VB Driven motion

[Anonymous]

Hi, I shall describe a simplified version of what I am trying to acheive for ease of communication:

Create an Inventor assembly comprising a floor plane and 2 cubes. Position the 2 cubes to the side initially.

Create a VB.net GUI which allows a user to select a cube from a pop-down list, enter a Time value (say in seconds) and a location on the floor (x and y) and click an Enter button.

The values are sent to Inventor and at this point in time the cube moves to the x, y location (does Inventor have any understanding of time?)

By repeating the process the cubes will move to different locations over time.

Each Task (comprising a cube name, time and location) may need to be stored in a database or array.

I am being asked to develop a planning tool which enables assemblies to be moved about a limited floor area without collisions and the movements stored for review and analysis.

We need a simple GUI with a timeline and a 3D view of the Inventor scene to review and communicate the strategy.

Thank you for reading this.

[Anonymous]

Use "Animator" and be done! 😉

http://www.sdotson.com/animator.asp

Cheers,

--
T. Ham
CAD Automation & Systems Administrator
CDS Engineering BV

HP xw4300 Workstation
Dual Pentium XEON 3.6 Ghz
4 GB SDRAM
NVIDIA QUADRO FX 3450/4000 SDI (Driver = 8.4.2.6)
250 GB SEAGATE SATA Hard Disc
3Com Gigabit NIC

Windows XP Professional SP2
Autodesk Inventor Series 10 SP3a
--

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Does Animator assist in the development of an Inventor sequence which I can then access the values of through my VB interface?

[Anonymous]

To be honest, I have no clue 🙂

Allthough I don't use a lot of Add-ins (I create them myself), I do know
where to find them. Kent Keller, Charles Bliss and Sean Dotson have a huge
amount of Add-ins (or code snippets) on there websites. I usualy redirect
people to the right place 🙂 They are all good guys, and contacting them
directly should be no problem.

Also, Inventor Studio should be capable of doing what you want, but I am
quite sure that limited things (or even nothing) from Inventor Studio have
been exposed in the API.

HTH,

--
T. Ham
CAD Automation & Systems Administrator
CDS Engineering BV

HP xw4300 Workstation
Dual Pentium XEON 3.6 Ghz
4 GB SDRAM
NVIDIA QUADRO FX 3450/4000 SDI (Driver = 8.4.2.6)
250 GB SEAGATE SATA Hard Disc
3Com Gigabit NIC

Windows XP Professional SP2
Autodesk Inventor Series 10 SP3a
--

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your advice.

I am looking at Animator as we speak (type!). A simple keyframe animation in Studio driven from my VB GUI would have been ideal.

I guess I am trying to acheive, in a simple way, what Animator is doing so it can be done.

I will contact the experts you mentioned for advise. If anyone has any advise please do not assume I have solved it yet, I welcome your thoughts.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Now that I think of it...

iDrive (written by MattH) is another program which can drive constraints...

See http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3295

Anyway, what you want to do is possible 🙂

--
T. Ham
CAD Automation & Systems Administrator
CDS Engineering BV

HP xw4300 Workstation
Dual Pentium XEON 3.6 Ghz
4 GB SDRAM
NVIDIA QUADRO FX 3450/4000 SDI (Driver = 8.4.2.6)
250 GB SEAGATE SATA Hard Disc
3Com Gigabit NIC

Windows XP Professional SP2
Autodesk Inventor Series 10 SP3a
--

[Anonymous]

You're on the ball Teun,

Driving Constraints through VB seems straight forward, in fact I shall be using Design Intent to handle engineering rules on the project between the VB GUI and Inventor. My concern is with time. How do I invoke a part/assembly to move at a point in time defined through my VB GUI and remain in place until the next point in time when the part/assembly is asked to move?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

You should be able to use the VB Timer object or Control. But it also
takes a little time for Inventor to make the move and update the view
depending on the size of the assembly etc.

I also have a program KWiKDrive on my site that drives constraints.

--
___________________
Kent Keller
www.kwikmcad.com


wrote in message news:5516743@discussion.autodesk.com...
You're on the ball Teun,

Driving Constraints through VB seems straight forward, in fact I shall be
using Design Intent to handle engineering rules on the project between the
VB GUI and Inventor. My concern is with time. How do I invoke a
part/assembly to move at a point in time defined through my VB GUI and
remain in place until the next point in time when the part/assembly is asked
to move?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Thank you Kent for your advice.

Would you be willing to read a short but more specific description of my (challenging) project. I would be interested in your instinctive reaction as to which direction I should take to develop a solution.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Chris,

I would be intrested in seeing what you want to do to. Depending on your
specific requirements there may be two very different approaches.
--
Brian Ekins
Autodesk Inventor API

wrote in message news:5516790@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thank you Kent for your advice.

Would you be willing to read a short but more specific description of my
(challenging) project. I would be interested in your instinctive reaction as
to which direction I should take to develop a solution.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Brian, how do I contact you? Message was edited by: Chris Molland

[Anonymous]

This will work: brian.ekins@autodesk.com
--
Brian Ekins
Autodesk Inventor API

wrote in message news:5516798@discussion.autodesk.com...
Brian, how do I contact you?

Message was edited by: Chris Molland