Fast Tips for Fast Lives

Have you ever gone to place a drawing view of some sheet metal and the flat pattern option is greyed out? This little ditty I composed slips straight in your iLogic rule and simply unfolds the part and folds it back up again, creating a flat pattern in the process.  Stick it on a trigger just before save in your template file and never have to worry about this happening again! Dim oDoc As PartDocument oDoc = ThisDoc . Document Dim State As SheetMetalComponentDefinition State = oDoc . ComponentDefinition If State . HasFlatPattern = False Then State . Unfold ThisDoc . Document . ComponentDefinition . FlatPattern . ExitEdit End If

Insert useful parameters into your iProperties to create information that is always up to date. Click to export the parameter, then enter that parameter as an expression in your iProperty.  =<parameter> Try it yourself!

5 to beer O'clock and your boss just asked you to do an exploded drawing, but you don't know how? This crash course should teach you all you need to know to get you to the pub on time.  Check it:

People spend hours fannying around in Inventor Studio.  If you just want a still image, you don't even need to touch Studio, and you'll get exactly the same render in a much quicker time.  The only thing you can't do with this method is animations and transparent backgrounds.  So go ahead, wow your colleagues with your new found knowledge!

There are some cool features in the Inventor BOM, but Excel gives you even more control.  Here's how to leverage that power.  What do we want? More Power!!!

Do you have a colleague that can't bothered to fill in iProperty information? Well here's the way to fix his laziness without having to open every part on it's own. 

Sometimes you might want to label your parts in a drawing either with a description or a part number.  This video will show you how to leverage your iProperties to copy and paste leaders everywhere you want them, automatically updating to show the correct information!          

Ever wanted to drive an entire assembly from the top level but are struggling with skeleton frames or linked Excel sheets? This is probably your answer.  Below is a great example of how simply copy and pasting some iLogic code can save you hours of time. It is important to set up your parts to have all the important parameters you want to use, but once that is it done, it is a simple case of changing your parameters at the top level and 'pushing' them to the parts and sub assemblies below.  Check the video and try it out! The code you need is after the break:    Public   Sub   Main () CopyUserParams () End   Sub Private   Sub   CopyUserParams ()      If   ThisDoc . Document . DocumentType  <>  Inventor . DocumentTypeEnum . kAssemblyDocumentObject   Then          MsgBox ( "The active document must be an assembly." )          Return      ...

If you are reusing the same parts, or inserting the multiple identical parts, you can save time on constraints without needing to use sub assemblies.  By dragging the parts out of the browser into the main assembly window, it copies your parts as well as their accompanying constraints.  Check out the video below. 

Import a non-native CAD file into Inventor faster than it takes to read this sentence.  Simply drag the file onto the menu bar. BOOM! What are you waiting for?

Ever wanted to balloon parts in drawings, but there's a transparent part in the way? Maybe you're struggling to find that last un-ballooned part? Here's a tip to help you balloon them. 

Do you want to be Quick Draw Mcgraw on your detailing? Here's a really fast way that involves window selecting everything you want to dimension. Go forth and conquor!

Sometimes there's no way around it, you just have to add lots of sketch constraints to fully define your geometry.  By window selecting items, we can apply multiple constraints at once.  Here's How: