Hello,
I am currentrly trying to pattern a series of square holes that form a simple aztec pattern (attached). I am planning to fill the holes with black dye/paint in order to represent the aztec pattern (hence the holes need to only be about 5mm deep.
The pattern itself should be about 2cm*2cm.
Is there a way to use an image such as the one attached and make it automatically translate that into holes, or do I have to draw it all manually? If I do have to do it manually, can you guys tell me how to create square holes?
Thanks,
Fouad.
PS: I have only just started using autodesk inventor so please spell things out or I will get confused 🙂
I do not know of a way to create parts from images in Autodesk Inventor. I've sort of done it with AutoCAD using a raster image, but I still needed to trace lines, arcs, and circles on top of the image to make an actual drawing of it, so it really did nothing more than import a pattern to trace.
I would just extrude a square as your base (2cm^2), then place sketches of smaller rectangles on the front face of the extruded square. From these smaller rectangles, extrude them ("join" or "cut") to make the rectangular holes. Whether you use join or cut doesn't really matter, it only depends if you want the overall thickness defined by the square extrusion (use cut) or if you want to model this by adding material (use join).
I'm not going to go step by step. If you are unsure how to do this, hit up the tutorials at the link below. The first eight or so should be more than sufficient to teach you how to do this.
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Inventor/enu/2013/Help/0126-Tutorial126/0127-Inventor127
If you import the image into Inkscape (which is freeware) you can translate it to vectors and export it as a .dxf file you can import this information. If the original image is crisp you get a fairly clean dxf file.