Inventor 2014 Wish List?

[FProcp]

Maybe the sketch environment could be a little tidier?

1 - I think by default the constraint icons should be smaller so they don’t pile up on top of each other and you can’t see what they are. They appear to be much neater and easier to read in SW?

2 - In the attached sketch it shows there are 3 dimensions needed even though the lines are now dark blue in color showing they are constrained. They are really not fully constrained because the length of both those lines can be changed.

I think there should be a symbol to show those line end points are not locked down. I have drawn “x” marks on those lines to show that. Maybe that or something else would be enough to quickly show not locked. Sometimes on complex sketches I spend much time searching for lines that don’t have their ends locked to fully constrain the sketch. I often use automatic dimension to find where those naughty lines are but an x on the end would be much faster.

The sketch environment is the basic backbone of the entier program and it needs to be perfect. 

[JamesNordgren]

Andy, I have to say... that I cant say it any better myself.  ARE YOU LISTENING AUTODESK?

My company spends 200k + with Autodesk every year, and the product just keep getting worse!  The reason I am here at 8:30 at night, reading on the discussion group is that I have been waiting for 20 minutes now for a simple assembly to respond to a 'Copy Components' command.   I cant take it anymore.

I have recently been promoted to a new position where I finally may have some influence on our companie's CAD software.   I am seriously considering demanding that we dump Autodesk all together, and all of years and thousands of dollars invested in it!!  I used Solidworks a few years back in my previous career, and we NEVER had so many and such silly annoying bugs.  

Autodesk, do you realize that amongst us at the user level in any serious mfg. outfit... you are becoming a JOKE?

And after reading just a little bit, I am very scared of "upgrading" to 2013.  I have already had our IT dept hold off on it (we are on subscription),  but this is looking really bad.

AUTODESK .... please listen to Andy!!   Inventor has been good to us all, and we love(d) it, but damm-it we need software that works and works right!  It doesnt need any new features!  The interface is fine!!  PLEASE just make it faster and devote at least some of your vast resources to FIXING the FREAKING mountain of bugs which grows instead of shrinks with every new release.  

James

[jeanchile]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In that case I would recommend the Assemble>Productivity>Ground and root Component option. Downside is this only works for parts, not sub-assemblies.

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I use this for sub-assemblies all the time. Just did it again before this post. Am I missing something about your statement here?

Also, my company uses FG in almost every project but we don't have Vault right now. We are considering adding staff and Vault to our engineering department. Are you saying that we would need to come up with unique file names for every part created by FG? That doesn't sound like that is going to work with our workflow at all. How can we create these unique file names, manually change them in the dialog box that pops up when you create the frame? How can I put this politely... Screw that!

[DVDM]

Hi jeanchile,

My statement was incorrect. I recently discovered it behaved this way because I had my cursor set to Select Part Priority, so ground-and-rooting a part selected within a subassembly clearly does nothing. Set to Select Component Priority is works just fine on subassemblies. My bad.

In regards to FG and Vault, usually it's good practise to set it up so all filenames need to be unique, and force this upon check-in. It is possible however to not have this as a requirement, it just means you now need to continue using project files within your Vaulted environment to keep the generic FG part file names separated.

[jeanchile]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...It is possible however to not have this as a requirement, it just means you now need to continue using project files within your Vaulted environment to keep the generic FG part file names separated.

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Okay, excellent. This is good information to have, thank you.

I guess I do have one more question for you if you'll permit me: We use project files for each contract/project we complete for our clients but in each project we have different FG "sub-assemblies". What I mean is that we have a master skeleton file that is used to create several different FG assemblies that are then assembled together in a top level assembly. This allows several people to work on different areas of larger platforms at the same time and then we connect them together at the top level assembly. What this means is that under one project file we might have several FG file names that are the same (e.g. ANSI W8x10 0000001, etc.) but because they are in different folder paths (for each FG sub-assembly), we don't have a problem with the non-unique names. Is this going to be okay? If not, do you know of a way to have 4 different people working in 4 different areas of the same frame at the same time, using Vault?

This would be a typical "frame" for us:

[karthur1]

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@jeanchile wrote:

 ...What this means is that under one project file we might have several FG file names that are the same (e.g. ANSI W8x10 0000001, etc.) but because they are in different folder paths (for each FG sub-assembly), we don't have a problem with the non-unique names. Is this going to be okay? If not, do you know of a way to have 4 different people working in 4 different areas of the same frame at the same time, using Vault?

