How do I autopopulate a Title Block in Inventor?

[rickduley]

I recently used Solidworks for someone who had things set up so that the fields in the Title Block of a Drawing were automatically populated from the properties of the model (SLDPRT) and assembly (SLDASM) files.  I am assuming that Inventor has the same potential but my textbooks, Googling and searching YouTube haven't produced any how-to.

1.  Is this facility available in Inventor?

2.  If 1 then would some kind soul please point me to a tutorial?

Thanks

[mdavis22569]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vHP8y_-F88

It's very easy to set it up ..

Start with Edit Title block

[rickduley]

Thanks Michael

That video is very interesting and contains a lot of things I need to know.

I am going to develop my own frames, A3 Landscape and A4 Portrait, with logo and all so anything about editing the frame or title block is a help.  However, I don't think I can have explained what I am looking for right now too well.  Here's a part of a title block I have been used to.  It's from a Solidworks drawing template.

In this Title Block the values for Weight, Scale, Revision, Material, Subject, Lecturer, Student, Title A, and Title B are all entered from the File Document Properties.  Some are inherited from the original model (SLDPRT) or Assembly (SLDASM) or are entered in the file properties of the Drawing (SLDDRW).  Nothing is entered directly, manually, into the Title Block.  Everything is entered into the properties of the various files and inherited.

In the video you linked, the text areas of the Title Block contain, by default, something that looks like "<Material>".  That format sings to me of what is called a "Field" in Microsoft Word.  It looks to me like a reference to some filed information somewhere - information that (if present in the somewhere) would be automatically entered in the text area.  That's what I would call autopopulation.  That's what I want to be able to do.

Is that a little more clear?

[mdavis22569]

Almost everything you've seen can be linked from the model or IDW properties ..

Except the Lecturer,   you can link excel spreadsheets to IV

in the Iproperties you can pull them in with Custom ones for those that aren't model related

You can also update a single file and all of the files in a data set via vault, Windows Explorer with a simple RMB.

[rickduley]

Hi Michael

I guess the idea is that, when setting up my Part Template I would insert a range of default Properties which will come up, and be editable, every time I use the Template - something like this:

Question now is, how do I tell Inventor to compute the weight of the part and insert it in the WEIGHT field?

How about defining the weight units (g or kg) to use?

Can we do this stuff?

[mdavis22569 · Accepted solution]

That's how I have mine set up ...

With checked by etc

You can pull in the material from what you assign it in the Part ..just have to set it up in the template.

Also for the mass you get that from the sheet too

You can make it a prompted box that comes up at open, or you run Ilogic codes to automate it some ..

Units come from how you set up your defaults in your templates.

[rickduley]

Thanks Michael

[mdavis22569]

IM if you need anymore help ...

[chris54 · Accepted solution]

How's this:

Right click title block in the browser and select Edit Definition.

Click the Text tool. (the big A in the ribbon)

Draw you text box.

Select Data type:

Select Data Field:

Then select ADD TEXT PARAMETER.  It's two buttons to the right of the data field.

Finish sketch and save.

[rickduley]

Thanks Chris.  This sounds like how to do something else I would have asked at a leter date which is the insert the Filename and Path etc outside the drawing frame ah so!

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi Michael,

I just jumped on to this post and was curious to know if there was a way to import file properties to iproperties during a part import?  I'm in the process of converting .dwg parts and assemblies into inventor 2012 and would like properties such as 'Title', 'Custom Property' to import with the parts.  Is there a way to do this, because now the 'Title' box within iproperties does not automatically pull the 'Title' value from the imported file's properties.

Thanks,

Candace

[mdavis22569]

start a new post ..

add a file you want to translate ... 

also what version of inventor ..

and what version are you coming from if you know ..for the dwg's 

why are you translating them into inventor too?

[Anonymous]

Michael, I have started a new post here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/inventor-2012-import-from-other-cad-progra...

And will add the remaining requested items now.

Thanks for the help.

[estringer]

Is there a way to add more/custom items to the Properties list for the text tool? I would like to have the Architect and the Contractor auto populate when I bring in a model on a DWG.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Yes, you can create Custom iProperties within any Inventor file (iam, ipt, idw/dwg, and ipn). In the drawing, the Custom iProperty can be referenced. If you cannot figure out, please feel free to share an example here. Forum experts can help take a look and provide guidance.

Many thanks!

[estringer]

Thanks, I was able to make this work before I saw your reply. In order for it to stick so that I could have it show up in my templates, I placed a model with the Custom Property that I wanted to auto-populate in the drawing, set up the text field where  wanted it, deleted the model, and saved the drawing as a template.

[mdavis22569]

old ticket ... might want to start new one.

[estringer]

I got an answer from someone on it a month ago so I think it still works.