More on Filters! Making Selections Easier.

Just this Friday, someone asked me how you could quickly edit a part in a sub assembly without going through the multiple edits required to get to edit the sub, then the part, then the feature, etc.

As a result, I created this video showing an example of how it might work.

I hope everyone finds it helpful.

Bear with me, I've now upgraded to Camtasia for videos. So far, it's proven to be a great tool, but I have a ton to learn about it!

How Do You Like Your Part List? Filtered, or Unfiltered?

Things have been busy lately. There are days that I feel like I should put that in the fine print. But then again, I don't have any fine print. :-)

This time, I thought I'd mention something that's new to Inventor 2009, but may still not have received the fame it deserves.

Parts list filters.

The part list filters (like their name implies) filters the items visible in the parts list by the following criteria:

• Assembly View Representation (Design views for those of us who remember that far)
  
• Ballooned Items Only
  
• Item Number Range
  
• Purchased Items (Designated in the Assembly BOM)
  
• Standard Content (i.e. Content Center Components)
  

For this example, I'm going to use the 'Ballooned Items Only' option.

At the start, I have the parts list placed on our sheet. I've ballooned the parts I want to show on this view and placed my parts list.

But the parts list shows all the components in this assembly, and while this may be desirable in some circumstances. This isn't one of those cases.

In order to rectify this efficiently, I'm going to right click on my parts list, and choose the 'Edit Parts List' option.

Once in the parts list, choose the Filter Settings button.

The Filters Settings dialog box pops up, and now you can choose your options, and set your filter. Click the green check to commit it, or the red 'X' to remove it (in case you make a mistake). For this case, I'm choosing Ballooned Items.

Once the options are selected, choose OK and close the box down.

While still in the part list editor, you can already see the effect of the filter.

Hit OK again, and the parts list will update to reflect the filters you've created. That's it!

P.S. if you add a new balloon, the part list will update automatically to add the item you've ballooned.

In other news. The first announcements for what's new in the Autodesk Manufacturing Solutions has arrived. Click here to check it out!

Happy Inventing!

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

When we last left our Showcase hero (that's me, BTW) on February 3^rd, we had imported our clamp into a scene, but had yet to do much else to it.

In this blog, we're going to create an environment that's going ad a bit more of the realism we're looking for.

So with our clamp brought into Showcase, the first step to get away from that default blue screen is to go to our Scene>Environment Pulldown.

Once we select Environments, the tree with our available environments will appear.

Next, we left click on the environment we want, and add it to our scene. It will move from our environment library (the lower row) to our environments in scene (top row). It won't appear yet, however.

Now we can click on the Environment in the scene. It now becomes active, and we see that our part is now sitting on a wood floor, sort of. Our part is 'buried' in the floor, and we have to make one last adjustment.

To resolve this, go to the Scene pulldown again, and choose 'Set Floor Position'.

With this option open, now you can move the slider up and down to adjust the position of the part on the scene. You can also use the 'Move to Bottom of Model' option. This may not work every time (it does depend on the origin on which the model was originally built at), but it can position the model quickly.

With the positioning completed (by one method or another), you can return to the Scene>Environment option and turn off your environment menu to complete the scene.

Add a few more some shadows, and you're heading down the road of a Showcase scene.

I've also embedded a video of changing between scenes. I'm slowly getting better at this Youtube thing, but I still have a way to go. Thanks for being patient!

More to come later! It's getting late and I need to sleep sometime!

Video Killed the Radio Star...

If you know where that title comes from, you're dating yourself (right along with me, by the way).

But it seemed appropriate given the fact that I've officially published my first Youtube video. It's a preview of some of the new Rules Based Design Technology that's being shown in Inventor.

The video's not as nice as I'd like it to be, but it's my first go of it after all. I'm hoping to do a couple of more, and get them better!