Redraw Automatically

[matthewweake]

When placing or editing a parametric item, the 'redraw' button has to be pushed to see the updates. It would be much better to redraw everytime the focus shifts from a paramater input like Inventor does.

I will attach an image of a typical Fabrication dialog and the Inventor Parameters Dialog.

[andy.robins]

We have prototypes this type of functionallity before but it proved to be counter productive because as you change fields you can and ofter do leave the pattern with an "invalid" dimesion state as you need to correct various other dimensions to make the geometry valid.

What does Invertor do when it has geometry that it cannot redraw as other dims need to be input to correct the geometry?

[Anonymous]

With QuickPen the 3D View disappears when an incorrect size is entered.

This may be something to look at.

[matthewweake]

There are a number of different approaches you can take with invalid geometry.

1. You can have limits and rules for variables so that only vaild data is entered. This can be a little frustrating because you would be forced into entering the variables in the right order to avoid conflicts.

2. Attempt to build the model and if it fails then leave it in the previous state and highlight the problem but let you continue changing variables until the result is valid. I think this is the best approach.

I do like the idea of having 'error checking' and limits by default that can be overridden if necessary.

When using Invenotr with iLogic rules I do error checking and limit ranges of variables so the model is always robust.

Incendently I would love to use Inventor as an authoring tool for ESTmep and just use a magic 'Publish to Fabrication' tool. I could probably do this if I knew enough about the format required.