To access Vault directly from Inventor, you'll need the Vault Ribbon loaded. Sometimes you have to manually load it. See this blog for details on getting your Vault Ribbon loaded. Tags: Inventor, Vault

Can't find your browser? View cube gone? See this blog to show how to get them back. Tags: Inventor

The methodology and process to allow electrical devices to have symbolic display offset from the physical location of the device. Tags: Revit (MEP)

Had a few customers asking recently whether Microsoft Office 2010 is supported with Autodesk Inventor. The answer is... Yes*. Read on to find out what the * means! Tags: The Good Oil, Microsoft, Inventor, Excel

A couple of releases ago, Autodesk introduced a couple of handy Sheet Metal Properties entitled “FLAT PATTERN EXTENTS LENGTH”, “FLAT PATTERN EXTENS WIDTH” and “FLAT PATTERN EXTENTS AREA” which are dynamically updated whenever the flat pattern changes. Out-of-the-box, these can be retrieved for use in drawing title blocks, notes or sketched symbols. Alas, one of the most frequently asked questions by Inventor users leveraging Sheet Metal is “Can I get these values into the BOM & Parts List?” and the out-of-the-box answer is No! However, with just 3 lines of code using Inventor’s now built-in iLogic functionality, the world is your oyster. Read on to find out how...

Tags: Inventor, material, Ribbon, The Good Oil

Now that you have your license of AutoCAD Plant3D, you want to know where to start!

Before any fancy intelligent P&ID's or fancy Plant3D models are created you need to have your Catalogues and Specs in order first.

Tags: AutoCAD, pipes, Navisworks

If you commonly have to "batch plot", convert Inventor IDW's to AutoCAD DWG's, export to DXF's, publish DWF's, or just simply get the latest version of your files from Vault, then read on to find out how to schedule these common tasks to happen some other time!

Inventor Task Scheduler is a little known tool that has been shipped with Inventor for many years now. It's fairly well hidden away, but you'll find it under START > All Programs > Autodesk > Autodesk Inventor 2011 > Tools > Task Scheduler.

Tags: AutoCAD, Export, Inventor, PDF, Publish, The Good Oil, Vault

So the rumour is true... iPhone's and iPad's CAN be useful for something other than playing games!

Autodesk has recently released a few FREE (that's right - FREE!) apps via the iTunes Store. One of these exciting new apps is the Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer or IPM Viewer for short. The IPM Viewer allows you to interactively view animated 3D assembly instructions created with Autodesk Inventor Publisher software

Tags: Animation, AutoCAD, Export, Inventor, Publish, The Good Oil

The (now) annual Inventor "bonus" pack of goodies is now available for the 2011 release and exclusively for subscription customers. Inventor 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack extends the capabilities of Autodesk Inventor 2011 software. After installation, customers will receive highly requested product enhancements around ease-of-use tools, better data interoperability, expanded tools for building product fabricators, and an expanded tooling library. Tags: AutoCAD, Inventor, Publish, The Good Oil, Content, Export, BIM

You configured a machine to be a network license server and then installed an Autodesk product on the same machine.  When you launch the product, it tries to check out a network license and fails.

On Windows, the FLEXnet Finder dialog displays and, when dismissed, is followed by a license error dialog displaying the error code [-15.570.36]

Click "Continue Reading" to see a solution to this...

Tags: network, licencing, installation

Civil 3D does all kinds of clever Road Reconstruction techniques with overlays, milling etc - it is one of the strongest aspects of the software and is often overlooked.

However, the question we get asked the most often in the Reconstruction Training courses is..

"How do I widen an existing road, continuing it's current crossfall??"

Every Road Design package can do this - the video below shows just how easy and dynamic it is in Civil 3D 2011, using the ANZ Country Kit...

Tags: Reconstruction, Civil 3D, video

This post was originally made on 8 July 2009 in the author’s personal blog (http://themapguyde.blogspot.com). It has been reproduced and updated here with the author’s permission.

