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Manufacturing

Publish Parts in Inventor (Avatech Tricks Tutorial)

31 Dec, 2007 By: Joe Bartels

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Learn how to publish parts to the Content Library.

The Design Accelerators embedded into Inventor let users engineer their systems and generate parts from the results of their calculations. The Design Accelerators use the Content Library to build all of the parts that are generated. You can add user-defined iParts and iFeatures to the Content Library so that they are available for the Design Accelerators.

To add iParts to the Content Library, you first must publish them. Before you publish a file to the Content Library, you must define certain inputs so that the parts will work with the Design Accelerators. Typically, parts must have property information and constraints defined before they can be published.

Inventor provides tools to publish files to the Content Library; they include Component Authoring, Publish Part, and Batch Publish. The preferred way to add files is to use the Component Authoring tool.

Using the Component Authoring ToolStep 1. Start by opening an iPart. For our example, we're using a Nylock Nut iPart downloaded from cbliss.com.

Step 2. Select the Component Authoring tool in the Part Features panel bar. The dialog box contains two tabs: one to select geometry requirements and another to map parameters. Start with the Layout tab to place iMate requirements.

Step 3. Select the category that fits your part from the drop-down list. Each category has iMate and parameter requirements that must be mapped.

Step 4. Select the iMate mapping required for the category and place on the geometry.

Step 5. Switch to the Parameter Mapping tab and select the iProperty of the iPart of the property needed in the Content Library (rows in yellow are required).

Step 6. Select Publish to add the files to the Content Library. The iPart is now available for use in the Content Library and Design Accelerators.

Using the Content Center Editor The Content Center Editor is used to modify data in the Content Library. To access the Content Center Editor, look in the Tools pull-down menu. The Content Center Editor contains tools to publish parts, modify the part data tables, delete definitions, copy standard content to user libraries, and replace part templates. The workflow to modify standard content is to copy the part definition to a custom library and then to modify the family table to your specifications.

Follow the steps below to replace the template used to create parts from the Content Library.

Modifying the Part Templates
Every company has its own way to name files, BOMs, materials, and properties that are captured in the template definitions. The files that come out of the Content Library use standard template files that won't necessarily meet your company's standards. You can use the Content Center Editor to replace the templates.

Step 1. Copy the definition of the part as defined above.

Step 2. Open any assembly.

Step 3. Create a part from the Content Library that you want to replace the template with.

Step 4. Copy the file using Save As.

Step 5. In the new file, make any changes to the template that you want added to all files. Typically these changes will include the default material, BOM item calculations, work geometry, and certain parameters.

Step 6. Save the file and close it.

Step 7. Open the Content Center Editor and find the part in the list.

Step 8. Change the library filter so it shows only the user library.

Step 9. Right-click on the part and select Replace Family Template.

Step 10. Find the copied part and select OK.