Hi everyone, I regret to inform you that I will not be updating this blog anymore. I already resigned from my post as Applications Engineer. I will still keep the blog online though for your reference. It has been a pleasure sharing my knowledge and discoveries to everyone. I hope my brief stint in blogging about Autodesk Vault and Autodesk Inventor has been helpful for you.

We could easily rename files in Vault. In fact, Vault has its own Renaming Wizard wherein we would just add the files that we want to rename. Also, related files that will be affected by this operation will be repaired. However, we should remember this:

Vault would not rename files in the local workspace

Thus, if we’re going to rename a file in Vault, make sure that:

1. The files that will be affected by the file rename are all checked in the Vault.

And in order to avoid dependency problems when opening (an assembly for example) a file:

1. Make sure that your local workspace is empty.
2. Get entire folder for that particular project.

Autodesk just acquired Plassotech. Read the press release here. Currently, the FEA solution built-in with Autodesk Inventor Simulation Suite 2008 and Autodesk Inventor Professional 2008 is powered by Ansys technology. Ansys is a global leader in CAE. It seems that FEA tools in 3G Author will replace the existing FEA tools powered by Ansys. I guess they’ll be coming up with something that would answer the needs of the semi-conductor industry and others that need thermal stress analysis.

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In order to execute an online collaboration through the Project Freewheel website, AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit users must download the Project Freewheel 2D/3D Share Now utility. After installing the utility, a Share Now function will be added to the File Menu of your CAD client (AutoCAD, Inventor, or Revit).

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With the help of my colleague we were able to test it and we were able to run a successful online collaboration. If you think that the browser needs to be refreshed in order to check if markups are added, think again. You may check if there are updates created by a particular user by looking at the session participants list. You’ll see there the last update created by a particular user.

Then, you could view the markup list and see all the markups that have been created.

After I installed the Autodesk Data Management Server 5 Service Pack 1, I tried accessing the Vault Manager. It popped up an error message with provisions for putting the username and password. The error message is about the impersonation message.

In order to solve this problem, right click on My Computer then select Properties. Click on the Computer Name tab. Copy the full computer name. Thus, if it is a member of a domain, include the domain.

Login as [full computer name]/AutodeskVault then leave the password at its default. You may refer to the discussion here.

Service Pack 1 for all flavors of Autodesk Inventor 2008 . Download it now and apply the patch. Most of the issues addressed in this patch concerns with the Drawing Manager. Read more of the issues being addressed here.

Autodesk Solutions Day was held last week at Crowne Plaza and the four ballrooms were filled with participants from different industries such as AEC, Infrastructure, Manufacturing, and Media and Entertainment. The famous Lynn Allen was there to present AutoCAD 2008.

Have you ever tried copying from an AutoCAD 2008 environment to the Autodesk Inventor part environment? If so, did you get the same dimensions? Just this morning, a customer called me for assistance regarding this one. This is actually not a bug.

So what shall you do?

Before doing a copy paste from AutoCAD to Inventor, type in the AutoCAD command line:

units

Then, if the default units in your part environment is in mm, then specify the units as mm.

I just checked the Autodesk’s Manufacturing Community website and I was surprised seeing my name there in the front page of the site. My design portfolio is featured there. Hehe. I haven’t uploaded my other designs there. I guess I’ll upload all of them in the following days to come.

Before, we all have to select one edge at a time to create a flange in Autodesk Inventor. Now, we could create the flanges by selecting a loop. Of course, one benefit of this is that our sheet metal creation is faster.

Aside from the Flange, you could also do a loop select for your contour flange.

NOTE: You cannot make a loop select to a face that is circular in shape or is created out from a spline. If you try selecting a an area with one rounded edge and all the rest are lines, only the lines will be selected. Please refer to the image below.