Typically, when you author an Inventor model for use with an ABS application, you will want to reduce the amount of detail in that model so that the file size is smaller and so that you are not giving away too much intellectual property. You start with a part or assembly file and use either a simplified or shrink-wrap level of detail (LOD) representation to remove unneeded detail from your model.

You can do this by following these steps:

The shrink-wrap part file is created, and you are returned to the source assembly. In the assembly, the shrink-wrap will be the active LOD. Now you are ready to author the model for the AEC Exchange. See Chapters 8 and 9 for more detailed information on LOD representations.

The AEC Exchange environment allows you to create connector objects such as cables, conduits, ducts, and pipes on the simplified model. These connector objects define the interfaces, which are the connection points between Inventor and the AEC model. Autodesk Inventor allows you to create, edit, and delete connector objects. Here are the steps to create a conduit connector:

A part in the AEC Exchange is the basic unit, that is, a specific size of the component placed within a part family. The part has instance-specific properties associated with it, for example, a name and geometric representation. Use the Export Building Components tool to save model geometry, properties, and connectors to an Autodesk Exchange File (*.adsk) file. An *.adsk file can be read by programs such as Revit MEP and AutoCAD MEP (note that earlier versions of Revit and AutoCAD MEP may not support the *.adsk file format).

For programs that do not currently read the *.adsk file format, such as standard AutoCAD, use the Save AS DWG Solids tool on the AEC's Ribbon to save an active Inventor model as a base solid *.dwg file. You can open this solid in any AutoCAD or Revit program that will read a 3D *.dwg and then use it to ensure fit and placement. Note that there is no connector or property data attached to it. It may be important to know that the resulting solid is initially contained in a block definition. Follow these steps to publish a model in the AEC Exchange tools:

AutoLimits come in three types: Dimensional, Area-Perimeter, and Physical Properties. In the following steps, you'll create a Minimum Distance limit and then define the limit boundaries:

Figure 13.4. Length AutoLimits

You can view all the existing AutoLimits in your model by clicking the white arrow on the browser bar and changing from the Model browser to the AutoLimits browser. You can edit AutoLimits in the AutoLimits browser by selecting each AutoLimits entry and right-clicking it. It is recommended you set the selection filter to Feature Priority, because it will be easier to select the AutoLimits glyphs. You can copy or delete AutoLimits by right-clicking them in the browser. You can also create a group of AutoLimits to control the visibility of related AutoLimits. To do this, follow these steps:

You can use the Find Files tool to locate all references to a specified file. This can be very useful when trying to determine how an edit, revision, or change order will affect existing designs. To use the Find Files tool, follow these steps:

Figure 13.8. Using the Find Files function

Right-clicking a file and selecting iProperties gives you the properties for the selected part or assembly without opening the part or assembly in Inventor, as shown in Figure 13.9. Note you do this after clicking the Properties or Preview button; the iProperty option is not available from Manage view.

Figure 13.9. iProperties in the Design Assistant

Selecting Tools

Figure 13.10. Where Used dialog box

In the Path area under Look In, you can add paths that you want to search. The Where Used tool will list all the files where the specified file is used in some way. File relationships can include but are not limited to derived components and using a part or assembly in an assembly, drawing, presentation, and so on. Figure 13.11 shows a Where Used search run using the Design Assistant on a file in the local Vault workspace. However, the Design Assistant is often used without Vault.

Figure 13.11. Results of clicking Search Now in the Where Used dialog box

You can use the DA to perform management tasks such as renaming, copying, and replacing Inventor files without breaking the links to the files that reference them. This is because DA not only performs the management task on the files but also "cracks" the referencing files and updates the link to the file at the same time. This is the fundamental difference in doing these operations in Windows Explorer (not recommended) and doing them in the DA.

You can use the Pack And Go tool to package an Autodesk Inventor file and the set of referenced Inventor files in a project or folder to a single location. This is a useful feature to typically archive a design and all the files related to the design into a single ZIP file. For example, if you had the following assembly:

the problem is you are not sure what directories the part files are in. Pack And Go can find all the parts for Assembly1.iam and copy them into a new directory. You can then zip the files in that new directory to be archived or sent to other users. You can access the Pack And Go tool by right-clicking in Microsoft Windows Explorer or from a Design Assistant session started outside Inventor. Click the Properties or Preview tab, and right-click the Assembly to access the Pack And Go tool.

To use Pack And Go on an assembly, follow these steps:

Figure 13.13. Pack And Go referencing files found

Typically you will want to configure some of the options because these will yield different Pack And Go results. Here is a description of each:

It is important to note that Pack And Go does not modify the source files. When you package Inventor files, they are copied to the new destination. A log file and a copy of the original project file with a .txt suffix are also copied to the destination folder. Changes made to the packaged files do not affect source files.

Uses of Pack And Go include the following:

Pack And Go uses the active project file. You can change the active project file. If you have files in multiple locations, the project file must specify all those locations.

You can use this tool to copy, rename, and delete style libraries. For example, imagine you are a CAD administrator who rolls out all the standards for your company, and you want to ensure that a good library of styles exists for others to use. The Style Library Manager comes to the rescue in this situation. You can create a new style library using the Create New Style Library button, as shown in Figure 13.15 under the Style Library 2 column. Figure 13.15 shows the dialog box for the Style Library Manager. Any changes in the style library are not available in other documents until Autodesk Inventor closes and a new session is reopened.

You can reuse your styles by copying them from one style library to another by following these steps:

This wizard helps you go through a set of Inventor files (parts, assemblies, and drawings), collect all the style definitions within those files, and write them into a new library or append them to an existing style library. Prior to Autodesk Inventor 9, all styles were stored locally in documents. The key point is that this tool helps you collect the scattered styles into one central repository. Your Inventor files need to be migrated to the current release before using this tool. You can harvest dimensions and text styles directly from your AutoCAD DWG files too. This helps you roll the changes to multiple files in one operation.

To create a task to migrate files in Task Scheduler, follow these steps:

Users can run, edit, delete, or disable tasks once they are created, as shown in Figure 13.23. Tasks are also saved so they can be run again. By clicking Task ID and Name columns, you can sort the data by that column.

Figure 13.23. Editing a task

You can create several subtasks to set up multiple tasks and schedule them to run in a specified sequence at a specified time. Custom subtasks can be also used in a sequential task. One subtask can depend on the output of the previous subtask. Examples of multiple subtasks are as follows:

A form of a COM object that implements the COM interface could be a custom task. For instance, you can use a custom task to open a batch of text files. A type library file called ServiceModuleIntefaceDef.tlb is shipped with the Task Scheduler. To access the COM interface, reference this file within your project. You can create custom tasks in any programming language that supports COM.

In the Multi-Process Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 13.24, you can tweak parameters to complete batch jobs in less time by leveraging the multiprocess support in the Inventor Task Scheduler. Up to 16 processes can be run at the same time. You can set the number of processes and the amount of memory to be used. You can find this setting in Task Scheduler by selecting Settings

Figure 13.24. Multi-Process Settings dialog box

If you were to use the Task Scheduler to publish a DWF file named MI777.ipt, then that becomes the destination MI777.ipt.dwf. Some users find this difficult to accept. The motivation to rename it not as filename.dwf is as follows: if Inventor produces MI777.dwf, then it can be overwritten if you have two files with the same name but different extensions, that is, MI777.ipt and MI777.idw. Therefore, the Task Scheduler takes the current filename with the extension (such as .ipt or .idw) and appends .dwf at the end. There are programs available on the Internet or Windows scripting commands to rename files from MI777.ipt.dwf to MI777.ipt, which could be used to fix the filenames.

You can copy the model iProperties to the drawing iProperties so that they are the same. Copied model iProperties can be used in part lists, title block standard notes, or any annotation that accesses the iProperties. If the iProperties are set up in your drawing template, when you place views of the model on a new drawing, the selected iProperties are copied to the drawing from the source file.

Be aware that, once copied, the properties do not update automatically when changed in the model. To update the copied model iProperties in the drawing, go to the Manage tab (from the drawing file), and click Update Copied Model iProperties. Note also that a drawing will pull properties from only one source. So if you have views of two different models on a single drawing, the properties are pulled from the first model from which a view was created. If you remove all the views of the first model, then the drawing will pull from the second model, but you will need to use the Update button to make this happen.

You can copy iProperties from a model file to a drawing file by following these steps:

Figure 13.26. Copy Model iProperty Settings dialog box

If you have a need to create "stock size" of your parts to be used in your BOM with associativity to model parameters, you can create and manage expressions for iProperties by using the following steps:

Figure 13.27. Concatenating text and parameters in iProperties

Before creating the expression from parameters, you should visit the Parameters dialog box (go to the Manage tab and click the Parameters icon) and do the following:

To promote reuse, create a template file with predefined expressions for iProperties that lets you unify your parts list and other documentation. The Bill Of Materials dialog box provides the Property Expression Builder, which helps you create expressions for iProperties as well. You can then copy the expression to the parameter field of multiple parts in the Bill Of Materials Editor. Using the Bill Of Materials Editor allows you to "reach into" several parts at once and set an expression en masse.

Figure 13.28. Customizing an exported parameter format

Figure 13.29. Expression Builder in the Bill Of Materials Editor

You can use the Design Assistant to copy design properties from one Inventor file to another. To copy design properties from one source file to another, use the following procedure:

Figure 13.30 shows the custom iProperties of one file being copied to another file. You can refer to the "Using the Design Assistant" section earlier in the chapter to learn more about the DA and iProperties. If the active project is set to shared or semi-isolated, then you cannot copy properties to a file that is checked out to someone else or into the workgroup version of a file.

Figure 13.30. Copying custom iProperties from one file to another

You can use the Design Assistant to create design property reports that show the iProperties selected by you. The report is written out to a *.txt file. In the Properties view browser in the Design Assistant, you can select the design properties to display for files.

Measurements can be accumulated, cleared, and displayed in different ways. Figure 13.32 shows some of the options that are useful while using the Measure tool. Here's a list:

One of the advantages of the Measure tool is to enter feature parameters by measuring vs. directly entering it. For example, in Figure 13.33, extrusion depth can be entered as a value of 30mm. Alternatively, you can select the Measure tool from the Depth flyout and then select a model edge. The length of the edge will appear in the Depth control of the Extrude dialog box. This is a convenient way to input dimensions by measuring vs. directly entering it into the dialog box. In the graphics window, click the geometry to measure. The measurement is transferred to the dialog box automatically. Note that this can be used with sketch dimensions as well.

Figure 13.32. Measurement helpers

Figure 13.33. Measure tool and feature parameters

Also shown in Figure 13.33 is the Show Dimensions option. Choosing this option allows you to select an existing feature to temporarily see the consumed dimensions within that feature. You can then select the dimensions on-screen to link the value of that dimension to the dimension you are currently entering. This differs from the Measure method in that the value will update if the object changes, whereas the measured value will stay static.

In assemblies, since you have faces and components, there is a need to differentiate measuring between them. In the context menu, you can change the selection priority.

When Component Priority is selected, the minimum distance is measured between subassemblies. Part priority signifies measurement between parts only. Faces And Edges Select Priority lets you select only faces and edges, which is the default when nothing is preselected. Changing the selection priority resets any existing selections. Figure 13.34 shows the priority type and the respective choices for the selection filter.

In Inventor 2010, you can measure preselected entities. If a selection set is valid for a measurement, the select filter in the Measure dialog box is updated, and the measurement is displayed. For example, if you select two points and then start Measure Distance, you will get the distance between the points. However, if you select three points and start Measure Angle, then the select set is cleared because the Measure tool doesn't know which point is the vertex of the angle.

Figure 13.34. Selection priority for measurements

To guide the direction of the Autodesk design software in the future, your specific use of the Autodesk Inventor software is forwarded to Autodesk if you participate in the CIP. You can access this feature by selecting Help

The CIP is committed to privacy protection. It can collect neither drawing or design data nor personal information such as names, addresses, and phone numbers. It will not contact users by email or any other way. The Customer Involvement Program aids in letting Autodesk know about the most commonly used tools and features, the most common problem areas, and so on. You can stop participation at any time by accessing the controls from the Autodesk Help menu. Your system administrator can also choose to block the CIP.

Customer error reporting is a process by which Autodesk Inventor users can report crashes to Autodesk. A software crash happens when the software program closes unexpectedly. When you have an unexpected error, Inventor shows a dialog box, and you can choose to send the error to Autodesk. CER records the subset of the code that was in use before the crash. The CER report collects a variety of information such as the following:

You can enter the step-by-step process that led to the crash. In addition, you can include your email and contact information. The error data is sent to Autodesk using a secure Internet connection in an encrypted form. If you have concerns about security and personal confidential information being sent to Autodesk, please do not send the customer error report.

At Autodesk, an automated system sorts the report based on the code call stack so that the Autodesk development teams can analyze them. Each set of reports is prioritized based on the number of users having the same issue and how often the problem happens. If there is no current update, Autodesk will use that information for a future update or major release. When the issue is fixed, it is included in either a future maintenance update or a future release of the product. Customers who reported the error are notified. If there is a current update (immediate update notification), it is immediately sent to the customer. If not (delayed update notification), customers are notified when their error is addressed in a future software update.

The Autodesk Multi-Sheet Plot tool opens the dialog box shown in Figure 13.35. It allows you to print one or more drawing sheets of various sizes. Clicking Next takes you to another dialog box that allows you to select drawings. Once the drawings are selected, you can schedule to print the multisheet. This tool helps you reduce paper usage and reduce plot setup time. Besides, it optimizes sheet layout on a selected paper size that you can print directly or save as a batch file. You can access the Multi-Sheet Plot tool by going to Start

The Add-Ins icon opens an Add-In Manager dialog box to make selections on which add-ins you want to load or unload when Inventor starts up. You can access this tool by going to Start

Selecting the Project Editor tool opens a dialog box for Inventor's Project Editor. This is similar to the dialog box that opens after you select the Get Started tab and click Projects in Inventor. You can select each project, make changes to it, and save it without having to open Inventor. You can access this tool by going to Start

Figure 13.35. Autodesk Multi-Sheet Plot dialog box

Figure 13.36. Accessing the Add-Ins Manager