Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Guys

Concerning Inventor 2012...

We do a good bit of deriving parts from assemblies. We have a workflow that works well for us, we create PARTS, put them in an ASSEMBLY, then create new PARTS DERIVED from ASSEMBLY. We use Boolean to add/subtract and disregard parts as needed to create these parts. These parts are now given color and reassembled in an yet another final ASSEMBLY as needed and put into a drawing.

Through Inventor 2011 this worked well. 

In Inventor 2012 the color is disapering as soon as any change is made on a source part.

1 Changing the color does not work.

2 In the derived from Assembly, opening up (in the browser) the individual .ipt's and right clicking and clicking properties and changing the color only stays until the next change to the source prt.

3 Changing EACH individual face by right click, properties and setting the FACE PROPERTIES from "as feature" to "as part" does work, but is ridiculous to change hundreds of faces on each part. (especially considering we did NOT need this step in 2011)

Please Autodesk - HELP!!!   Is there a switch in the registry (to turn off the standard “as feature” to the parts face) or somewhere to help us out with this problem?  

Thanks to all / any in advance.

[#2]

We have the same problem albeit slightly different. 

I'm actually pretty angry this still hasn't been fixed, its been flaky for the last 3 releases (since solid bodies were introduced). It's been posted on several times on this forum over the years and I don't recall an autodesk employee ever commenting on it.

Here is my post http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Color-styles-being-reset-to-source-file-color-style-...

You can fix your issue in a my simpler way than editing the color of each face. But its still unacceptable in my book!

I'm also surprised more people don't have this issue.  Since i believe more often than not a solid body model would emcompass parts with different materials, and not the same materials. Hence why would retaining colors from the source be the rule rather than the exception?

I want to make it clear, that we don't create color overrides in our source files (skeletal/solid body models). But Inventor is seeing the source files default color as an override and is then in turn overriding and constantly resetting the parts color styles!

[#3]

support have verified it and have submitted it to the dev team. Classic. yeah its a problem, sorry we can't help you. we will get back to you when we know more...............in the meantime we were more productive (in this regard) with the last version but Vault has forced us to the this years version.

Not sure it's our responsibility to write a macro to fix it up.

I do apologise for ranting, but this one has really pi**ed me off.

[#4]

No problem with the rant. I am a bit angry myself. Glad to hear I am not alone on this.

[#5]

I created a series of parts using this workflow in 2011 and duplicated tmy actions in 2012.

In 2011 it worked great, in 2012 in fials to show color.

I am uncertain how this forum operates, but do Autodesk people get involved? No one has looked at this at all except for another guy having similar problems.

Any help out there?

[#6]

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Derived-part-color/m-p/2368807/highlight/true#M31998...

This link going back to 2008 dscribes the same or similar problem.

Why am I haveing this now, but never before. We upgraded every year and now w/2012 it shows up?

[#7]

Is this a similar problem going back to the yr 2008, Autodesk acnowledges it is a bug? and it still is not fixed? not certain.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Color-of-mirrored-part/m-p/2289528

[#8]

Hi! I am sorry to hear about the troubles you have experienced in Inventor. By default, the derive assembly part color is linked to the selected design view in the source assembly. Could you try the following and see if it makes a difference?

a) Edit the Derive Assembly node -> go to Representation tab -> uncheck the Link option on the upper right. This step will make sure any design view change will not propagate to the derive assembly part. There is one catch though. If you edit the Derive node, the parts geometry is being reloaded and the derive assembly part color will be in sync with the source assembly color again.

b) Edit the Derive Assembly node -> go to Representation tab -> set it to Master. This step will completely ignore all the color overrides done on the source assembly.

Do you see change in colors? If I understand your workflow correctly, the behavior has been there for a while. There should not be a difference between R2011 and R2012. Please post an example here or send it to me if what you are seeing is dfferent from what I decribe here.

Thanks!

[#9]

Johnson,

This is happening in 2011 and 2012 (only just started happening again in the last 3 weeks with 2011, for some reason) with solid body models being exported to assemblies. So no derived assemblies involved (in my case at least). See my topic thread (there is a link to it in this thread) for a workflow, it has been replicated by the support team and forwarded to the Dev team. 

However, as much pressure as possible from as many fronts will convey how serious this is for us and I can't believe it wouldn't be for anyone else using solid body modeling. A WELL ADVERTISED & MARKETED new modeling technique for Inventor, so I would imagine a lot of people will have introduced it as the defacto way to model in their organisations, as much for the marketing hype from Autodesk and its obvious work flow benefits.

I see there are design reps involved in derived parts now. I'm guessing its this, that has caused the issue in 2012's case. Also I question the value of this feature, since setting the material of a part is WAY more important than setting the pretty color style, this is an engineering package afterall and not a graphical one, you'd be forgiven for thinking that in the last 12 months given the way the Autodesk Marketing guys have been rattling on for the last 12 months. Don't get me wrong I like the pretty stuff as much as the next guy, I'm also appreciative of the new suites, we will definitely be putting the rendering and visualization side of things to use. But this will happen outside of Inventor, since showcase and max's sole purpose in life is to achieve that!

Off topic, but important all the same: Ray tracing in Inventor? Please, what a crock, someone at Autodesk got a little bit excited there and again forgot they are producing an engineering package. Unless you can have it render seamlessly while in 3D orbit with no lag then its pointless. I doubt this is achievable unless you have a super computer at your desk. The only purpose I can see for this is smooth screenshots. Is realtime multicore processing ray tracing available in Publisher? Definitely would be handy there.

Back on topic: A great visual way of being able to tell the correct material has been applied is through the use of color styles. Hence why the materials color styles being overwritten forcefully is such a problem. In our case I have 9 employees sitting here constantly chasing their tails because we manufacture wood based products, and use the 'grain direction' of the bitmaps to orientate the parts for CNC cutting. Suddenly that process is constantly in doubt, 1 sheet of 18mm marine grade ply double sided with Oak veneer is just under $1000 NZD, once the parts have been cut and then had timber edges glued onto them, the cost of those parts jumps up massively. The grain directions must be correct when they go to be programmed and nested for the CNC. Fundamental stuff!

I feel like doing a pack n go for every model we have this issue with and sending it to Autodesk to constantly fix up, I don't see why we should be hemorrhaging the time to do it. Look i get there are bugs in a new release, and its impossible for Autodesk to capture them all, this one however, should have been potently obvious!

Cheers

Scott

[#10]

Scott,

I undertand the frustration about coloring in Inventor in general. It is not ideal. There are places to be improved in this regard. Let me reply to your issues on their own threads. I am afraid lumping all of them together can make it even more confusing. This thread is about Derive Assembly coloring. I will continue the DA coloring discussion here.

Thanks!