Design Tables

[harley558]

In Solidworks there is Design Tables is there an equivalent to that in Inventor?

[shift1313]

I think with inventor 8 you only have macros. You will more than likely need a strong understanding of basic programming. Is there something specific you want to do, or just a general question?

 

In terms of Excel functionality you can link your parameters to an excel spread sheet. That will let you make use of excel and use the values to control drawings, but I dont know of anyway to integrate it in the same manner as SolidWorks.

[harley558]

It is just general question. The person who taught me Solidworks now is Senior Engineer for a company in Tasmania. He said that he has found that the Design Tables makes things a little easier. I was just curious if Inventor had something similar.

[JD Mather]

He said that he has found that the Design Tables makes things a little easier. I was just curious if Inventor had something similar.

 

Inventor has had iParts (Part Factories) as long as I can remember. Takes a bit of work to set up. Depends on what you are trying to do. There are a number of older iParts on this site http://www.cbliss.com if you want to investigate the functionality.

 

Here is an example from the cbliss site from Inventor v6.

 

You can select the size you want from the browser - or more commonly with iParts - you place into an assembly and specify size at that time.

[JD Mather]

This page has some good examples

 

http://www.cbliss.com/inventor/Parts/Tools/index.htm

 

Click on image to download.

Unzip

Pull down the End of Part marker in the browser.

Right click on the Table in the browser and select Edit Table.

Spend some time examining the table tabs.

Start a new assembly file and place an instance of the iPart.

When the iPart table appears spend some time examining the Keys, Tree and Table tabs.

[shift1313]

Here is a simple example of integrating inventor with excel in the same manner design tables work in SW. Put both the ipt and xls file in the same folder and it should work fine. Open the ipt and you will notice above your origin there is a folder called 3rd party. Expand this and you will see the excel file. Double click this and it should open a separate excel window. I made a custom view so you have 2 drop down boxes and one box to enter a legth value. Change these values, save the excel file and click the update button in your inventor window.

 

As JD mentioned you also have iParts. Its a similar method with one difference being the user interface. One difference being(correct me if im wrong jd) but you have to create/setup each part. Its a lot of setup but depending on the application well worth it.

 

These features are great but it really depends on what you are doing with them. They arent made to be effective in every case but if your industry calls for it then it could be great.

Inventor Parameter.zip