Table driven patterns

[brent_e_barbour]

It would be really nice to have an array that could be driven by coordinates of an Excel Spreadsheet table. In addition to part features driven in this array, also consider driving “Pins” in the “Harness” menu. Then consider an iPart being able to read Excel files with multiple sheets. Then we can create detailed iParts of MS circular connectors with the various socket or pin features. See attached MIL-STD-1669A.pdf pages 12 through 64.

[jingyi.liu]

Hi

Please refer to below ideas on table driven pattern, it has gathered lots of Kudos, you should cast your kudos on that on.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/table-driven-patterns/idi-p/5539383

Btw, have you tried Inventor 2017? Please refer to below image, you can create points by importing Excel spreadsheet.

Regards,

Jingyi

[brent_e_barbour]

Thanks Jingyi!

I gave kudos to the other post.  Also, I've played with 2017's "import points" command in sketch mode.  It's really cool!  However, the points won't stay linked to the table and you still need to add 2D constraints so they don't move.  Additionally, 2018 has added the "sketch driven array" command in the 3D Model mode.  Inventor is really close to what I'm recommending but not quite there.  I can use both of those commands to achieve my goal in a round about way.  If I want to build a circular connector with all the available patterns, I can create a pin and socket feature for each one and then suppress or compute accordingly in the iPart table.  It'd take a lot of work to do in Inventor the way it is today.  If Autodesk can fine tune those commands to have them driven and linked to a coordinates table in Excel and have an additional feature in the iPart table to select which sheet to use from a multi-sheet Excel spreadsheet, just imagine how fast and powerful it would be to create such an iPart.

[brent_e_barbour]

...also if the wire harness "pins" of Inventor Professional can also be linked and labeled per that excel table then your iPart can generate connectors ready to be routed.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi @brent_e_barbour,

See this app:

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/en/Detail/Index?id=2747279470883390907&appLang=en&os=Win32_64

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[brent_e_barbour]

Thanks Curtis!  This is a great add-in.  I'm surprised Autodesk didn't use this instead of the "import points" command that is currently included with Inventor.  I like that I can now link to a coordinate table instead on a one-time embedding.  Now if only there is a way to link to a multi sheet spreadsheet and have it all directed through an iPart table.  However, for now, this gives me much more functionality.  Instead of putting all options in one iPart, I can create an iPart of each pin pattern or I could include multiple patterns in one iPart and compute/suppress features, but that'll get too complicated.  I'll just create them as I need them.