Inventor Fusion

[#1]

Hello again:

 Being a very new user, I am having an incredibly difficult time trying to figure out how to do the simplest things with this program.

 All I want to do is scale an object (make a cylinder slightly wider/more oval in shape).

 I have started the Scale command and selcted the cylinder and then I am prompted to "select a reference point for scaling" and I have no idea what that is. No matter where I click, nothing happens.

 I am obviously missing something here. All I was expecting was for some sort of manipulator symbol to appear (like the Move manitpulator thing)  and I could drag with an arrow to scale the object to whatever I wanted on whatever axis I chose.

This is extremwely frustrating as I am finding Inventor Fusion to be one of the most non-intuitive modeling programs I have ever used used.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[#2]

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tom wrote:

 All I want to do is scale an object (make a cylinder slightly wider/more oval in shape).

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I don't think there is a way to "squash" a cylinder.
You have to make it that way see Loft command.

[#3]

Thanks, JD. In this particular case, I just want to know how to make the cylinder lightly wider in one direction so it's not perfectly circular.

But aside from this example, I have no idea how to scale anything because of this "select reference point" problem.

[#4]

• The sketch command "Center 2-Point Ellipse" can help you draw squished cylinders.
• Points for scaling can be selected from a number of places: sketched points, the ends of model edges, or from origin.

Please mark this response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.

Thanks!

[#5]

Thank you very much for your reply, Phil! I appreciate you taking the time to help out a newbie very much.

I was able to draw a cylinder with the Ellipse tool and scale it uniformly after it was extruded from the origin point.

But how do I scale a cylinder (and other objects) non-uniformly after it has been created?

Like if I just wanted to stretch something wider, how do I go about doing that?

While I am not very experienced with Inventor Fusion, I am sure it can be done. I am just continually baffled by the non-intuitive/arcane processes that one has to go through to do the simplest of tasks such as this.

Wouldn't one expect to select the object, click the Scale feature then have a Scale gizmo pop up with the option to scale and object along the X/Y/Z axis?

GAH!!!!

Anyway... again, thank you very much for your help, Phil.

Tom

[#6]

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tom wrote:

While I am not very experienced with Inventor Fusion, I am sure it can be done. I am just continually baffled by the non-intuitive/arcane processes that one has to go through to do the simplest of tasks such as this.

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I am not very experienced with Fusion either, but am quite certain it can't be done (the way you expect).

Have you tried the full Autodesk Inventor rather than Fusion?

[#7]

Thanks again for your reply, JD.

As someone who has just finished college, there is no way I could afford to buy the full version of Inventor or even Inventor LT.

 And judging by the "nonintuitiveness" for doing even the most basic things (despite Autodesk's claims about ease of use), I am not sure I would even if I could afford it.

Thanks for your reply, JD as well as your much-appreciated help with my previous questions here on the forum!

sincerely,
Tom

 

[#8]

And if what you say is true that one can't scale an object along one axis using the Scale command, that seems like a huge shortcoming with Inventor Fusion.

 Pretty much every modelling as well as 2D program I have ever used has the option of scaling either uniformly or along one axis only.

 There must be a way to do this because it's such a basic thing to be able to do.

 But thanks again, JD.

[#9]

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tom wrote:

 And judging by the "nonintuitiveness" for doing even the most basic things (despite Autodesk's claims about ease of use), I am not sure I would even if I could afford it.

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Inventor Fusion is not Inventor.  I have no idea why they named it as they did.
I don't have a clue how to do much of anything in Fusion.

[#10]

Yes. Quite often I have been following tutorials and looking up help files only to find out halfway through that I was follwing something for Inventor rather than Inventor Fusion.

Not sure how that decision was reached in the Autodesk boardroom but.... sheesh!