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We use Vault, but we use a single ipj for all our projects.  For each job that we do, we have a sub-folder for the job.  When we are creating parts, we just go in sequential order for the filenames.  We do have unique filenames as a requirement since we are using a single project file.  I attached a shot of Vault and how we have our folders broken down for each job.

I know what you are saying about naming the FG parts with 3 or 4 different people working on the same thing.  Maybe you could tell one person to use -100 series, person two to use -200 series and so on when they are creating the members.

You said that you use a master sketch for the structure.  Could you post a shot of it.. I'd like to see how you are doing that. Do you use different sketches for say level 1 and level 2?

[richiesuk]

dream on...

they need to catch new costumers with new fancy stuff...

all those innocent people only will see these shiny good feutures ,etc...

[jeanchile]

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@karthur1 wrote:

....Maybe you could tell one person to use -100 series, person two to use -200 series and so on when they are creating the members. 

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Yeah, but unless I'm mistaken (which happens all the time), we are still stuck with someone renaming all of the files before checking them in to Vault right?

Here's a screenshot of what one of our typical skeleton files would look like. I've attached the part file as well. It depends on the organization of the project and the orientation of the framing but we sometimes start with the framing elevations and then the plan views which is the way this one was done. Lots of things happen on our projects before we get to this point though and if the framing is started before some of the other things are worked out it's almost impossible start with anything but the plan views first..

[Anonymous]

My current wish list item(s)

All presentation (ipt) related:

1. Allow multiple object selection via crossing window

2. Create and save selection sets

3. Ability to save multiple cameras

[karthur1]

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@jeanchile wrote:

Yeah, but unless I'm mistaken (which happens all the time), we are still stuck with someone renaming all of the files before checking them in to Vault right?

I dont know how your workflow is, but when I am doing FG members, I name them when they are created. By default, Inventor will name them like W12x26 000001, but you can change that to whatever you want to name each piece.  Or, you can accept the default name, but then if you choose to enforce unique filenames in Vault, yes, you will have to rename them before checking them in.  Guess you could use DA to rename them and retain the relationships.

Thanks for sharing the master sketch. Interesting to see how others develop this stuff.  Are the sketch lines the center of the members or an edge? Is that a "Rule" you live by or does that vary?

 

[DVDM]

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@jeanchile wrote:

Okay, excellent. This is good information to have, thank you.

I guess I do have one more question for you if you'll permit me: We use project files for each contract/project we complete for our clients but in each project we have different FG "sub-assemblies". What I mean is that we have a master skeleton file that is used to create several different FG assemblies that are then assembled together in a top level assembly. This allows several people to work on different areas of larger platforms at the same time and then we connect them together at the top level assembly. What this means is that under one project file we might have several FG file names that are the same (e.g. ANSI W8x10 0000001, etc.) but because they are in different folder paths (for each FG sub-assembly), we don't have a problem with the non-unique names. Is this going to be okay? If not, do you know of a way to have 4 different people working in 4 different areas of the same frame at the same time, using Vault?

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Hi jeanchile,

All that Vault really is, is a program that allows all designers in a team collaborate on a design while each individual keeps all files in the dataset on their local harddrive. Whatever setup you had in a network-share environment, should work in a Vaulted environment as well.

Vault does a few things: It's a filestore containing the latest checked-in version, as well as a certain number of older versions. Vault is aware of relationships between files within Vault, so files can easily be moved and renamed. Vault is a gatekeeper that only allows one person to edit a file at a time, even though 10 other people might have a copy of that file sitting on their local harddrive. It allows people to check for updates that others might have made, and retrieve those changes.

At the end of the day, it's the same as each designer copying the entire dataset and filestructure as you have it now to their local harddrive, and working from that instead, including any duplicate filenames within subdirectories. Vault is the mechanism that tries to keep all these duplicate files connected and up-to-date somehow.

Unfortunately, as a user of the Base vault myself, this mechanism is nowhere near as automatic and integrated as I'd like, but is a necessary evil.

[jeanchile]

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@karthur1 wrote:

 Are the sketch lines the center of the members or an edge? Is that a "Rule" you live by or does that vary?

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We work in accordance with strict AISC/NISD guidelines for steel detailing/fabrication/erection for most of our frames and those workflows are based around minimizing the ASTM A6 tolerance stacking (or creep) in a steel structure. So, the short answer is both, depending upon the shape of steel being used. Symmetrical shapes (WF, HSS, HP, etc.) are to the "Top of Steel" elevation at the centerline and asymmetrical shapes (C, MC, L, etc.) are done to the top back of the shape, not the toes.