One feature in MapGuide that some people may overlook (in terms of utility) is tooltips.

They look simple enough; you use them to display certain attributes when your mouse pointer is over a feature. But what some may not realise is how these tooltips are implemented in the AJAX (or Fusion) viewer.

Click "Continue Reading" for details on this...

Tags: FDO, Mapguide

As part of good housekeeping, you should be purging your Autodesk Vault system of old versions of the files. Frequency of purging all depends on how many people you have checking files in and out of the Vault. You may find every six months is sufficient to keep your database and File Store to an acceptable level. Although it is common for some companies to purge every few weeks.

Every time a file is checked into the Vault, a new version is created and is stored in the database and in the File Store. Your File Store may increase in size very quickly which will consume hard drive space on your server. These old versions may be of some importance, but more than likely they are not required. You can purge your Vault system to only have a specified amount of old versions available.

The database also keeps a record of the old versions. You may want to keep your database level down due to the limitations on SQL Express. SQL is the database engine that runs the ADMS, (Autodesk Document Management System). SQL Express is a version that is packaged with Vault from Autodesk. One of the limitations of SQL express is the 4GB database size limit. This is not to be confused with the File Store. The File Store is only limited by the hard drive size on your server.

Once a database reaches the limit of 4GB, then you will need to look at options for going forward. You may go to a Full SQL package available from Microsoft or even archive some information from your Vault. Going to the full SQL versions, if you already haven't, will allow you to have an unlimited database size. It also has other benefits, but we will not cover this here.

Below is a quick guide to purging your Vault system.

Tags: Vault, Database, Purge

One of the new features in Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2011 is the ability to underlay your existing maps with layers from Google/Yahoo/Bing Maps. This technique was possible in Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2010, but required lots of manual setup and hacking around for it to work. With the 2011 release, support for doing this is built right into the MapGuide Studio user interface, making this process much simpler.

Tags: Mapguide, Map 3D

This is a video showing 2 different methods of sizing an awning based on solar radiation calculations over a fixed time period with some shadows to illustrate the result.

Method 1:

This is based on using Ecotect's functionality to physically trace the solar profile over the awning (from both directions) to use as guideilnes when resizing the geometry.

Method2:

This method uses the Shading Design wizard to achieve the same task

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The Shading Design Wizard method is a lot quicker but, like all automated procedures, when you don't control the process manually, there can be a tendency to over-design. Tags: Ecotect, video, Sustainability

A short video showing clash detection in Navisworks...

Tags: Clash Detection, Navisworks, video, BIM

This is a short video showing how the 2 packages can link together...

Tags: video, Revit (Struct), ASD, BIM

You need to measure the true length of a profile string but there is no tool to achieve it...

The video below shows a process to create a feature line and list it...

Tags: Long Section, Profile, Civil 3D, Feature Lines, video

A new Inventor 2010 brings us several new Sheet Metal features providing a long time waited solutions for complicated shape designs. Let's see some of the most specific ones.

• CONTOUR ROLL
• LOFTED FLANGE
• RIP
• BEND ORDER ANNOTATION
• UNFOLD / REFOLD FEATURES

Tags: Inventor, The Good Oil, Flange

You can stack strings in drawing texts to create diagonal or horizontal stacked fractions, and superscript or subscript strings. To stack strings manually, type a valid stacking sequence in the text field. Then select the sequence, right-click and choose Stack.

If appropriate, switch Auto- Stacking on to stack numerical strings automatically as you type. Auto-Stacking is available in the Format Text, Edit Dimension, Edit Bend Note, Edit Punch Note, Edit Hole Note, Edit Chamfer Note, and Edit Thread Note dialog box.

The Auto-Stack functionality is not available for other than numerical strings... click "continue reading" for more information...

Tags: Text, AutoCAD, The Good Oil, Civil 3D