topic Re: Embossing on an assembly in Inventor Forum

Embossing on an assembly

JimmyRecard — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 15:05:09 GMT

Why on earth cant you emboss on an assembly part? It makes more effort having to create a new model ipart and deriving the assembly so i can emboss onto the diameter. I use this feature alot due to the fact we laser etch most of our parts so its very annoying that this simple feature isnt available

Re: Embossing on an assembly

Curtis_W — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 15:36:59 GMT

Hi Steve.Godfrey,

I don't have an answer to your question of why, but here are some links to IdeaStation ideas, that suggest the same thing, albeit in a more broad sense than just the emboss tool:

Maybe everyone that reads this thread and agrees can give these ideas a vote:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/add-missing-features-in-assembly-level-features/idi-p/3691590

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/coil-features-in-assemblies/idi-p/5834836

But I agree with your thought that this is limitation of Inventor currently that would be very helpful for laser engraving and / screen print workflows.

If you think that the IdeaStation ideas linked above are not sufficient, you can create your own, or just share other ideas about how to improve Inventor with the Development Team using this link"
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/idb-p/v1232

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

Re: Embossing on an assembly

mcgyvr — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 16:47:16 GMT

If it wasn't for the "diameter" then you could just use extrude..

Luckily all my silkscreening is done to flat surfaces.. I always create the silkscreen as its own part and place/constrain it in the top level assembly..

Re: Embossing on an assembly

JimmyRecard — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 07:56:49 GMT

Extruding is fine yes for flat surfaces but alot of our etching goes onto the diameter, I think creating a new part to contstrain onto it would take longer than deriving the assembly into an ipart and embossing that. It just seems stupid that you cant do such a simple thing just because its an assembly

Re: Embossing on an assembly

SteveMDennis — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 14:48:17 GMT

Steve,

Why some features are in parts and not in assemblies is a very long conversation.

Resource limitations when we implemented it, architecture in assemblies doesn't support required data/funcationality, etc.

Please utilize IdeaStation to help us prioritize which features to add to assemblies first. We can't do them all and we need your help to figure out where best to invest our resources.

One key difference is that assembly features are "controlled" by the variational solver and in part land they are parametric. These two environments don't always lend themselves to sharing code/features but we do endeavor to bring the environments closer together.

Re: Embossing on an assembly

cstarker6VCG4 — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 21:35:29 GMT

9 years later and this is still missing. Did you hope we would forget?

You essentially just said admitted a major design flaw was tip-toed around instead of tackled properly. If an employee came to you and said "I ruined this code so I can't do what is asked of me", what would you tell them? I genuinely want to know the answer because I've seen multiple Autodesk employees blame their co-workers and their own back-end on this public forum. I've never seen a anything like this before.

Re: Embossing on an assembly

kacper.suchomski — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 02:16:08 GMT

A few years ago, Inventor received a Mark tool, which is used, among other things, for the laser etching discussed here.

The tool is available in the parts environment, but the problem with this limitation for production needs can be solved in several ways today:

Create marking in part file
Create part markings and create model states with the feature enabled/disabled that allow for different representations of the assembly.
If you need to do one "monolithic" engraving on multiple parts of an assembly, derive the assembly to a part file and create the marking. This part can be used as a production file or it can be inserted into the assembly as a reference/phantom component (part may be surface treated to include only the appropriate surfaces after marking and may be transparent).

I understand that it is not the "one click" that everyone is counting on, but the problem is solvable. It also works on the surface of the cylinder.