This of course, also depends on any number of other factors outlined in the 2,000-some-odd page AISC Manual of Steel Construction, The AISC Detailing for Steel Construction Manual, and a few other governing documents in our industry.

Sorry, there's never a simple answer with me. Have a good holiday if you get one!

[jeanchile]

Thank you very much for your assistance here. This has been very useful and I am looking forward to my education in this area as I scale this company up for the third time .

[Anonymous]

Here is my wish for 2014.  Not sure if it's a setting that I'm not familiar with or what but it's very frustrating.

When creating a new part that is similar to another part I will sometimes do a “saveas” of the original part.  Apparently Inventor doesn’t update the “Part Number” section in the iproperties with the new File Name.  This is a problem when using the Bill of Materials in a detailed drawing because Inventor uses the “Part Number” in the “Description” column of the BOM, not the File Name.  It also groups parts based on their “Description” and not their File Name.  That means that 2 parts that are physically different and their File Names are different are counted as multiples of the same Part in the BOM.

[SBix26]

It's far too late for any siginificant changes to 2014.  But why don't you post this to the Inventor IdeaStation, which is where Autodesk looks for user input like this.

Sam B
Inventor 2012 Certified Professional

Please click "Accept as Solution" if this response answers your question.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventor Professional 2013 SP1.1 Update 1
Windows XP Pro 32-bit, SP3
HP EliteBook 8730w; 4 GB RAM; Core™ 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz; Quadro FX2700M
SpaceExplorer/SpaceNavigator NB, driver 3.7.18
still waiting for a foreshortened radius dimensioning tool in Drawing Manager

[karthur1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

When creating a new part that is similar to another part I will sometimes do a “saveas” of the original part.  Apparently Inventor doesn’t update the “Part Number” section in the iproperties with the new File Name. This  is a problem when using the Bill of Materials in a detailed drawing because Inventor uses the “Part Number” in the “Description” column of the BOM, not the File Name.  It also groups parts based on their “Description” and not their File Name.  That means that 2 parts that are physically different and their File Names are different are counted as multiples of the same Part in the BOM.

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Hey Derek

Welcome to the group.

"Apparently Inventor doesn’t update the “Part Number” section in the iproperties with the new File Name..."  That is not the case for me.  When I do a "Save Copy As" and then open the copied part, the filename for the new part is also what is in the iproperies part number field.

" because Inventor uses the “Part Number” in the “Description” column of the BOM"...  Thats because you have customized your Parts List to be that way.  You can make the column heading call it anything you want.

"It also groups parts based on their “Description” and not their File Name".  Inventor groups parts in the BOM based upon the part number column.. not the description column.  You can set Exclusions for this asa wel..

If you have more questions, you should start a new thread.  You will get more responses that way.

Kirk

[tuliobarata]

About BoltedConnection, it never updated when its inside one pattern in the assy, and even its ouside a pattern, you have to edit it to update then...the rebuild all could solve problem updating all right ??

Túlio Barata

[tuliobarata]

And about Substitute Shrinkwrap parts, it doesnt update too, even if I dont break the link with the assembly, it doesnt update, so you have to go in each assembly with Substitute parts ( with are many in huge projects) and then verify with "Check for updates". Coudnt that be automatic when using "rebuild all" ?

Thanks

Túlio BArata

[Anonymous]

More functionality on roller chain designer. Not all roller chain applications are drives. We use lots of applications where chains are used to connect a counterweight, and in those applications the chain is not a continuous loop.

[SBix26 · Accepted solution]

This isn't going to get any official attention (besides which, 2014 is in late beta testing, so will not be getting any new functionality at this point).  Please post to the Inventor IdeaStation forum, or search for similar requests and add your support.

Sam B
Inventor 2012 Certified Professional

Please click "Accept as Solution" if this response answers your question.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventor Professional 2013 SP1.1 Update 1
Windows XP Pro 32-bit, SP3
HP EliteBook 8730w; 4 GB RAM; Core™ 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz; Quadro FX2700M
SpaceExplorer/SpaceNavigator NB, driver 3.7.18
still waiting for a foreshortened radius dimensioning tool in Drawing Manager

[dan_inv09]

Please, do not request new functionality.

New functionality rarely works, most often it is half thought out and them poorly implemented. The best we can hope for with new functionality is that it only screws up the rest of the stuff only a little. It's not so much "one step forward, two steps back", as it is "half a step to the side and then spin around and around wildly swinging a sledge hammer." 

We need things fixed, not more things that are broken.

Please, do not request new functionality.