction, and file naming defaults are just a few of the targeted areas.

Tube & Pipe will also look to take advantage of the new file naming options as well modern panel framework to streamline your design workflows.

Many of these improvements are driven directly from your input and feedback on the Inventor Ideas page. We are looking to be open and transparent with you on what ideas we have considered, selected, and are working to implement. With each update, the team targets as many of your Inventor Ideas as possible in every area of the product. Look for upcoming improvements to Sketch Constraints, Browser feedback, MBD, Design Accelerators, Sheet Metal, and Drawings.

Automation

The Inventor team sees automation as more than programming and customizing Inventor. Our goal is really to give users the flexibility and capability to leverage iLogic and the API if they have a need to. But, at a higher level, Inventor should get better with each release in how it helps you streamline your workflows and automate many of the steps you take to complete a task. We will talk later on in this post on how we are working to identify these areas in the product. Let’s start with workflow automation examples.

A few releases ago, we introduced Design Views within Inventor parts (.ipt files). Design Views allows you to pre-define views of your part that can be used in MBD/3DA and 2D drawing workflows. For users that leverage drawing Sheet Formats, our goal is to automate as much of the 2D Drawing creation as possible. The first step is making it easier for you to select Sheet Formats and automate all of the initial view creations and BOM placement within your drawings.

Other workflow areas we are looking to deliver are around Unwrap and Sheet Metal designs. With Unwrap, we want to allow you to define multiple closed loops that can be set as rigid and will not deform as the part is unwrapped.

During a customer visit in Europe, they mentioned their Inventor Idea post and showed us their current Sheet Metal workflow they needed to perform to complete a design workflow. We’ve since seen similar needs in other accounts. The team is now building an option in the Sheet Metal Flange command to allow you to define a Flange angle by Face, Work Plane, or Surface. Taking steps and manual calculation out of the design process.

When we talk about Inventor automation, we must talk about iLogic. iLogic is the heart of Inventor’s automation engine, allowing users to configure, automate, and customize their designs. We want to make iLogic both easier to use and more powerful. Past Inventor updates focused on making iLogic easier to use with autofill, syntax colors, and geometry naming. Our next area of focus in adding additional functionality to allow the user to further automate their drawings with iLogic. iLogic will allow users to control position, colors, and line types of Dimensions, Annotations, Balloons, Views, and Sheets through iLogic rules and snippets.

Users with iLogic driven Inventor designs can also leverage this automation beyond the desktop with Inventor’s Design Automation APIs on Forge commercially released on October 28^th.

One last area of automation is how you work with other Autodesk products alongside Inventor. We want to help you use native data, and consume design changes, as smoothly and easily as possible. AnyCAD support across different versions of Inventor (released in 2017.4) and for Fusion 360 (released in 2018.2). AnyCAD with Fusion 360 enables Inventor users to easily leverage their designs into Fusion 360 for advanced Simulation, Manufacturing, and Generative Design workflows without having to translate files. Likewise, Fusion 360 designs can be opened in Inventor. Both tools allow for associative updates when files are updated in their native design tool.

We have many of you working between Inventor and Revit, as well. Inventor and Revit interoperability is a large and complicated project and involves developers from both Inventor and Revit. Our first objective is to bring in Revit (.rvt) designs into Inventor in a way that is streamlined and associative to the native Revit file.

Insight

Insights is an early area of investment for us on the Inventor team. We leverage data and product analytics throughout the development process, for sure. But, Insight is different from that. Our goal is twofold. One: we want to make sure ware understanding how people are using Inventor, not just what commands they use. Two: can we show you these insights in a way that helps you use Inventor more effectively?

Our modernization project is a good example of this. Not only did we identify highly used commands to build first, but we also looked at how you used these commands in the context of your overall design process. (i.e. we know what the top 5 used commands are in Inventor. But, what we really want to know is how they are used in a design workflow). We call this command flow.

As we have moved commands to the modern panel architecture, we have been able to streamline many of these command flows and improve usability. We have been able to validate and measure this improvement by comparing old and new command flows and have also verified with good old user testing. Test results showed over a 30% drop in click counts, and far faster finish times thanks to things like sketch integration and presets. Here are the eye-tracking results of an experienced user testing the Hole command that was moved to the modern panel architecture in Inventor 2019.

