Inventor and architectural drawings

[Anonymous]

Dear Kind Users,

I will be frank, I am in need of dire help with a hard question that probably doesn’t have a good answer. I work for a company that does high end cabinetry, millwork, moulding, doors, etc; and we are looking to increase the efficiency of our work. We model all of the rooms we do in inventor so we have control of all of the details of everything we do and that works perfectly, the issue is that when we make architectural drawings for our clients, Inventor is not the greatest. We have a list of pre made symbols for elevations and section cuts but it is clunky changing every field to match page numbers, changing vertices, matching scales, and all of that takes up a grand majority of our time; to put it in perspective, drawing the room after we have modeled it takes up 60%-70% of the total project time. We wanted to find a program that takes our inventor drawings and turns them into clean architectural drawings whilst at the same time giving us the capabilities to blow out our cabinetry so our wonderful woodworkers have a list of specifications to work with. Our company that we get the Autodesk licenses from recommended Autodesk AutoCAD Mechanical, and I am admittedly working my way through that, but AutoCAD Mechanical doesn’t really want to let me adjust line visibility or really let me touch the view I have created it (while I am experienced in inventor I know nothing about AutoCAD, so I could just be missing features). I wanted recommendations from other users for either a software or just general efficiency practices. I have cross posted this in both the AutoCAD and Inventor forums.

Sincerely,

Pablo Redden-González

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Pablo,

It sounds like you are hitting some road blocks in terms of creating 2D drawing views and annotations in Inventor. You mentioned that you use AutoCAD Mechanical (based on AutoCAD). AutoCAD has the best and most flexible drafting workflows on the market. You can actually create drawing views of Inventor components and annotate the views associatively (just like in Inventor Drawing). Are you aware of the ability?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Yes I am. The biggest issues are that AutoCAD does not update the drawings automatically, and I have to save and close the model before it updates in AutoCAD and many model updates are often done simultaneously whilst drawing so I need to be able to go back and forth. Also I need to be able to hide certain lines and manipulate the view while it still is tied to the original. Getting material based hatching is also important.

The process is basically this:

• Get the drawings from the architect
  • These drawings are often missing many dimensions and are more to show design intent than anything else
• Pre-Engineer the room so that the room still fits the design intent but physically allows for us to construct and place all of our work
• Model the room in inventor, with walls and ceilings
• Design and place cabinetry, countertops, mouldings, and everything that we are using and place it in.
• Create a brand new DWG and place the model view in it
• use section cuts for:
  • general floor plan (top down view 60 inches off the floor)
  • each wall individually
  • cuts through cabinetry
• Use detail for anything that requires a 1:1 scale

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! The workflow I mentioned in AutoCAD does support associative update. The command is called VIEWBASE. Basically, you can create associative drawing views from Inventor parts and assemblies in AutoCAD (just like in Inventor). Then you can use AutoCAD's extensive drafting tools to annotate the views.

Have you tried it?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have used VIEWBASE. Those views do not update in real time, I have to save and close the inventor model before it updates in AutoCAD. That is only one of my issues that I detailed.

[mcgyvr]

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@Anonymous wrote:

but it is clunky changing every field to match page numbers, changing vertices, matching scales, and all of that takes up a grand majority of our time; to put it in perspective, drawing the room after we have modeled it takes up 60%-70% of the total project time.

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Have you looked into Revit?

It will have a decent learning curve to be proficient with it though but may not be that bad as the terms/functions should be something you are already used to. 

Its intended for the "Architectural Community" and can automate some of the processes you may be doing.

Its job is doing the types of drawings you are likely providing. 

Cabinets could still be modeled in Inventor and brought into Revit. 

This may allow you to be more active as a company in the "BIM" world too. 

But without seeing the details of what you require in your drawings its tough to provide anything more than basic answers..  Specifics/details of what you are try to do in these drawings would certainly help someone provide the best workflow for your needs..

[Anonymous]

Revit was the other program mentioned. I am currently working on a simple project that does not infringe on the companies intellectual property that I plan to upload that will make it easier to see.