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Greetings!
What happened to the MDT v. Inventor Challenge?
It's been a month and about 30 readers downloaded
the MDT vs. Inventor challenge, but none of them have
emailed me with their results.
The gauntlet was thrown down by Paul Waddington of
Sydney, Australia. He claims that MDT is superior to
Inventor. He says he can create a 3D model of this
drawing in under ten minutes. The same model took me
more than thirty in Inventor.
I asked readers of this newsletter to download the file
and see if they could create this model in Inventor or
MDT and how much time they spent.
Surprisingly, nobody from Autodesk took the challenge -
even though several Autodesk employees subscribe to
this ezine. Does this indicate a lack of confidence? Or,
are they just too busy to play?
If you took the challenge, Paul and I are anxious to
hear how you did. Email me and let me know your
results.
Take the challenge...
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Item Balloons in Inventor |
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Apparently, a lot of Inventor users are under the
mistaken impression that they can only use one item
balloon style in Inventor.
Some users have even taken the drastic step of
exporting their idw files over to dwg and placing their
item balloons as blocks in AutoCAD. This causes them
to sacrifice that all import link between their parts lists
and their item balloons.
All you need to do is go to Format->Standards and
select the Balloon tab. You'll see you have a choice of
four different balloon styles, including a split balloon
(where you can designate an item number and a sheet
number) and even a property balloon.
If you select the property balloon option, you can bring
up the list of properties for any part. For example, you
can call out the description of screws - how cool is
that?
However, everything is not perfect in Balloonsville.
For one thing, if you do use the split balloon option,
you can not edit the Sheet Number, only the Item
Number. Also, while you can substitute a custom
symbol for a balloon that has already been placed, you
can not set the Balloon options to use a custom symbol
right from the get-go.
I consider the following bugs in Inventor (and as of
now, they exist in R8 as well):
- Defined property fields are completely ignored by
Inventor when a custom symbol is substituted for the
Item Balloon
- Assemblies are not listed as a Property Type under
Property Fields nor is Item Number under Property
- There is no way to edit the secondary value for a
split balloon, even though it is a balloon type option
- There is no way to designate a custom symbol in
the Format->Standards->Balloon tab (this means you
want to substitute a custom balloon, you have to
balloon an assembly and tediously replace each balloon.)
- If you substitute a custom symbol for a standard
balloon, Inventor does not allow you to bring up and
edit the property fields
I have advised Buzz Kross of the issue and
hopefully we will see it corrected in a future release.
Tutorial on Creating a Custom Balloon »
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From-To Lists Instantly Generated & Updated |
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I used to call these bonding moments. Frank, the EE,
and myself, the ME, would sit in a conference room.
Frank would have the schematics and a yellow
highlighter. I would have a list of From-To call-outs. I
would read from the list and Frank would use the
highlight to verify that the connection was shown
properly in the schematic.
Frank and I became really good friends and I looked
forward to our times together in the quiet conference
room, pouring over those sheets for hours at a time.
Was this a good use of our time? Gee, I don't know.
We found several errors and it is expensive to fabricate
boards, so eliminating those errors prior to fab is always
a good idea.
Today, we have AutoCAD Electrical. It generates
those From-To lists automatically and checks the
connections for you, along with several other
automated reports. You can even use Lisp to create
your own custom reports.
Have you checked out AutoCAD Electrical? »
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ADT 2004 Napkin Sketch |
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The way Napkin Sketch works is it converts the
selected objects to a block. You can access the
napkin sketch tool from the Content Browser. It is
located with the Helper Tools in the Stock Tool catalog.
Once you convert the objects to a Napkin Sketch, you
can not UNDO. Even exploding the block will not bring
back your original drawing. So, you may want to copy
the entities you plan to convert in case you don't like
the results.
When creating a napkin sketch of any 3D view, use the
Createhlr command on your design to create a clean,
hidden line projection of your model. Then use the
napkin sketch feature on that resulting block to create
high-quality presentation graphics.
Download a Free Tutorial on how to use Napkin Sketch »
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ADT's Drape Command |
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Want to create terrain models for your designs in
Autodesk Architectural Desktop? It's simple. Use the
new Drape tool to convert a series of polylines (contour
lines) that have different elevations. The result will be
a freeform mass element that can be used to represent
terrain models for presentation purposes.
- On the Massing tool palette, select the Drape tool.
- Select the polylines to represent contours, and
press ENTER.
- Select the mesh corner, and then select the
opposite mesh corner.
- Enter the mesh size, and press ENTER.
- Enter the base thickness, and press ENTER.
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New Tolerancing Tool for Inventor Now Available |
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GEOMATE Corp. today announced ToleranceCalcÒ
1.0, an automated tolerance stack-up calculation
wizard especially created
to assist Autodesk InventorÒ and AutoCAD
MechanicalÒ software users in
conducting tolerance studies of parts and assemblies at
any stage of the
design process. ToleranceCalc wizard is a fast and
inexpensive plug-in
for Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Mechanical
software that enables users
to make sure the parts they are designing will fit, can
be manufactured
cost-effectively, and the final product will work the
very first time.
ToleranceCalc, working within Autodesk Inventor and
AutoCAD Mechanical,
does not require any specialized knowledge of
dimensional engineering and
has a learning curve of minutes. Which means, all
engineers as well as
designers using Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD
Mechanical software can quickly
benefit from ToleranceCalc to achieve higher product
excellence.
Learn more... »
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Learn about Design for Experimentation (DOE) On-Line |
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Visit Stat-Ease's website to learn more about Six Sigma
and DOE.
The website features a basic statistics course that
gives people the
background
information they need to feel comfortable taking a DOE
workshop. There
is
also a free self-assessment questionnaire on the site
where people can
test
their basic statistical knowledge.
Sign on as a New Student.... »
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Dimstyle Problem in New Drawings |
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From Marc in New York City -
Everytime I open a drawing in ACAD 2002 (or also
previous versions) and want to start dimensioning the
dimstyles have a (style overrides) setting which
automatically gets created somehow. I have to delete
this to get back to the current settings to continue
dimensioning. It's not a problem so much as it is
annoying and I was just wondering if there is any way
to fix this or correct it permanently with a dimstyle
setting?
The default template used in AutoCAD 2002 and below
is acad.dwt. This is the template used whenever you
create a new drawing. Whichever template Marc is
using has the dimstyles set with style overrides.
This underscores the value of taking the time to set up
your template properly with the layers, dimstyles, and
even loading favorite blocks. Instead of wasting time
resetting options with each new drawing, you'll be
saving time instead.
And remember in AutoCAD 2004, you have the even
cooler option of setting which template to be used
when you press the QNEW button - thus skipping the
start-up dialog.
Simply go to Options->Files and scroll down to the
area designating the template to be used for QNEW.
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Controlling Dimension Style using Visual Basic |
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Last week, I provided some sample code on how to
change dimenstyles using Lisp. This week, you can
check out how Visual Basic does it.
The following sample code changes the active dimstyle:
***
Set VariableName = This.Drawing.Add("DimstyleName");
This.Drawing.ActiveDimstyle = VariableName;
***
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