Inventor Nesting Utility Error Message - Multibody

[Anonymous]

I am using Inventor for woodworking and have been running into an issue using the nesting utility to get an idea of material needs. I model everything as a solid multibody which is then made into components at which time a sheet metal template is assigned to each body of the model to assign it's thickness for the nesting utility to read it correctly. An illogic code runs in each file that is executed from the top level assembly that automates the flat pattern process. This has worked successfully using traditional assemblies, but I have been running into issues with multi-body models where each model gives as error that "A dependency is out-of-date", I'm guessing because everything is derived off of a base component. 

Does anyone have advice on how to get past this error or what may be causing it? 100% accurate nests are definitely not necessary, but it could greatly speed up estimating and material ordering to have at least a pretty good idea of how much board to order. Any advice on woodworking with the nesting utility and multi-body modeling? 

[bobvdd]

The error seems to be related to the material name not being recognized properly so I have two questions.

Q1: what material are you using? is it a material that is present in the Inventor library or is it a material only cached in your documents?

Q2: your workflow to create components from a multi-body part, results in derived parts that only contain a body.
In order for the nesting utility to recognize that body, you will have to make sure that you are using a Generic CAD provider. Can you verify on the ribbon Manage > Providers if the Generic CAD provider is checked for IPT files?

The bigger problem I see with your workflow is that that body more than likely will NOT be the flat body you are after, but will be the folded body unless your last feature in the parent part would be an Unfold feature  to which you then later can apply a projected sketch in the derived part. That projected sketch can be recognized by nesting utility.

Thanks.

Bob 

[galczysJern]

Hi,

I have the exact same problem.

I'm using multi-body modelling to design sheet metal machine covers.

Every part is exported from multi-body to an assembly.

Every part has assigned sheet metal rule (material thickness and material name).

I have two problems.

1) for some parts I have an error - No material has been set
in nesting file, I Have set provider and inventor material for all the thicknesses.

During assembly import, I don't get any message that I have to map materials.

After import, some pats have assigned material and some not.

Also, I can't assign material to parts with an error.

2) When I try to create nest from parts with assigned material I get the error "A dependency is out-of-date"

I tried to import the files as Generic CAD or Inventor Sheet Metal (I have created a flat pattern in those files).

Can anyone help? I'm creating a lot of sheet metal parts in multibody. Then I'm sending the drawings to the laser.
Nesting could help me a lot, but now I have no luck to use it.

[Anonymous]

Do you have an inest template set up with all your thicknesses, materials, and packaging for all of the materials you are using? And do these match what are in your sheet metal defaults? If your material, thickness, rule, etc. do not all match what they are supposed to be and do not match between the inest and part there will be issues. I don't believe I have seen the out of date prompt, how are you going from multibody to parts?

[galczysJern]

Hi.

I have set my inest template a few minutes before I tried to nest parts for the first time.

I have used the same material library for the part and for the material providers in the nest.

I have recreated all my sheet metal rules in the nest material library.

I think, that everything should match.

How I create a part from multibody? For designing multibody sheet parts I use only sheet ipt template.

After I create all the parts, I export them to single parts by Create Components command.

In the options window, I'm choosing the Sheet metal ipt template for sheet parts.

The problem occurs even for flat parts. Nestin sees them as a generic part - failure when I tried to create a nest.

So I tried to create unbend for flat parts. After that Nesting starts to see that parts as a sheet metal part - also failure when I tried to create a nest.

Nowadays 98% of my designs are multibody parts - sheet and solid ( I try no to mix those two types in one file). All the drawings are made manually. Also, my other designers are starting to learn the multi-body approach in their designs. We are creating mainly prototype machines.

To show the scale - last week I have sent over 120 sheet metal parts from one project to a laser company. They told me that they were processing them for several hours.

[bobvdd]

Could you send us one of those parts that result from the Create Components command?

Dumb it down or remove features if you want to protect intellectual property.
Looking at your problem from a distance without having a file to test, it does not sound right to me that a sheet metal part with an Unfold feature in it (I think that is what you mean with "unbend") would not be recognized  in nesting when treating it as a generic part. 

Cheers
bob

[galczysJern]

Hi,

Test files in the attachment.

I packed part of the project.

Nesting file with errors (workspace folder) and nesting template file included, the material library also included.

[bobvdd]

Thanks for sending the files. I could reproduce your problem.

Some of the custom materials do not get recognized during import. See also attached screenshot.
So it is a problem with mapping Inventor materials for nesting and not a multi-body problem IMO.
I don't have an immediate solution for you but logged a defect in our database so that our developers could look at it. For your reference the defect number is TRUNINV-2165.

[lch3K883]

Do you, by chance, have a suggestion for a work-around?