topic Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop in Inventor Forum

Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

Anonymous — Tue, 29 May 2018 21:39:29 GMT

I don't know about everyone else, but I am sooooo glad they haven't fixed this after all these years... What would we do if they got rid of all these random and annoying little things...?

kelly.young has embedded your image and edited your subject line for clarity: Level of Detail Loop

Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

johnsonshiue — Tue, 29 May 2018 21:39:49 GMT

Hi! I appreciate your sense of humor. I get it. Inventor LOD is partially mislabeled and partially misused frequently. Every time I start discussing LOD, I always brings up some historical perspective. LOD is a memory management tool enabling 32-bit Inventor to handle large assembly design. On 32-bit Windows, any given application can only use up to 3GB memory. Without ability to unload documents from memory, users would not be able to design large assembly requiring more than 3GB memory.

Some people believe LOD is a configuration tool. I personally do not think it is true. It is because, although an assembly can have unlimited numbers of LOD reps, two or more different LODs cannot be saved simultaneously. Only one LOD state can be saved back to the file at a time. However, each LOD state can be documented as a different drawing view which creates an illusion that each state can be documented independently. This is not true unfortunately. The drawing view does show the assembly geometry in such state. Each view still generates the same PartsList and Mass Prop. This is why I said LOD isn't a configuration tool. It was not designed to be one. Nor would it behave like one.

We are aware of the need to have one assembly representing multiple design intents. In the meantime, you may consider using Design View representation (with visibility filter to override PartsList) instead of LOD for configuration purpose. Design View is limited to managing component visibility and appearance. Changing shape from one rep to another is not yet supported. If you are interested in this discussion, you may want to sign up Inventor Beta (https://bit.ly/InventorBeta) and participate in Alternative Representation discussion.

Many thanks!

Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

Anonymous — Tue, 29 May 2018 21:40:17 GMT

I kind of understand... very complex huh... thanks for the explanation. The thing I don't get is, I have used only one "Level of Detail" on a drawing. These views require an update every time I open the file (a loop...). I get the attached error..... If I close the drawing I can activate all Level of Details and save.... but then when I open the Drawing it requires the model to be updated.... and so the loop persists...

Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

johnsonshiue — Tue, 29 May 2018 21:40:37 GMT

Hi! It is indeed a bit complicated but I try my best explaining. I forgot to mention a fact. When an assembly is in a non-master LOD, the update is using cached geometry since the suppressed components are not loaded. To ensure the assembly be fully updated, you need to activate master LOD, update, and save. Then, the so-call LOD loop will stop.

Many thanks!

Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 21:57:16 GMT

That works most of the time, but I have one assembly in particular that it just doesn't work... the assy file may be corrupt I suppose....?

Re: Inventor 2018 Level of Detail Loop

johnsonshiue — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 01:05:05 GMT

Hi! It is hard to tell without seeing the files. Please send them to me directly (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com) or share them on a cloud drive of your choice.

Many thanks!