Share and learn how-to tips, workflows, and general knowledge articles about Informed Design and the future of the Industrialized Construction industry.
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Autodesk Informed Design helps manufacturers of productized building components supply configurable models to Revit users.
Inventor users build a configurable model and publish it to Informed Design. Revit users can then use Informed Design to pick the options they want to generate and insert a loadable Revit family (RFA), knowing that the model they receive represents a manufacturable item.
Click here to learn more about Autodesk Informed Design.
Building configurable models in Autodesk Inventor
Autodesk Inventor includes iLogic, a rule engine that allows the creation of rules-based design configurations, enabling the definition of multiple product variations within a single model.
If you are new to building configurable models in Inventor, here are five tips to help you get started.
If you are experienced in configurator building, please share your tips, best practices, or resources in the comments below!
Click here to learn how to publish Inventor models to Autodesk Informed Design.
1. Research your Revit customer.
You know your product better than anyone. You may already have a parametric configurable model that you’d like to make available to your architectural design colleagues.
Now, you need to prepare your model for use in Revit.
If you have access to Revit, I recommend you spend a few minutes looking at the template files and sample content that comes with it. This will help you better understand your Revit colleagues' expectations.
Find Revit families that look like the item you manufacture, and see what you can take away.
What to look out for:
- Revit category.
- Parameter naming and content (In Revit, all data is referred to as a ‘Parameter’)
- Hosting (i.e. wall hosted, ceiling hosted).
- Insert point.
Of course, if you have a colleague or customer who uses Revit, a conversation about their expectations is a great place to start.
2. Plan your Inventor configurator
Before you spend even an hour on a task, it’s worth spending a few minutes planning.
Building a configurable model in Inventor can be a complex challenge. It’s worth spending some time thinking about the result you want before you jump in and start modeling.
Here are some considerations:
Assembly model
- What changes of size do you need to support in your model?
- What configurations will you include in your model (e.g. what parts or Assembly level features might need to be added, removed, or suppressed)?
- What mechanical motion is required (e.g. what constraints)?
- What BOM types will you enable?
- How will you define and provide a simplified representation (model state) for the Revit user?
*Informed Design will generate the parts-only BOM output via the web app. Both the structured and parts-only BOM are supported in drawings generated with Informed Design.
Click here for the AU class ‘Reliable techniques for complex assembly design in Autodesk Inventor’.
Part Models
- What changes of size are required in your part models?
- What configurations are required in your part models (e.g. what features may need to be suppressed or unsuppressed)?
- What data is required in your part models to complete the BOM?
- How might your part models include a simplified representation (model state) for the Revit user?
Click here for the AU class ‘Reliable techniques for complex part design in Inventor’
Outputs
- What drawings will you publish to Informed Design for your Revit user?
- What other outputs will you make available? (i.e. BOM, or neutral CAD file formats)
3. Document and communicate design intent.
It might be YOU who opens this Inventor assembly model in three months and has to diagnose a fault or add an additional configuration. Do your future self (and your colleagues!) a favor and document your design intent. Make it easy on yourself by doing it as you go!
Where can you add documentation?
- Parameters
- Agree on a parameter naming schema with your colleagues.
- Designate important parameters with the ‘Key’ option in the parameters manager.
- Add a comment next to key parameters
- Rename features in the model browser with meaningful names.
- Override part names in the assembly browser.
- Add comments to iLogic rules.
- Add release notes when you publish to Informed Design.
- Use an iLogic form to communicate design intent, and test your model.
- Add information to iProperties, including URL’s to your companies website, or information about your product such as specification or user manual.
- Map this information to the Revit family using the Informed Design ‘BIM Properties’ workflow.
- Use a 3D Annotation ‘General note’ to capture information about your configuration. This note will be included in the model thumbnail generated by Informed Design.
Click here for the AU lab ‘Five Autodesk Inventor iLogic productivity hacks for non-programmers’
4. Modelling strategy
When we learn Autodesk Inventor, we are typically taught the ‘bottom-up’ modeling strategy. We model each part, then place the part models into an assembly model, and finally, we use joints or constraints to put the parts together.
The Bottom-up technique can make it difficult to make changes of size to an assembly. It can also be difficult to configure (add and remove components) without breaking constraints.
When building a configurable model in Inventor, it’s helpful to use a ‘Top-down’ modeling strategy. In this case, we start by defining parameters in the top-level assembly and then use iLogic and derive workflows to pass parameter values from the top-level assembly into the sub-components.
Top-down modeling techniques include iLogic, skeletal modeling, and multibody modeling.
Using iLogic alone will give you a model that updates quickly, but it can be mentally challenging to define all the relationships using just math!
Multi-body modeling is the most intuitive. In this case, we model each part as a body in a single part file and then use the ‘Make components’ tool to derive each body into a part file.
The downside of multibody modeling is that each derived component contains a reference to the multi-body. Each part file is the size of all the parts' features, AND the multibody it’s referencing. This is fine for a small assembly but can be detrimental to performance in large assemblies.
My preference is Skeletal modeling. I feel that it gives me a good balance between intuitive modeling and performance.
I create layout sketches in a part file, and then derive them into my components. I do this to define changes of size for my assembly. I then use iLogic to pass parameter values from my assembly down into the skeleton.
5. Know your limits
For each parameter that you create to control changes in your Inventor assembly model, there will be allowable values. There will be values that represent manufacturable items, and values that don’t (there might even be values that break your model!).
In an Inventor configurator, we would limit parameter values using iLogic rules, or an iLogic form. When publishing to Informed Design, we need to guide the input of the Revit user – so we can’t use iLogic ).
to create an input Form for the Revit user to interact with. Any limits we want to impose on parameter values will be defined in this form using the code blocks workflow.
Code blocks can be used to provide a range with minimum and maximum limits, including as an increment the value must adhere to.
Code blocks can also be used to provide a fixed list of values. You can even define a dynamic list of values that changes depending on the values of other parameters.
Click here for the AU class ‘Get informed with Informed Design Codeblocks’ by Curtis Waguespack.
Your feedback
I want to make it as easy as possible for you to learn best practices for building in Autodesk Inventor and publishing them to Informed Design. I hope you’ve found this brain dump of information useful!
For those of you with experience in building configurable Inventor models – what would you add? Please add your helpful tips in the comments below.
