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!