Moving to 3D with Autodesk Inventor Increases Efficiency and Collaboration Worldwide - Voith

Every third sheet of paper is made on Voith Paper (Voith) machines. A giant in the worldwide paper industry, Voith employs 10,000 people, generates $19 billion a year in revenue, and develops solutions that cover the entire paper production process—from fiber to wrapped paper. Previously dependent on 2D design tools, the company is now meeting its goal of improving the speed and quality of design creation by transitioning to 3D design with Autodesk® Inventor® software.

To gain additional efficiencies, Voith has partnered with Autodesk Consulting for guidance on the Autodesk Inventor implementation. Voith is also integrating its Autodesk manufacturing solution with its SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, product data management (PDM) system, and PARTsolutions from CADENAS GmbH, an Autodesk Inventor Certified Application that manages parts and components, adding intelligence and information to the items.

Voith is communicating easier with its customers worldwide for design reviews using Autodesk standards such as DWF. By implementing an integrated manufacturing solution, Voith’s globally-dispersed engineers now work from a single source of data to produce 3D designs, speeding up—and streamlining—the company’s design, manufacturing, and procurement processes.

Customer Testimonial Video

Top 10 reasons to go for Autodesk Inventor

by Autodesk

1. DWG™ TrueConnect

With DWG™ TrueConnect, Inventor software provides read and write of DWG files without translators. Users can leverage their valuable DWG™ data to build accurate 3D part models, and produce new documentation in the DWG format that is fully associative to the 3D design.
Experience the benefits of Digital Prototyping with rapid access to native DWG data. Update old 2D drawings by inserting views of new 3D designs to reduce the cost of upgrading existing plants and equipment. And because engineers can save drawings in DWG format, they can easily share insights gained from the digital prototype with partners and suppliers who rely on AutoCAD. Views generated from 3D parts and assembly designs can also be combined with AutoCAD data such as schematics and plant layouts.

2.Functional Design

Focus on the functional requirements of a design before committing to creating the model geometry that supports the design intent. Autodesk Inventor products capture the functional requirements of a design to drive the creation of 3D models, enabling engineers to build parts and assemblies based on real-world design input such as load, speed, and power. With a workflow driven by Functional Design, engineers can rapidly build digital prototypes that validate design functions and catch errors before they reach the manufacturing floor. The result: accelerated design cycles and higher-quality designs.

3.AutoCAD Compatibility

Reduce the time and training required for AutoCAD software users to become proficient in Digital Prototyping workflows by offering a familiar design environment with recognizable icons, AutoCAD-compatible shortcuts, cursor-based prompts, and command redo. User profiles enable engineers to configure Inventor to match the way they work, with out-of-the-box profiles for AutoCAD and Inventor experts. In addition, users can transfer their settings among different computers by exporting the profile to XML.

4. Automatic Drawing Views

Improve drafting productivity by automatically creating front, side, ISO, detail, section, and auxiliary views of parts and assemblies from the model. Quickly annotate drawings by retrieving the dimension information directly from the design. Generate item numbers and parts lists automatically, and complete the drawing using a robust set of dimension, annotation, and 2D symbols with full support for technical drawing standards, including ANSI, BSI, DIN, GB, GOST, ISO, and JIS.

5. Automatic Drawing Updates

Change it once, change it everywhere. Autodesk Inventor associates drawing views to the original components, so a change made to any part or assembly is automatically reflected in all associated drawing sheets. For example, with the intuitive 3D grips functionality, designers can quickly make changes to a model and all related drawing views update automatically.

6. Bill of Materials

Create automated and associative parts lists and bills of materials (BOMs) that are developed specifically for manufacturing and that automatically update as the design changes. Support is included for multiple parts lists per drawing, collapsible assemblies, automatic recognition of standard parts, and customizable options so features can be revised to match current company practices. Change a design once, and the updates ripple through the entire drawing to keep everyone on schedule, reducing costly stops in production from incorrect parts counting, identification, and ordering. Export or link BOM data to manufacturing resource planning (MRP), enterprise resource planning (ERP), or data-management systems such as Autodesk® Productstream® software.

7. Technical Documentation

Quickly create assembly drawings and exploded assembly views for use in training manuals and manufacturing instructions. In the Inventor presentation environment, designers can easily create compelling animated sequences for use in training videos, assembly instructions, and sales presentations, helping them visually communicate their design intent.

8. State-of-the-Art Rendering

Quickly and easily create high-quality photorealistic renderings, animations, and presentations that improve communication with customers and other decision makers. Autodesk® Inventor™ Studio software provides state-of-the-art rendering, illustration, and animation tools in the Inventor design environment.

