Inventor 2009: Utilizing custom profiles

By Justin Williams,
MCAD Solutions Engineer
Hagerman & Company

Have you ever wanted to customize you own structural shapes to content libraries? Inventor 2009 addresses the needs of the many companies and individuals who use custom profiles. Examples of common uses include custom aluminum extrusions, dimensional lumber, profiled wood, rails and miniature tubing. Inventor 2009 provides a new Frame Shape Authoring tool for defining and publishing user-defined profiles. The authoring tool affords complete control over the data displayed in the Frame Generator interface. All profiles, including user-defined profiles, are now managed in the Content Center.

You publish to an existing read/write library. If no read/write libraries exist, you must set up a new library using the Autodesk Server Console, and then add that new library to the current project file using the Configuration dialog box.

Use the Structural Shape Authoring tool to define your own frame member cross-sections and place them in the Content Center for use within Frame Generator.

Open a part/iPart that represents a structural shape that is not available in the Content Center.

In the Part Features panel bar, click the Structural Shape Authoring tool.

The Structural Shape Authoring dialog box is displayed.

On the Layout tab, in Category, expand the list and select one category that pertains to the part/iPart you want to author.

Two rows are displayed in Geometry Mapping.

Select Geometry By default, if there is only one extrusion in the part/iPart, it is selected, along with the predefined point.

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If there is more than one extrusion in the part, select an extrusion feature in the Browser or in the graphics window.

A preview is shown in the dialog box if you selected a category and an extrusion feature. Entities highlighted in the graphics window help with the selection.

Predefined Point This is the default, and is selected automatically when a base extrusion is selected. The default insertion point is the geometric center of the profile.

Select Geometry If you selected an extrusion feature, the default base point is selected, or you can define a point.

The selected point is highlighted in red in the graphics window, and is shown on the preview image.

Parameter Mapping

Enables mapping between category parameters, family columns and template parameters. Required parameters have a light yellow background, and optional parameters have a white background. The only required parameter for Frame Generator authoring is the base length.

Category Parameters and Table Columns

Lists the parameters for the selected category. Enables mapping of table columns to category parameters.

All steel shape categories provide the same parameters to map to the appropriate part table column names. Mapping is required for parameters displayed with a light yellow background.

Click OK.

The part features are modified and information specific to Frame Generator is added. You can save the unauthored profile in case you need to edit the part before you publish it.

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Click “Publish Now.”

The part is available in the Content Center for use in Frame Generator.