by Luke Davenport
Problem:
You want to create section views in an Inventor drawing, and have these be linked to work geometry (ideally a workplane) in the model file.
Solution:
Use Model sketches instead.
Explanation:
Strangely, Inventor 2014 does not allow assembly or part planes to be projected into a drawing view sketch, so that they can be used to define a section line position. Why do we need a model plane when we can simply reference any model edge I hear you ask? Well there may be occasions – particularly for our Inventor Construction crossover users (designing curtain walling, roofing, scaffolding, facias etc) where there is no model geometry on a gridline that you need to reference in a drawing view.
There is an Ideastation request for this function here:
If you agree with me that this would be useful, add a Kudos vote to the thread.
But until this is included in the software, we need a workaround. And the use of model sketches is the best one I've got so far. So how do we do that?
1) Get the required workplanes in the assembly model (if they are not already there).
2) Now we need the get the line of each plane into its own sketch, to be used later in the drawing. And unfortunately, we can only have one line per sketch, AND we need to sketch a (non projected) line on top of the projected line, as projected lines cannot be referenced for the section line.
3) Now we can create a drawing view, and 'Get Model Sketches' by right clicking on the assembly in the browser:
4) The sketch lines should then be visible. Then we can simply right click on any sketch line, and create a section view.
5) Hey presto – section views linked to work plane positions.
I admit – it's a slightly cumbersome work around. Given the time it takes to create an individual sketch for each plane, this would be an ideal candidate for some iLogic/VB.Net automation. Let me know your thoughts…
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