Extrusion Help with custom shapes

[robertsearing]

I am *very* new to Inventor and am currently trying to build some trays for some board game pieces. I traced the piece in Illustrator and imported into AI. I can extrude, as seen in the image below, but I had two questions:

1) It's an irregularly shaped piece, as you can tell. How would I set up a constraint that would rotate the piece so it was symmetric on either side

2) create a point or place to where I could, along the base of the circle at the lowest point, have that at a certain distance from the bottom edge of the rectangle (ie 12 mm?)

3) ..figure out how to extrude everything surrounding the 3 extrusions save for a 1.5 mm "wall" around the shape? . So, in other words, have a tray that has a 1.5 mm wall around the entire circumference of the tray and then have it hollowed out except for a 1.5 "trace" around those shapes (keeping in mind I would extrude out part of one of the walls to allow one to grab pieces from it. (Note: I can do this with straight line shapes by drawing a lined shape as in screen shot 2....but not sure how to do that with curves.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! And, again, I am quite the novice here and only know how to do rudimentary designs with basic geometry.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! If I understand your request correctly, I think you may want to look into Fusion 360. It supports Thin Extrusion and other more flexible modeling workflows (Mesh Design, Freeform, and Generative Design).

Many thanks!

[JDMather]

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@robertsearing wrote:

I traced the piece in Illustrator and imported into AI.

I can extrude, as seen in the image below, but I had two questions:

I am quite the novice here and only know how to do rudimentary designs with basic geometry.

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In general - I would use Illustrator as only reference art.  Not as your sketcher.

Rather than mere images - Attach Inventor *.ipt file(s) here for illustration.

Again, Attach actual file that you are working on for tips on best Inventor techniques.  (FYI - you would encounter the same issues/recommendations in Fusion 360.  Geometry is geometry.)

[cadman777]

If the profile you imported into Inventor is a pixel image, then you first have to start a sketch in Inventor, then insert the pic into that sketch, then trace over it with Inventor sketch entities (lines, arcs, etc.). If you do that correctly with proper constraints, you can then orient it any way you want. The rest of what you want to do is a different process that JD can help you with.

[robertsearing]

So, first, THANK YOU so much for the replies. I've attached my file I'm working with - but it's just that - something I was playing around with. I'm VERY new to even the pen tool in Illustrator. I had tried pulling in the image as a PNG with the intent of tracing - but was not doing well (I've never used those them in Inventor) - is there a video that one might recommend watching for tutorial on how best to trace an image? I've attached the PNG as well.

[cadman777]

Maybe JD has a ready-made video.
You can also go on YouTube and look it up.

It has to do with using the Sketch editor.

It's a basic skill in Inventor.

Here's some tutorials you can buy if you are interested in learning Inventor for the long term.

[JDMather]

I recommend that before you jump into your own project that you go through some beginner tutorials.

First thing I would do - constrain Sketch1 to the Origin.