Designing A Detention Pond with Grading Criteria

Here we creating a detention pond from a Grading Criteria Set. All values are entered into the criteria set and the detention pond is built automatically. Click link below for video.

DESIGN DETENTION POND

Preparing for Autodesk Certification

Preparing for Autodesk Certification

Before taking the Autodesk Certification exam there are some steps that should be taken to make sure you’re fully prepared to pass the tests. 

What Certification Do You Want?

There are two types of Certifications you can qualify for: Certified Associate and Certified Professional. 

Certified Associate

The Certified Associates Exam has 30 multiple choice questions.  There is a 60 minute time limit.    

Certified Professional

The Certified Professional Exam is a performance based exam.  This means you get test answers by working through problems in the respective program you’re testing for.  You have 90 minutes to complete the 20 question exam.  The passing score varies depending on the product you are testing for.

Both exams must be taken at an Authorized Autodesk Testing Center.

To become an Autodesk Certified Professional you have to pass both the Certified Associate and Certified Professional Exam.

Step 1: Exam Guides

Exam guides are intended to help develop a strategy for passing the test.  Exam guides contain exam preparation information, exam objectives, sample items and test taking strategies.  You can find exam guides at each Certification product page.  Exam Guides

Step 2: Assessment Tests

Assessment exams are non-proctored exams that are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  There is no passing score for Assessment Tests.  This is the first step to see what your chances are of passing the real tests.  If you fail this test miserably you have some studying to look forward to.  Assessment tests can be downloaded from http://starttest.autodesk.com.

Step 3: Training

There is no substitute for formal training when it comes to learning CAD software.  Instructor-led training guarantees you learn the full scope of the product.  People that teach themselves CAD software (or learn on the job) are always successful in making themselves productive; however, there are many aspects of the program they do not learn.  To pass either of the Certification exams, it is imperative to have a complete understanding of the program you are testing for.  A good fundamentals class is adequate to pass both Certification exams.  Intermediate or advanced classes will help but are by no means necessary.

Register for Total CAD Systems Training

Step 4: AOTG (Autodesk Authorized Training Guide)

AOTG covers all the exam objectives, so they are ideal study material.  The AOTG comes with a dataset to work through exercises at your own convenience.   A 30 day software trial version is included with each AOTG.  When you take classes at Total CAD Systems you get a copy of your class’s AOTG with the training.

AOTG books can be purchased at the Autodesk Store.

Step 5: Practice Exam

Taking a Practice test will be the next step in gauging your product knowledge.  Like the Assessment exam, the Practice test is a non-proctored exam that can be taken 24-7.  You’ll need to have a standalone copy of the testing software to work through exercises and get answers to questions.  Practice tests can be downloaded from http://starttest.autodesk.com.

Step 6: Certified Associate Exam

Go to your local Authorized Testing Center and take the Certified Associates Exam.  After passing you’ll be a Certified Associate.  Good job!!!

Step 7: Certified Professional Exam

After passing the Certified Associate exam, you’re ready to take the Certified Professional exam.  After passing the Certified Professional exam, pat yourself on the back.  Your hard work has paid off.

After passing your tests login into your account at http://autodesk.starttest.com and download your certificate and email signature icons.

For more information on Autodesk Certification contact me at cbennett@tcadsys.com.

Slice Graphics Display Texture Change

CAUTION: Before attempting any change to the Windows registry, make a backup. See the Windows Help files on how to back up the registry.

There’s no UI for this, but if you REALLY want to change the dotted, concrete-looking texture here’s how.

NOTE: This regisstry modification is UNDOCUMENTED and NOT tested by Inventor QA. NO TECH SUPPORT is available on this tip.

So here goes…

1. Close Inventor.

2. Start > Run > regedit > OK.

3. In the Registry Editor dialog, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Inventor\RegistryVersion(current release number)\System\Preferences\ColorSchemes\Schemes

4. Expand the “Schemes” folder & click folder of the color scheme number where you want to change the texture.

FYI – here is the mapping between color scheme number and name:
Num Name
(1)     Deep Blue
(3)     Forest
(4)     High Contrast
(5)     Millennium
(7)     Presentation
(9)     Sky
(10)   Winter Day
(12)   Wonderland

5. On a blank area of the right pane of the regedit dialog, right-click > New > String Value.

6. Rename “New Value #1″ to SliceCapTexturePath. The name must be entered exactly as shown here — registry variables are case sensitive.

7. Double-click the name, and the Edit String dialog will pop up.

8. Enter either an absolute path in the Value data field or a dash ( – ). Absolute path example: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 10\Textures\surfaces\Carpet_Pat06.bmp. See below for what the dash does.

