Initial part placement

[ozarkfp]

Often, when placing new items in Inventor, the initial shadowed part appears either off in space or behind existing components. In every case I have personally come across, the optimum placement of the new part is towards the front of the screen, between 'me' and whatever part is on the screen. For example, in the attached image, I want to place a part on the face of the blue tank. But, as you can see, my new part is being shadowed somewhere either inside or behind the surface. It would save a number of adjustments if the initial placement were, as mentioned, somewhere on the viewer's side of the closest part in the camera's view.

[MichaelFarrow]

This is absolutely correct.

More often than not, the initial location of any placed part is either inside existing geometry, or somewhere invisible.  This is most apparent when working with sections on.  Nearly every time you place a part with a section enabled, the part appears on the invisible side of the section.  You then have to disable the section, move the part to the visible side, and re-place the section!  Every time!

Being that the primary function of a section is so that you can work inside solid geometry (like when you want to place parts inside for example), this is a really counterproductive action!