Autodesk Inventor Two Minute Tip: Sketch Blocks

In the continuing series "Two Minute Tips", Autodesk Technical Evangelist Rob Cohee takes a look at sketch blocks and how they can be utiilzed to quickly and easily layout assemblies with Autodesk Inventor. Here Rob illustrates how you can take sketch information directly from AutoCAD DWG data, paste it into a sketch, and turn complex sketches into easy to manage blocks.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• AutoCAD
• Autodesk
• Inventor
• 3D
• 2D
• Digital Prototype
• Rob Cohee

[robcohee]

You could absolutely use these blocks for individual features. This isn't a great example of that but say this was not an extrusion but machined (and smaller obviously). I would create a solid out of the whole profile, share the sketch then use the hole feature to drill out the holes, extrude cut to remove the void, etc...

What you didn't like my kitchen hood.... [grin]

[akosinonesi]

can i use this technique and create the parts as iparts with different length?

i notice that if i use points or to/from dimensions (not really indicate the dim when extruding) it doesnt let me do iparts.

[jdavis417]

Thanks Rob, great tip! I'll be looking (hopefully soon) at what this does to part list capabilites and our need to tool individual extrusions included in the block. Perhaps we'll need to make each shape it's own block but that still beats re-drawing each one or trying to constrain every line and arc. I really appreciate that you're spending some quality time on this industry... the car seat data set is getting way overused and if I see the kitchen vent demo again I going to stop cooking.