topic Re: iMates workflow in Inventor Forum

iMates workflow

G60Dubs — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:59:56 GMT

Looking for some clarity as I have been long aware of imates but never implemented them from scratch.

Is it possible to create a blind hole preset with an iMate at the drillpoint and author a matching mate on a dowel pin?

I'm authoring a lot of content center stuff at the moment and have moved onto authoring Dowel pins. If I can get the above to work (robustly) then it should be a decent timesaver.

Re: iMates workflow

johnsonshiue — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:41:54 GMT

Hi! I am not sure if the Preset can help. But you may deliberately create an iMate on one part and a matching iMate on the other part. Then publish them to Content Center. This is exactly how CC fasteners and other parts auto mating works.

Many thanks!

Re: iMates workflow

G60Dubs — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:24:49 GMT

Morning Johnson

Thanks for the speedy reply. I'm aware of the deliberate iMates on Conent like fasteners and tube and pipe. This situation is slightly different as the non fastener part would only exist in the modelling environment where the placed dowels would be CC authored. As such my ideal would be to create a range of blind hole presets where the only iMate is at the blind drillpoint closed loop (e.g bottom of the hole and not the top as appears to be default). When I try to add a hole preset there is the iMate option but it only creates an iMate at the part surface boundary (hole top). Is there a way to customise the iMate in the preset so it sits at the bottom of the blind hole by default? Can a direct edit be done on the preset xml file? (Actually now that I think about it I cannot remember where this lives)

Re: iMates workflow

johnsonshiue — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 21:41:29 GMT

Hi! I am sorry I am not aware of such setting to do that. The automatic iMate created by the feature is usually by the face or the edge.

Many thanks!

Re: iMates workflow

G60Dubs — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 10:56:16 GMT

Hi Johnson. Thanks for the reply. I had arrived at the same conclusion. Instead I authored a bunch of hole presets for dowels so that in itself will have to suffice as a workflow optimisation.