Fast Tips for Fast Lives

How do I know what type it is? If your supplier sends you a file that imports as loads of triangles, it is a mesh file and in most cases will be difficult to work with. These are most commonly found in STL files and Inventor has limited editing tools for this.  If you have access to Fusion 360, this program is much better equipped to deal with mesh files and I would recommend that route over Inventor.  If the file is a solid model, you are good to go, but if it's a surface you may need to do some extra work on it.  The easiest way to tell the difference is to look in the browser. Solid bodies will appear under the Solid Bodies folder and surfaces in the Surface Bodies folder. A surface will also have an orange icon whilst a solid is usually blue.  Another way to check is to use the half section view command on the view tab. A solid model with have a mottled texture inside: Whilst a surface model will be hollow: How do I make it into a solid? Solid models are usually ...

Appearances  Appearances (the colour of your part) are usually applied through the top drop down menu.         They are stored in two places, locally in the file, or in the central library. Any appearance stored locally will only be available for that file. Whereas any appearance in the library section will be available for all files and all users, assuming that you share a common library.  You can see what is contained in each by clicking the colour wheel on the top bar: The appearance window The appearances browser is split into 3 parts: The window at the top shows all appearances stored locally in the document.  The area down the side shows all libraries relevant to your project file. The central area is where all library appearances are shown.  Any appearances that have been applied through the top drop down menu will appear in the local area. If you click the create new button in the bottom left, this will also appear in the local sectio...

  Pretty much every business has a template that shows this error message, but most people just click OK and carry on.  What are styles? Styles exist in many different environments in Inventor. They hold information that you want to standardise and use again and again. For instance, in the drawing environment it holds your dimension styles, font setups, layers, leader appearance etc. In part files it holds lighting and text styles. Assemblies, appearances and sheet metal styles include unfold rules. These styles can be saved in two places: Locally in the template itself. Centrally in the style library (this should be the same library your colleagues share) What does the error mean? What this dialogue basically says is, that the styles in the template do not match the central library styles.  How do you fix it? Open your template file. The location of this is shown under 'Folder Options' in the 'Projects' window on the 'Get Started' ribbon. Once the template is o...

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: