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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

JASON DUPREE
01. Bolted Connection
ECAD Senior Technical Consultant
02. Custom Content Center
In 10 years at ECAD, Jason has taught
over 200 training classes, from inter- 03. Shrinkwrap Substitute
mediate to advanced to customized
04. Linked Levels of Detail
courses in AutoCAD, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechan-
ical, Inventor, Factory Design Utilities, Navisworks, Vault, 05. Assembly Copy
Revit, Advance Steel, Fusion 360 and 3ds Max.
06. Frame Generator
Jason has taught at Autodesk University. He is well-versed in
07. 3D Sketches
customizing and building templates and libraries in Auto-
CAD, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechanical, Inventor, 08. iFeatures
Revit, Advance Steel, and Factory Design Utilities. He is ex-
09. iParts/iAssemblies
perienced and skilled in implementing Vault, including in-
stallation, setup, and customization. 10. iLogic

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 01. Bolted Connection
(One of many Design Accelerators)
If you are putting hardware into your models but are constraining each piece one
at a time, then Bolted Connection is for you.

Setup and Usage – Bolted Connection is considered one of Inventor’s

many Design Accelerators. These are tools allowing you to design
parts based on engineering calculations for components such
as shafts, gears, v-belts, and many more. Some Design Accelerators
place parts from the Content Center, and Bolted Connection is one
of them, making use of the included standard bolts, nuts, and wash-
ers.

This tool is going to allow you to place all components in a connec-

tion at one time as a subassembly. If your Project File is setup to use
Content Center libraries, then Bolted Connection will work for you.
You can run the command from the hot bar after placing a bolt from
Content Center, or start from scratch from the Design Tab. Once in
the Bolted Connection dialog box you will be presented with tools to
select geometry for placement. The right side of the dialog box al-
lows you to select the components that will make up your bolted
connection.

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 Saving connections – While creating the connections is a great tool,
being able to reuse standard connections is where Bolted Connec-
tion really saves time. By expanding the dialog box, there is a space
to save and reuse commonly used connections. To reuse a connec-
tion, after selecting the geometry for placement, you can simp-
ly select a row from your library and click Add. This will populate
the connection components with the ones that are saved in the li-
brary.

Engineering tools – To aid in engineering, the Design Accelerator

tools include a couple of extra tabs for calculations. Utilizing these
tools will allow you to validate your design early in the design pro-
cess.

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 02. Custom Content Center
To make use of Bolted Connection and many other tools, you will be using the
Content Center. If the part numbers, descriptions, or even the geometry does not
match what your company uses, you can customize the Content Center to match
your company standards. You can change what is there by default and/or publish
your own models.

Creation – When you install Inventor, the Content Center libraries can
get installed locally, put on a network location, or even installed on a
Vault server. No matter where they are, the important part is making
sure Inventor is pointed to the correct location. By checking the Con-
tent Center Tab in Inventor’s Options, you can specify the location of
the libraries.

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 Secondly, your Project File will specify which libraries, out of the cur-
rently installed ones, you will see when browsing the Content Cen-
ter. This is also where you can create a custom library. All the stand-
ard Content Center libraries that come with Inventor are read-only. A
custom library will allow you to copy the standard library compo-
nents to your own for editing (in the Content Center Editor) and will
allow you a place to publish your own models.

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 Copying and editing – After copying a part from the standard library
to your custom library you can edit the family table that includes all
the properties and parameters for that part. This table can be edited
within Inventor or opened in Excel for a more familiar workspace.

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 Authoring and Publishing – To take full advantage of publishing parts
to the Content Center, turn them into iParts (discussed later.) When
adding your own parts to a custom library, depending on the part
type, you may need to Author them for use in their specific environ-
ment. For example, a bolt that you would like to use in a Bolted Con-
nection needs to be Authored as a Component/Fastener. A valve you
would like to use in a pipe-run needs to be Authored as a Tube and
Pipe part. Take note that Authoring is an additional step and parts
can still be Published to the Content Center without Authoring them.
During the Publish process you will choose properties, mappings,
and assign important information. Once published, these parts will
be available when browsing the Content Center.

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 03. Shrinkwrap Substitute
You may be familiar with using Shrinkwrap to simplify and export your model, but
that simplified version can also be used as a Level of Detail. Whether you use Level
of Detail for maintaining large model performance or for standard LOD purpos-
es, the Shrinkwrap Substitute command will make the simplified version of the model
a Level of Detail to which you can easily switch.

Creation – Running the Shrinkwrap Substitute command gives a wide

range of options from removing parts altogether, to removing specific
features like holes, fillets, chamfers, etc. Once you run the command, a
new Level of Detail is created within your model.

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 Usage in LOD – The Level of Detail functionality is really useful when
subassemblies are placed in parent assemblies. By expanding
the subassembly, you can access the representations folder to set the
appropriate Level of Detail. The top-level assembly will need to be
set to a custom Level of Detail when changing the LOD on your sub-
assemblies. This will save the LOD set on all your subassemblies so
that when a specific LOD is set in your top-level assembly, the LOD of
all the subassemblies will change with it! (See the next section.)

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 04. Linked Levels of Detail
No matter how you use Levels of Detail, changing each LOD in your subassem-
blies can be a cumbersome and lengthy task. Using Linked Levels of Detail will
alleviate that process by simply matching-up LOD names.

Naming scheme – When creating Levels of Detail within your assem-

blies, it is best to choose a naming scheme that can be used
in all your assemblies. You could use LOD200 or some-
thing similar to specify the amount of detail in that LOD. If you main-
tain a naming scheme across all assemblies, changing the Level of
Detail in every subassembly at one time takes just a few clicks with
Linked Levels of Detail.

Usage – The tool itself is simple to use. By choosing a Level of Detail

name from your top-level assembly, any subassembies with LODs of
the same name get changed at the same time.

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 05. Assembly Copy
While tools like iLogic, Design Copy, and Copy Design within Vault are all
great, they require you to make the copy outside the model interface. The Copy
tool within the assembly environment can be an overlooked asset, but allows you
to make a copy of a design from within a top-level assembly, making it possible
for you to reference parts and placement.

Copying a design – The Copy command is a simple, yet elegant way

of choosing a subassembly and then choosing which parts and com-
ponents will be copied, reused, or excluded. Inventor’s other copy
design tools are more involved and can require a bit more planning,
but the Copy command in the assembly environment can be a great
on-the-fly tool to use without having to leave your assembly or close
any files.

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 06. Frame Generator
Structural steel shapes are one of the many time-saving models that come with
the Content Center. Placing them directly from the library is fine for generating
the size and length frame member your model needs, but it can be very ineffi-
cient if you are building a framework of steel shapes. Similar to Bolted Connec-
tions (discussed previously) when it comes to connection assemblies, Frame Gen-
erator is a tool that ties those structural Content Center parts to sketch geome-
try, 3D edges, or 3D points. Additionally, there are special tools to apply end
treatments to the structural members after they are placed.

Skeleton creation – To utilize Frame Generator, you will need to first

create a part that is the “skeleton” of your frame. This can consist of
all-sketch-geometry but can also be built from 3D solids where
Frame Generator would use points and edges as the references for
the frame members.

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 Adding structural members – Once the skeletal part is complet-
ed and placed into the top-level assembly, choose the Insert Frame
command from that top level. From the Insert Frame dialog box, you
can choose the member type, size, orientation, center line, and offset.
Choosing the placement of the member is as simple as clicking on
the geometry within the skeleton part (sketch geometry, edges, etc.).
Members can be placed one at a time or several at once if the orien-
tations are the same. This will automatically create a subassembly and
folder structure for all the part files that comprise the frame.

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 Editing/End Treatments – The frame member parts are placed
from the Content Center as custom parts, meaning they are not
saved within the library folder specified in your Project File. Instead
they are placed in a folder within the same folder as your assembly
file. This allows these part files to be edited.
Even though two frame members could be the exact same shape
and size, one may need a feature that the other does not, such as a
particular cut or extrusion. Editing the individual members is as sim-
ple as activating the part level and editing it like a normal part.
More than likely, most frame members will need a form of end treat-
ment. End treatments are applied at the top-level assembly and are
run from the Design Tab. Mitering, notching, trimming and extending
can all be done very easily using these tools.

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 07. 3D Sketches
Sketches form the basis of creating 3D geometry in Inventor. Using frame genera-
tor to create a box frame would require at least two 2D sketches. Utilizing 3D
sketches can simplify this process and take your part modeling to the next level.

Creation/draw tools – Starting a 3D sketch is done by clicking the

drop down for the 2D sketch tool. While sketching in a 3D environ-
ment can take some time to get comfortable, the tools and behaviors
are very similar to those you find while creating a 2D sketch.

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 The 3D sketch environment does provide access to additional geom-
etry creation tools that you would not be able to create in 2D, such
as helical curves. Other unique tools available are constraints that
lock geometry to a plane or axis and tools for projecting 2D geome-
try onto a 3D face, making the geometry form fit to that face.

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 08. iFeatures
Reusing standard parts is easy and part of the normal Inventor workflow. Reusing
features or typical geometry on parts is not quite as straight forward. Features can
be saved as iFeatures which can be saved locally or on a network location to be
accessed by a team.

Creation/Saving – Creating an iFeature starts by creating a feature or

set of features as you normally would. This can be done on one of
your typical production parts or you can create a simple piece of ge-
ometry to act as a template for iFeature creation.
To save a set of features as an iFeature, start the command and the
dialog box has options to choose the feature(s) and the correspond-
ing reference geometry for how they are to be placed (i.e. a face that
has the base sketch). Next you can choose which parameters should
be editable once the iFeature is placed.
All of these settings are captured in an IDE file that you can save into
a library location for later use. If you are familiar with Inventor’s Sheet-
metal functionality, this is the same filetype that is used for a Punch.

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 Usage – When placing an iFeature into a new part, you get access to
all the same prompts and parameters that you saved when creating
the iFeature. The reference geometry gets chosen first, followed by
making changes to any necessary parameters.

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 09. iParts/iAssemblies
In basic terms, the Content Center is just a collection of table-driven parts and
features. Table-driven parts can be utilized outside of the Content Center by us-
ing iParts. While assemblies can not be published to the Content Center, they can
still be created as table-driven assemblies using iAssemblies.

Creation/Editing – Creating an iPart/iAssembly starts by making a

part/assembly as you normally would. To assist in your iPart creation,
we have found it to be a good practice to rename important parame-
ters in your model. Converting the file to an iPart/iAssembly brings
up a dialog box with a table where you can create additional rows for
different versions of the same part. The columns of the table consist
of the important parameters in the model and if you have renamed
them, they are easier to spot. These can be keyed to set a cascading
selection of parameters according to importance.

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 Usage – After the iPart/iAssembly is created, they can then be placed
into an assembly. Once placed, the user is prompted to choose one
of the rows in the table to create the version, which can also be cho-
sen by selecting from the keyed set of parameters. This generates a
new part file for that version but can also be swapped-out for a differ-
ent version by expanding the part in the browser, right-clicking the
table, and choosing Change Component.

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 10. iLogic
Inventor’s iLogic functionality is extremely powerful, but some users avoid it be-
cause they see the coding syntax and avoid investigating the functionality any fur-
ther. This is a mistake! Inventor’s iLogic will allow you to perform certain tasks and
automate others that would simply be impossible otherwise. The variety of things
you can do with iLogic is only limited by your imagination once you understand
this rules-based feature.

Overview – iLogic enables rules-driven design. While coding can

seem intimidating for some, the snippets that come “out of the box”
provide a wide variety of options with very little programming
knowledge necessary. A simple understanding of if-then statements
can take a non-programmer very far. By examining the snippets, you
will notice that there are ways to control everything from parameters
within a file to setting how views fit within a drawing and much, much
more.

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 A simple example to help get you started with iLogic is driving part
parameters from its top-level parent assembly. While it’s easy to link
parameters between parts, driving them from the parent assembly
can cause a cyclic dependency. Inventor’s iLogic gives us a way to
work around this. Within the iLogic window you can expand the mod-
el and see the parameters within the model. Create a new rule by
simply double-clicking the parameter name to get something similar
to following:

Parameter("PITCH PLATE:1", "DIA")=Plate_DIA

The first section calls out the parameter named DIA from the Pitch
Plate part. The equal sign creates the rule saying that this parameter
will be equal to Plate_DIA, which is a parameter at the parent assem-
bly level. Using this method can allow you to quickly setup and drive
any child part parameters from parameters in the assembly. Take
these parameters into a form to make changes even easier.

We are just scratching the surface of what iLogic can do and its capa-
bilities far exceed the scope of this short eBook, but keep investigat-
ing all the snippets!

Here’s another example that shows a rule to create a PDF while

providing feedback via error or success notifications. How far you
take iLogic is up to you, but there is something in there for every de-
signer.

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 ECAD, Inc. is a proud Platinum Partner of Autodesk. Our company in-
cludes a highly skilled technical team that’s well-versed in Architec-
ture, Engineering & Construction, computer-aided Manufacturing and
Process & Power programs. We work together to provide the best
possible solutions for our customers through professionally certified
training, superior support, and customized services.
www.ecadinc.com

Autodesk, Inventor and the Autodesk logo are registered trademarks

or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affili-
ates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, prod-
uct names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings,
and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not
responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in
this document. © 2020 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

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