9. Integrated Stress Analysis and Simulation

Create better-quality parts and avoid field failures by using the finite element analysis (FEA) functionality in Autodesk® Inventor™ Professional software to determine stresses and deflections under load. Use FEA to optimize parts strength and reduce material costs without compromising performance.
The dynamic simulation functionality in Autodesk Inventor Professional extends the benefit of the digital prototype, enabling engineers to predict the forces and accelerations experienced by each part in the assembly under real-world conditions with time-varying loads, different friction characteristics, and dynamic components such as springs and dampers.

10. Pipe and Cable Routing

Autodesk Inventor Professional software provides the power to quickly and accurately add routed systems, tube and pipe runs, or cables and wiring harnesses to 3D designs. Routed designs automatically comply with user-defined design rules to reduce errors and save time. As with all Inventor files, the assembly drawings automatically update whenever the routing model is modified.

Retrieving Sheet Metal Extents in Partlist

By Mark Flayler, IMAGINiT

One documentation challenge in recent Inventor releases has been the availability to obtain sheet metal extents for length and width in a parts list or Bill of Material. This is a beneficial process for some users that need the values shown here whether it is company convention, ease of accessibility or for purchasing requirements.

I must have answered this question once every other month over the last year and a half. The truth of the matter is that currently there are a couple ways to do it, but only one actually uses information directly from the programming and the other use a series of tricks of reference dimensions and parameters.

Here is the best method without need for custom programming, add-ins or dimension and parameter tomfoolery:

Inside your sheet metal template or any sheet metal part, access the iProperties Custom tab.Create 3 new iProperties here in the following format for Length, Width, and Area (if desired):

Notice that the units of measure are in cm. This is the native unit of measure for Inventor and how the programming likes it. We will fix this in a bit.

Click Apply and the Properties will populate if the flat pattern already exists. If you have not yet created a flat pattern of the current sheet metal piece the properties will appear as just the units behind them.

Create a Parts List as normal and RMB on it to Edit the Parts List. Use the column chooser to locate your user properties from the list and position them in your parts list heiarchy.

Now to fix that nasty cm unit. In your new column in your parts list, RMB on the column title and choose Format Column. Apply a unit formatting to your liking close the dialog. This will work only for Length and Width since there is no unit overide for Area at this time.

www.rand.com/imaginit

Better Building with BIM

By John Myers, Connect Press Editor

In a recent webcast John Boehms, Autodesk technical representative and certified LEED AP gave a presentation titled “Bridging Environmental and Architectural Design to Nurture Renewability.” He used the webcast to discuss the potential for bringing environmental and architectural design techniques together.

To understand what building information modeling (BIM) is and what it can do… (View more)

Who's got that bloody drawing open!!

Most of our company a range of people have access to our dwg files and a lot of the time we will try to open a drawing and it says "read only", this tells us someone in the office has the drawing open - but who?

Type the word "whohas" in the command line and browse to that file and its tells you the user who has opened the file!

Short Cut Keys in AutoCAD

Hyperlink... CTRL+K
Toggle Ortho CTRL+L
Select All CTRL+A
Copy CTRL+C
New... CTRL+N
Open... CTRL+O
Plot... CTRL+P
Save CTRL+S
Save As... CTRL+SHIFT+S
Exit CTRL+Q
Paste CTRL+V
Copy with Base Point CTRL+SHIFT+C
Paste as Block CTRL+SHIFT+V
Cut CTRL+X
Redo CTRL+Y
Undo CTRL+Z
Group Selection On/Off CTRL+H
Properties CTRL+1
Clean Screen CTRL+0
DesignCenter CTRL+2
Markup Set Manager CTRL+7
Tool Palettes Window CTRL+3
Info Palette CTRL+5
QuickCalc CTRL+8
Command Line CTRL+9
Toggles Object Snap Mode F3
Toggles Orthogonal Mode F8
Toggles Snap Mode F9
Toggles Polar Mode F10
Toggles Object Snap Tracking Mode F11
Suppress Dynamic Input F12

AutoCAD Tips & Tricks

Metric to imperial conversion (vice versa)

If you ever need to convert a metric drawing into imperial (ie. meters to feet)... instead of using the traditional scale command,

A neat trick is to insert the drawing to be converted as a block into an imperial template. all units will then be converted... when you explode the inserted block, even the dimensions will follow.just make sure the your source drawing is in the proper units before inserting it to the template you want it to be converted into...this works best in working with large drawings since it will take lesser time for your computer to process the command and dimensions are also adjusted...