But I liked Feature Recognition

Have you ever put on a pair of jeans and you find $10 in your pocket?
Even a dollar feels good sometimes right?

Well here is something I stumbled upon yesterday while I was looking for another setting.
Some of you may love Inventor Fusion and it's quick heads up display, but some of you would like to just move on and not feel forced into it.

So if you have already had to do a feature recogntion on 2011 non-Inventor parts, you've already noticed that when you double click on the base1 solid, it will take you straight to Inventor Fusion to recoginize features and make changes to the part. This is actually a quick and easy way to make changes and then it takes you right back to Inventor when you're done and gives you a base solid again with no features.

However, if you would like to have a part that keeps the features that have been recognized, then you'll want to use Inventor's feature recognition instead.


So, what happened to Feature recognition for Inventor 2011?
Here is the quick tech tip:

Challenge:
In Inventor 2011, you import a file other than Inventor such as Solidworks, Step, Pro-e, or Iges, when you double click on the base1 to edit using feature recognition, but instead it wants to take you to Inventor Fusion.

Solution:
If you are not yet familiar with Inventor Fusion and wish to continue using Inventor’s feature recognition from Autodesk Labs, you will want to download the latest version from http://bit.ly/9vZtwi, and then in Inventor 2011 go to Tools>Application Options, and on the “Part” tab go to the lower left hand corner where you will find “Edit Base Solids using,” and choose “Legacy Solid Edit environment.” The change will take effect immediately upon opening a new part, there is no need to reboot or restart Inventor.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(next to come is a tutorial on how to use Feature Recognition, and/or Inventor Fusion)

Almost BIM ready

It's definitly been a while since my last post, how time flies when your having fun, recently became a dad, and now that we have a little schedule worked out, ready to blog again.


This topic is one I have been meaning to get to for a while. There's been more and more talk about being BIM ready. The truth is if you have Inventor 2010, you are BIM ready, except for a couple of things.


One very important thing I want to mention again is that you have service pack 1 for Inventor:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13713884&linkID=9242019


or the following hotfix:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13105818&linkID=9242019


Plus the person on the other end, the Revit user, must also have downloaded the latest update (build) for Revit which can also be found at:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13105818&linkID=9242019





And finally, one more thing to know before you send off the resultant adsk file.



If you have already tried to save out to AEC exchange for Revit and noticed that the preview gets flipped there is a quick UCS change you will have to make.

See, for Inventor users, or typical Manufacturing CAD users, the X-Y plane is our Front view. While for Architectural users, Revit users, X-Y is the Top, or plan view. Therefore, there is a quick and easy way to do that in Inventor so you have a much happier architect:


Once selecting Environemnt>AEC Exchange you will notice that the Y axis points up, X is pointing away from you and Z towards you,

If you were to click on export, what will happen is you get a preview like the following image which turns it on it's back:



To fix this you can use the UCS icon to specify an origin. I usually just use 0,0,0, but you may use another if you'd like.
QUICK TIP: hitting "tab" on your keyboard while typing in the coordinate will make a jump from x to y and or z depending which one you are editing.
Then click on the x axis (not the arrow, but the actual red line) and choose to rotate it 90 degrees resulting in your Z axis pointing up.

Lastly, when you choose "Export Building Components" click on the Named UCS box and choose UCS1

That will do it, now you can just fill in the property data and export it out.

Alternatively, if you know from the beginning that you will be making a model to export out to Revit, you can build your model so that the XY plane is the top of your model, or you can add a UCS also for your models.

Hope this comes in handy for some of you, now you are BIM ready.