Wrap Your Head Around Associative Patterns in Autodesk Inventor

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There are several ways to replicate parts and components in the Inventor assembly environment, but the associative pattern is the most powerful and efficient method. What is an associative pattern, and how does it differ from traditional pattern tools? You may ask.

Associative patterns in Inventor allow you to create patterns of assembly components/parts linked to patterns of features, like holes, within a part. This means that if you modify the feature pattern in the part, the corresponding assembly pattern will automatically update to reflect that change.

This is a hands-on exercise, so fire up Inventor, and let’s get started. It’s worth noting that this section assumes you already know basic part modelling and assembly workflows in Inventor. If not, I have tutorials on my YouTube channel covering the same, and they’ll help you get started. Search “Infinity CAD” on YouTube.

STEPS:

1. Launch Autodesk Inventor and create a new part file using the Standard(mm).ipt template from the Create New File dialogue box. I have my custom template, which I will use throughout this tutorial. Feel free to use your default template.

Step 1: Create New File Dialogue Box

2. On the Sketch panel of the 3D Model tab, click Start 2D Sketch and pick the XZ Plane. Feel free to choose a different plane; it really doesn’t matter for this exercise. Draw a rectangle 50mm by 10mm starting at the Origin.

Step 2(a): XZ Plane Selection

Step 2(b): XZ Plane Selection from the Model Tree

Step 2(c): 2D Sketching a Rectangle

3. Finish the sketch and extrude this symmetrically by 2mm.

Step 3: Extrusion Dialogue Box

4. Apply Stainless Steel material to the part. The appearance is set by default to Semi-Polished. Pick one of the two faces with the largest surface area. Activate the Adjust tool from the Quick Access toolbar and apply an appearance override of RGB values (255, 0, 0) in the input boxes provided. Start a new sketch on this face and draw a circle of radius 4 mm.

Step 4(a): Applying material

Step 4(b): Applying appearance override

Step 4(c): 2D Sketching

5. Finish the sketch and extrude-cut this profile. Enter 2 in the Distance input box of the Extrusion dialogue box. Click OK to close the dialogue box.

Step 5: Extrusion dialogue box

6. Invoke the Rectangular pattern tool From the Pattern panel of the 3D Model tab. Select Extrusion2 as the feature to be patterned. In the Direction 1 area of this dialogue box, select the longest edge of the part as the pattern direction. Enter 3 in the Column Count input box and 10 mm in the Column Spacing input box.

Step 6(a): Rectangular Pattern Dialogue Box

Step 6(b): Patterned Features

7. Click CTRL + S to save this file. Enter the file name as File – 00 in the Save As dialogue box. Click Save to close this dialogue box.

Step 7: Save As Dialogue Box

8. Create a new part file using the Standard(mm).ipt template as outlined in Step – 1.

9. Start a 2D sketch on the XZ Plane. Starting from the origin, draw a circle with a diameter of 4mm.

Step 9: 2D Sketching

10. Finish the sketch and extrude this circular sketch profile symmetrically by 5mm. Click OK to close the Extrusion dialogue box.

Step 10: Extrusion Dialogue Box

11. Apply a fillet of 1mm on one of the edges.

Step 11(a): Fillet Dialogue Box

Step 11(b): Filleted top edge

12. Click CTRL + S to save this file. Enter the file name as File – 01 in the Save As dialogue box. Click Save to close this dialogue box.

Step 12: Save As File Dialogue Box

13. In the Create New File dialogue box, start a new assembly file with the Standard(mm).iam template.

Step 13: Create New File dialogue box

14. Import File – 00 and ground it to the origin.

Step 14(a): Placing a component & grounding to origin

Step 14(b): Placed component in the assembly, grounded to origin

15. Import File—01 and constrain it with either the Joint or Constraint tool so that the overall assembly looks like this. I have demonstrated the procedure for using the Joint tool below.

Step 15(a): File - 01 Joint gliph

Step 15(b): File - 01 Joint gliph: Click once to grab

Step 15(c): File - 00 Joint gliph

Step 15(d): File - 01 Joint gliph; click once to constrain

• In the Type area of the Joint tab, ensure Rigid is selected from the drop-down list if it wasn't automatically selected.

Step 15(e): Constrained assembly components

16. Locate the Pattern tool in the Pattern panel of the Assemble tab. Notice Component selection button is active by default. While the Associative tab of the Pattern Component dialogue box is active, select File – 01 as the component to pattern.

Step 16: Pattern Component dialogue box

17. Activate the Associative Feature Pattern select button on this dialogue box and hover over the patterned features. All instances of the patterned features get highlighted, giving you a green light to proceed. Click one of them and File - 01 will be duplicated to all the instances of the patterned feature in the part. Click OK to close the Pattern Component dialogue box.

Step 17: Pattern Preview/highlight

18. The Assembly should now look like the one shown below.

Step 18: Patterned components

19. Double-click File – 00 to open it and make it active for edits. Make the following adjustments.

• Edit the rectangular file pattern and adjust the column count to 5 with a spacing of 11 mm. Click OK to close the Rectangular Pattern dialogue box.

Step 19(a): Rectangular Pattern dialogue box

Step 19(b): New instances of patterned features

• Click CTRL + S simultaneously to save the file.

20. Open the assembly and click the Update tool icon on the Quick Access toolbar. This tool is also found on the Update Panel of the Manage tab. Notice that the icon is highlighted in orange before we click Update and greyed out after the update is applied.

Step 20(a): Graphic window before applying/clicking "Update"

• Update tool icon from the Quick-Access toolbar.

Step 20(b): Update Icon

•  Update tool icon from the Update panel of the Manage tab.

Step 20(c): Update Icon

21. Notice that the assembly updates to reflect the changes made.

Step 21(a): Graphic window after applying update

• Notice that the update tool is now greyed out. Visible from the Quick-Access toolbar as well.

Step 21(b): Greyed out update icon

22. Open File – 00 once again and populate the rectangular pattern dialogue box with the following values.

• Change occurrences to 7
• Change spacing to 7mm.

Step 22: Rectangular pattern dialogue box

• Click OK to close the Rectangular Pattern dialogue box.
• Save the file and return to the assembly.

23. Observe the changes in the assembly’s graphic window before you click the Update icon.

Step 23: Graphic window before applying "Update"

24. Now click the Update icon and notice the instances of File – 01 updates to reflect the changes made in File – 00 In Step 22.

Step 24: Graphic window after applying "Update"

25. Go back to File – 00 and populate the Rectangular Pattern dialogue box with the values in step 6. Click OK to close this dialogue box and return to the assembly.

Step 25: Rectangular pattern dialogue box

26. Notice the changes in the assembly model once more.

Step 26(a): Graphic window before applying "update"

Step 26(b): Graphic window after applying "update"

27. End of exercise. What did you notice?

• From the demonstration above, you can see that associative patterns save time and minimize errors by automatically propagating changes from the part's feature pattern to the assembly pattern. This technique can also convey design intent.

• You might also have noticed associative patterns assume the properties of the pattern type used to create the feature pattern. For example, if we used a circular pattern in the demonstration, the associative pattern would automatically adapt to it.

• What would happen if we used the rectangular sketch pattern in step 2 instead of the rectangular feature pattern in step 6? Short answer: it wouldn't work. Associative patterns in Inventor are exclusively linked/associated with feature patterns, not sketch patterns in parts. So, you would have to resort to traditional pattern tools and do it manually to achieve the same result.

• If you want to enjoy the benefits of using associative patterns, then you must plan for it by using feature patterns in parts and not sketch patterns.

Ends.

See you around!