The Hole command is now easier and faster for you to use. This is the idea behind the new command architecture. And, you will see it more and more going forward in Inventor.

Summary

Ultimately, we want all our Inventor enhancements going forward to be driven by all three of these focus areas. By being focused on Experience, Automation, and Insight, we are staying focused on you: The Inventor User.

Get involved

As mentioned above, we love hearing from Inventor users. The Inventor team talks to customers every day via the Inventor Ideas page, and the Inventor Forum.  As part of the Inventor Feedback Community you can get much more information on the projects we are working on for Inventor, and get to test out alpha and beta builds through your browser. We encourage you to be involved in any or all these communities and make your voice heard!

On behalf of the entire Inventor team, I truly thank you for being an Inventor user. We look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,

Loren

@lorenwelch

Loren Welch is a Sr Product Manager for the Inventor product line at Autodesk. Loren has over 20 years of industry experience in multiple CAD/CAM/CAE/PDM software applications and rapid prototyping solutions. He has been at Autodesk since 2008, where he currently manages release planning, product roadmap, and customer engagement for the Autodesk Inventor product line.

The post Inventor 2020.2 Update and Public Roadmap appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

This week is the event of the year for Autodesk, Autodesk University 2019. Taking up the massive Sands convention center in Las Vegas, the conference is the pinnacle of innovation of Autodesk products. From vendors to engineering firms to Autodesk research projects, everything is on display here in Vegas.

The event happens every year, and each year it’s kicked off by the general session, where Autodesk CEO, Andrew Anagnost sets the tone for the entire conference. Perhaps the tone of the entire next year of Autodesk innovation, marketing, and engineering.

In the general session this year, we’ve heard from Andrew, Volkswagen, Disney Imagineering, and a ton of other fantastic innovators from across industries.

So, what’s this year’s motto and them? Better starts here. 

So what does that mean? Main stage at AU2019 has been filled with presentations about how companies are utilizing Autodesk products to make the world a better place. Whether that be creating sustainable housing after natural disasters or reducing the carbon footprint of airplanes through generative design.

If you don’t have the luxury of being at Autodesk University in person, be sure to stay tuned on all of our social media channels as the idea of “Better Starts Here” evolves in the next few days. If you want to watch the entire general session presentation, the live stream recording is linked below!

The post Better Starts Here at Autodesk University 2019 Main Stage appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.

Autodesk manufacturing has adopted a new mantra, one representative of you as the customer and us as your partner.

That new mantra is We Make.

This idea symbolizes what Autodesk manufacturing solutions are, the means by which we can revolutionize the world through design, manufacturing, engineering, and technology. It’s important to note that this campaign isn’t just founded on messaging alone, it is based in the realities of customer’s successes, their stories, and the means by which they have succeeded in the industry. Take a look at the trailer for the We Make project below.

Precise, Dependable, Lightweight, On-Demand, Efficient

These categories, or rather attributes, of design are what we all strive for as engineers and designers. If we could make parts with the above traits each and every time without fail, then nothing but success awaits us. That said, reaching these qualities of engineering and design aren’t easy, as each and every one of you likely knows well.

Precision means hours spent achieving perfect CAD to CAM functionality. Dependability means thinking about every possible failure point in a product and future-proofing. Lightweight-ing means you need to know where and how to take seemingly vital structural components out of your design. On-demand can mean rapid iteration and rework. Efficiency means that all these other tasks need to be done with speed, without fail.

All of these traits stand to define your success as an engineer. If you achieve them, then you’ve succeeded in the design process.

#WeMake at #AU2019

Here at Autodesk University 2019, there’s an entire section of the event center designated to this concept. The product design and manufacturing team has spent the first few dats getting to hear incredible stories from customers about what they make, how Autodesk has helped the, do it, and we’ve gotten to hear great suggestions about what we can do better. At the end of the day, We Make means that each and every one of us has to put in the work.

If you’re lucky enough to be at AU 2019, be sure to stop by the We Make booth, get your free t-shirt, and talk to other customers and professionals here too.

If you want to learn more about the #WeMake campaign, check out the campaign hub here.

The post New Technologies Transform What is Possible with #WeMake appeared first on Inventor Official Blog.