Layer management in Inventor DWG

[guyh]

Hi all,

Is there a way to easily manage layers (turning on and off) that I'm missing?  I really want to almost create the 'isolate' command in the drawing environment.  Turning one layer off is easy, turning several off is a pain for me currently.

Thanks,

Guy

[pauldoubet]

Having used Inventor since R1 and on a daily basis since R3 I have almost forgotten that layers even exist. Can you give us some insight as to why you are needing to 'Isolate' layers in the drawing enviroment.

Paul

[guyh]

I can understand that.  It's a specific situation where for our product documentation there is a requirement for aluminium profiles to have the black fill on them.  This can be done using select as edges and then project geometry before applying the fill, a solution which works Ok but far from perfect.  An example is the fill will fail if applied to a section view which has also been broken then modified. 

To try an improve on this workflow I have tried been using this ilogic code http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor-Customization/Assign-Layers-to-Materials/td-p/287132... to place the aluminium parts on their own layer allowing me to isolate them which should in theory make applying the fill in a complex section view far easier.  We still suffer the same issue with the fill being corrupted because of a view modification but it should in theory make repairing the drawing easier.

I hope that makes sense

Cheers,

Guy

[jtylerbc]

At my old company, we would sometimes turn off layers temporarily to make it easier to clean up unwanted tangent edges on castings (turning them all off gave too little information, all on was too messy).  Turning off the other layers allowed us to box select them instead of picking individual edges, without getting anything we didn't want along the way.

We used a similar technique if we wanted to show hidden lines for specific features, but didn't want them all - turn all the non-hidden layers off, box select everything, turn off the visibility.  Then go turn the visibility back on for what we actually wanted to show.

Unfortunately, the painful way of managing them seems to be the only way.  I think you will have to manually turn off each layer, just as you've been doing.

Maybe there's some way to use iLogic or a VBA macro to turn them all off at once?  Might be something to look into.

[pauldoubet]

Can you post some screen captures of what your drawing needs to look like? That would help me understand what options might be a workable solution for you.

Paul

[guyh]

@ jtylerbc - This is something else which may be used because the people responsible for our documentation have complained about too many lines in PDF's at times if being printed.

Paul,

Here is an example of what we need to achieve or similar.  This was done in ACAD by our French office.  I am pushing for a move to 3D and things like this simple issue become a stick for them to beat me with so I keep looking for the best workflows possible.

Cheers,

Guy

[PaulMunford]

Can't you use the styles manager to set the hatch for aluminium to solid black?

Otherwise, set the selction filter to 'part' - select all the parts you don't want right click and chose 'hide' (you may need to turn of the inheritance option in the view). You can get them back in the parts browser, or by editing the view and turning inheritance back on.

If you really need to hide individual lines, set the selection filter to part or feature, select the bits you want to hide and then right click and choose 'Select as edges'. This will give you the ability to hide lots of lines at once. you get them back by right clicking on the view and choosing 'show hidden'.

Is that any help?

[guyh]

Using the hatch is a work around but you can't have a real solid fill unless I'm mistaken?  We can change the scale and use a double hatch so it looks like a fill but it is in reality lots of black lines which isn't great for printing or in a PDF.

The other workflows are along the lines of things I've suggested Paul and are decent solutions for me but I am trying to consider all user levels and ease of use...... Unfortunately they always draw a comparison with ACAD and make it a negative thing about Inventor rather than looking for the positives..... but that is the battle I have currently in my job.

Thanks for the help fellas.

Guy

[jtylerbc]

I completely missed him saying that these are section views.  I thought he was filling in the geometry on top of a side or front view.

What Paul is saying about the Styles Manager would be the way to go, if these are sections, and if solid fills can be assigned as a default hatch.  If you could get this working, it would be LESS work than what your AutoCAD guys are doing, because it will be automatic.  However, I don't see a way to set a solid fill as a default hatch pattern - it only seems to list the ANSI and ISO patterns as options for me.

[richrossi2869]

I just learned how to do something like this.  

Go into your idw file.   

1.  make a layer you want your part on.

2.  go to the view you need in the browser and right click on the part you want to change.  Click on "Select as Edges"

Now pick the layer you want to put it on.   You can change the color on that part too.  It will retain that color when it exports to Autocad.

[PaulMunford]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Unfortunately they always draw a comparison with ACAD and make it a negative thing about Inventor rather than looking for the positives..... but that is the battle I have currently in my job.

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New program, new workflow. Just using the new software to repeat old workflows is missing the point of taking on the new software! The reason to use Inventor is to improve the current workflow, not to repeat the old one...

I can see that you've got your work cut out for you here, but don't get caught in the trap of fighting these sort of petty issues. Find a  method of achieving great results and just say 'this is how we are going to do it'.

Honestly, most of the guys that I've demo'd Inventor to would be happy to use it - just so they don't have to book up (create a parts list/cutting ticket) any more. Having to use a dense hatch instead of a solid fill is just nit picking.

[guyh]

Hi Paul,

I totally agree and that is my standpoint.  I try to avoid any direct comparisons between the programs because it shouldn't be made in my mind.  Regardless Inventor offers so much more than ACAD and is the future for the company but that does not stop some people trying to make it seem like Inventor is limited for our needs.  I am dealing with a multinational user base throughout several countries so it makes these things a bit more difficult to manage. 

My approach is to refine as best as possible our workflow in Inventor which should reduce any possibility for complaints.  Ultimately those complaining will be forced into adopting Inventor as our sole design platform but for now I'd rather they want to use Inventor over ACAD which will improve the acceptance rate.

It's the help from people on here an other blogs (you know the ones) who make my job easier so it's much appreciated.

I guess the next step is to sign up to Twitter!

Cheers,

Guy