It is my opinion that the Hole Table feature in Inventor works great for simple applications, but it lacks flexibility for more complex Hole Table creation and does not support legacy drawing needs. Below is the “Edit Hole Table” dialog box that I would hope to see after the Hole Table is created and placed. Each number is explained below the image and for some, there are links to other "Ideas" within the Ideastation.
1)Character Exclude
The character exclude option needs to be tied directly to the Hole Table. When the table is first created, it can draw the exclusions from the active style. But after the table is created, there is no way to make an existing Hole table skip a letter that was not added to the active style’s character exclusions. (You can reorder things manually, but when there’s 200 holes to re-tag…)
This feature would be extremely useful for creating frames that have common holes but differ slightly from each other. Creating two drawings with very similar hole patterns with mismatching holes just creates headaches at the machine shop, especially when the frames need to be machined in pairs.
2) Lock Hole Table
This feature would be different than preserve tagging. You can read about “Preserve Tagging” here. The Lock Hole Table option means that the Hole Tags will NEVER change, no matter what, regardless of sorting option. Until this option is unchecked, the tags will remain as they did when the table was locked. So if there are holes B1 through B12, and holes B2, B7 and B8 are removed (either in the model or tag deleted in drawing), the table would read B1, B3, B4, B5, B6, B9, B10, B11, B12. If an additional B hole was added, it would be B13. Additionally, if all of the B holes were deleted the table would proceed without B holes: A, C, D,…etc. If a new hole was added, regardless of how the table is sorted, the new hole would be added to the end of the hole table.
This feature is needed in order to maintain legacy drawings.
3) Custom Order Selection
When a hole table is initially created using the Hole Table – Selection tool, it allows you to select the holes you want and will order similar holes in the order that they were clicked. This function is nice because allows you to pick the order in which you want the table arranged. However, if the table is originally created based on size or position, there is no good way to reorder your selection. It is possible to change the tags manually and then resort the table, but I feel like there could be a better method.
The custom order selection tool would allow users to pick the order of the holes as they exist in the previously created table. I imagine it functioning a lot like a manual renumbering of a Structured Bill of Material.
But instead of numbers, you would restructure the holes using letters. If different holes have the same letter, it would appear yellow and not allow you to continue until all dissimilar holes had different letters. If you expanded a particular hole, you would be able to renumber all of the B holes in the same manner.
4) Do Not Sort
Once a Hole table has been created without using the individual hole selection tool, the view will always be sorted by either position or size. This causes many issues for drawings that were released and then need to get revised.
- If a 9/16 thru hole previously tagged “D” was manually changed to “E” and then another 9/16 thru hole was added to the model, that new hole would come in as a D hole and not an E hole.
- Once a tag has been altered, the table must be resorted in order for the table to appear in the correct order (A1, A2, A3..., A10, B1, B2, B3,… etc.). However if any change is made to the table (Edit Hole Table), the table will immediately scramble back to its original arrangement. The table must then be resorted again to correct the scramble.
Having a Do Not Sort toggle would be very helpful to avoid these issues when a previous hole table made to be sorted by position or size has to be modified. Do Not Sort would not affect the right-click->Table->Resort function, it would just remove the previous arrangement specification for future hole table modifications. The table would then remain as it had after the toggle was turned off and be sorted only by the tags already applied to the hole. Any new holes added would be added to the end of the table, and any new holes similar to existing holes would be appended to the end of their corresponding letter.
The Do Not Sort and the Lock Hole Table toggles are very similar, but I still think it is important to have both.
5) Currently, Arrange by position, arranges by YDIM first and XDIM second. How about adding the option to arrange by XDIM first and YDIM second? Hole depth? Maybe a drop down box to select from the choices?
6) Allowing Hole Tables to pick up slots could be useful, but I have personally not needed this yet.
7) Currently, the XDIM and YDIM columns in a Hole Table are not accessible to the user. We can change the precision, but it is sometimes important to be able to access these dimensions for a number of reasons. We would like to be able to access individual XDIM and YDIM values in order to apply tolerances, or write in descriptive text. Please see links for details.
8)The height of a row in the table cannot be specified after the table is placed. (It can only be dragged.)
9) Multiple Views http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/hole-tables/idi-p/5377573
10) Concentric Holes http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideastation/hole-table-enhancement/idi-p/5040462
Thank you!
Alex
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