Assembly Sketches usable for constraining and creating work features

[Anonymous]

In the past I would build geometry in 3D sketches that would represent let’s say the walls of a large hopper.  Simple 3D sketching with mostly lines along the major directions. Might begin with a 2D sketch, then add 3D sketch elements onto it. (not even refering to referencing between those sketches for now)

If you create these items inside a part file (with no solid bodies) and place that part file into an assembly... you can constrain other parts to those sketched lines no problem.

But if you create the sketch inside the assembly, those sketches are no longer selectable for constraining.  It feels like they are waiting for solid bodies to be made out of them before you can reference them.

 

Even more annoying is that you cannot create work planes/axis/points using these sketches created inside an assembly, they MUST exist in a part, that is inside that assembly. This is a major pain if something is hard to constrain properly.

Seems like a very strange oversight, but adding this would prevent me from having a dummy part that contains design geometry but will never be fabricated. I then have to worry about sending it along with all my assemblies to others when we collaborate, or else the assembly will fail to build correctly. If I built the sketch inside the assembly... then I would never have this issue.

[smokes2998]

I there a way to make this work yet?

[Anonymous]

My fix for when I need to accomplish this is just to create a new with embedded sketch solely for the purpose of mating to it. This isn't so bad if it's complex, but for a simple sketch its really too bad it just can't be in the assembly.

Maybe a new Inventor revision has seen a change, but none of the patch notes I have read gave any hint that this area has been altered at all.

[Anonymous]

This is a 5+ year old request... It's pretty insane that they can't find the time to copy the functionality over from parts to assemblies.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/can-t-use-sketch-to-create-point-or-axis/t...

[dan_szymanski]

Idea added to backlog for future consideration [480]. Thanks!

[smokes2998]

If Catia V5 can't do it which uses a different branch of the ACIS kernal that the inventor Space Manager kernal is based on, I suspect it will need as massive rewrite of the kernel to do this.

[fraserscott]

@dan_szymanski Has anything been action with this? Using assembly sketches would be an obvious choice for many scenarios. One in particular would be creating parts from a parametric layout sketch. If the sketch could be shared like in the parts interface surely it would be possible to create an extruded part from a boundary within this main controlling sketch? To me this seems a simple and obvious function compared to less functional methods.

[josh.nieman]

I would like to see assembly-sketch functionality expanded to allow assembly level work features to be crated from assembly sketches.

It is very unintuitive and it's also a bit cumbersome to workaround this by creating adaptive 'dummy' .ipts just to house work geometry inside there.

It is very useful to use work features to convey design intent in assemblies and subassemblies, as well as having readily accessible work features at the highest assembly level practical, whereas otherwise it might reside within a part very deep in a model tree.

[mark_a_houston]

I am hoping this is moving closer to being considered. Creating a workaround dummy part to contain the sketch consumes time and further BOM management and can be difficult to see the workflow used to create. 

[oliver.tilbury]

I'd like to voice my endorsement for this as well! 

Inventor 2025 still no joy!

@dan_szymanski has this move beyond 'for Future Consideration' or fallen off the to-do list! 😬

Thanks

[dan_szymanski]

Hello @oliver.tilbury & all,

This has not fallen off the "to-do-list" (it is logged as INVGEN-480). The primary issue is there are simply too many ideas to implement. We are doing our best to prioritize and deliver value as fast as humanly possible. One challenge we face is soon as we implement 30 ideas in a DOT1, 500 new ideas take their place. Rest assured, our Engineering Team is very, very busy.

Regards,

[dhaeg]

Reporting in from the year 2025 and still very much needing this feature!

[thesnoman1]

Like everything else, they'll get to it in 20 years. Meanwhile the one thing you can count on them adding yearly is more money to the subscription price.