How to make holes automaticly?

[Anonymous]

Hi to all!

In Inventor 2014, how can we place a part or assembly, that make the holes automaticly when we place the part in a assembly?  Similar to this hinge and screw insertion video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHtdOl9ArDM.

What is the procedure to do that?

Thank's!

Alain

[philippe.leefsma]

Hi Alain,

Nothing is done automatically through the API, you'll have to handle it yourself. You can programmatically insert a part or subassembly in an assembly, then create hole features either at the assembly level or part level.

You can create a custom command that allows your app to interact dynamically with the user but all those are independent connected topics.

If you are a newbie in Inventor API, here are a couple of suggested links:

http://www.autodesk.com/developinventor

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=17324828

https://github.com/ADN-DevTech/Inventor-Training-Material

If you have more specific questions, feel free.

Regards,

Philippe.

[Anonymous]

Hi Philippe, thank's for your reply. I am more a AutoCad user and i am building a part library in Inventor now. Thing must be done differently in Inventor, so I will have to learn more on API. If I find a solution, I will post it.

Thank's again!
Alain

[Anonymous]

Is there anything to do with iFeature instead of API? Is there a way to incorporate a iFeature to a Part or iPart? So when a Part or iPart is place to a solid surface, the hole(s) will be made on placing the element.

[philippe.leefsma]

I'm not sure what you are talking about. An iPart can contains features that are controlled by the iPart instance you select upon insertion. You can control the values of the feature parameters for an instance of the iPart. An iFeature is to be inserted in an existing part, so an iPart cannot contain directly an iFeature. If you are not familiar with the capabilities of the product itself, please take time to go through the user tutorials and let us know if you have more questions.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Hi Philippe, let me explain more in detail what we are doing here. Most of the time, we are importing drawings from a ""step", "iges" files and the rest of the time we have to make the ".ipt" drawing from A to Z, see attach a Inventor assembly ".iam" file from Cadenas web site converted into Inventor Parts ".ipt" file from us.  In this ".ipt" files, only the part number change, but the part is physically the same, so now the Part is become an iPart.

So now we have to use this Part or iPart in our control panel. When we place these Parts or iParts in a ".ipt" or ".iam" drawing, we whant to be able to make the holes (Holes or tapped holes) and hardware (Screws, washers and nuts) at the same time, same as the video on Youtube.  The size of the hole and the size of the hardwares will stay the same at 95% of the time.  If a part change location, the holes should always fallow the Parts without re-editing the drawing.

My question was, how to achived this process? With iLogic? With iFeature? With VBA? With VB.Net? or other?

If I can do it in Autocad with VBA, I am sure, I can do it in Inventor.

Thank’s for your feedback!

Alain

[philippe.leefsma]

Where are supposed to be the hole features? If they are located on the part you insert, you can control their parameters through an iPart instance, selecting a specific iPart instance will create holes using the specific inputs defined in advance for that part instance.

Any other workflow, like defining and modifying the hole depending on the context in which the part is inserted will require API customization. But implementing a complete custom command doesn't depend on a single concept, you will need to learn about several topics and how the API works in Inventor in general, hence the links I provided earlier.

Inventor exposes a COM API, so basically it offers the same set of functionalities either from .Net, C++ or VBA. You should consider VBA as a deprecated technology, therefore I wouldn't advise you choose this path. A C# add-in is the most efficient and powerful way to achieve customization, you may use VB.Net if you don't know C# syntax.

I hope it helps.

Philippe.