9. Hit OK.

10. This must be done for each color scheme (see above) that you want to change.

11. Exit the registry editor & start Inventor and try the Section View and Slice Graphics.

Here’s how Inventor determines how to display sliced graphics. Thanks to Paul Hanau (Inventor developer).

If SliceCapTexturePath is absent, you get the default texture.

Otherwise (SliceCapTexturePath is present)

If string value is “” (empty), you get the default texture
If string value is “-“ (dash), you get no texture at all on cut faces.
Otherwise, Inventor tries to load the .bmp file with the given absolute path and uses it as the cut face texture.

That’s it.

Marshall

Projects or Project files, which is it….?

Project files; engineering vs. Inventor…

As inventor users are aware of Inventor project files (File.ipj) are necessary for productive work. It has always been a critical part of a proper Autodesk Inventor configuration, and several years ago we had 4 different types of project files, Shared, Semi-Isolated, Single, and Vault. With the introduction of Inventor 2008, 2009 and now 2010, two have disappeared from general user view, Shared and Semi-Isolated, that in my opinion is a very good thing.

It seems that every time I visit a client we have project file issues, and it seems to develop from older materials and suggestions from the help and getting started guides provided with the applications. Something like, and I take some writers license here, “Make a project file for each design…” well this can be made to work but is usually not the best plan. Engineering firms look at “Projects” as a job or a task for a client or potential client, whereas Inventor looks at the Project as a “Vault/Inventor” Configuration file, thus the problems that seem to appear with project files vs. engineering projects. Inventor expects to see one project file that is used by all design team members that is configured to point to a replicated workspace on each designers system.  The Inventor Project file sets the relationship between the individual system workspaces and the Mapping to the Vault database and filestore, In short it places all the designers’ files in a common master location, allowing all design team members to be looking at or working with the same design data. When an individual users elects to work on a file they access it via the vault client while using the universal Inventor project (File.ipj) regardless of the actual engineering project, be it something for Texaco or something for Bob’s machine shop, and when a user checks out a file the Inventor project file (File.ipj) will correctly place a working copy of the file on the users workspace on their individual system. Checking out a file with the vault client application will mark the master file as contained in a file store managed by the Autodesk Data Management Server application as checked out, which the vault client will access via the configured Inventor project file (File.ipj)

So here’s how I see it; I.T. teams and Inventor Vault/ADMS administrators might want to highlight the difference between user projects and Inventor projects, we should define a new Inventor project file naming scheme. I know I’m going to start defining Vault project files with a naming convention that looks something like this;  Adesk_Inventor_config.ipj just to make it perfectly clear that they (Eng project vs. Inventor Projects) are something different than Bob’s or Texaco’s project work…

Just some thoughts I wanted to put down for your consumption and or planning, purely a suggestion and not set in stone.

If you have any thoughts or additions please feel free to respond and let me know…

Thanks

Mike

And of course, Happy Holiday Season…!

Round parts and features… Part 1

Features, and Holes on cylindrical parts, or How do I draw on Round things…? PART 1

As we all know, round parts have a slight sketching challenge; there are no planes to pick from the cylindrical surface. This can be a problem if one is not aware of the tools provided; a combination of construction planes and axes to allow feature definition on the cylindrical surfaces. These include angle offset, offset from the center axis, and various other positional locations on a cylindrical part.

Let us take a look at some solutions and tools to help with these tasks. Note the figure below represents a part that could become a problem child:

A working knowledge of Planes and Axis tools will be needed to define any of the holes and features in the part above.

TIP:  turn on your default work planes…

Starting with the raw part below:

 

Let’s add a feature to the part like the particular one identified below…

Adding the hole feature is very easy and straight forward, and we will use the point & line technique to define a sketch plane on the cylinder surface.

Steps:

1. Drop a plane along the part Axis at desired location…

2. Create a new sketch on the plane created in step (1)

3. Create the vertical and angled line as shown above, and then dimension to the desired angle as show in figure below. This will provide us with the ability to rotate the position of our feature around the part cylinder and along the length of the cylinder – two positioning controls!

4. After finishing the sketch from steps 1, 2 & 3, use the line created in the sketch to create a plane on the end point of that line and normal to that line. The figure below shows the expected results…

5. Now we need to select the plane just created as our new sketch plane, add the geometry to define the hole (feature) shape, see the figure below…

TIP: if this is a counterbored hole, define both the counter bore dia., and the hole dia. in this sketch and share it later for the hole creation.

Hope you found this process helpful. The following PARTS of this TIP sheet will cover the creation of the remaining features each using a different process…

Stay Tuned

Mike