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Useful CAD Tool for Autodesk Inventor 2010, allows features to be quickly re-named.

http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/view/Rename_Features/

We are pleased to announce that we have recently upgraded our Autodesk CAD licences of Autocad & Inventor to the latest release of the series. As of 1st June 2009 we will now be running the latest 2010 suite, along with all previous releases. So far the installation and activation has gone on with no news to report, but we will keep you informed of our thoughts in the coming weeks.

We have recently had an issue with one of our UG NX4 CAD Workstations.

We have completed an assembly drawing with views and associated balloons, but when we have inserted a new clean drawing sheet all the balloons on all sheets lose the text within them.

We believe this is because when inserting a new drawing sheet, the default is to insert an associated BOM, which then removes the numbers that have been edited into the balloon.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue, or does anyone know where the default setting to not insert a BOM is located ?

We have an issue with converting Inventor R2009  *.idw files and saving them into Autocad.dwg.  When doing a print preview in autocad, using monochrome pen settings, some lines and text are not black, but retain the colours used in the *.idw file. This seems particularly evident on text and sketched lines from Inventor.

Has any body has similar experience or knows an answer ?

A useful piece of information that has been bought to our attention – From the CadDigest news website. This appears to be valid for Autocad, Inventor and Revit applications.

There are situations where you would need an Autodesk CAD application in an older version than the version you currently own – just for a specific project (external job, completing an older project, etc.). In these cases you can use the enhanced license conditions you get with the Subscription program.

One of the advantages of the Autodesk Subscription program is the right to use older versions (up to 3 versions older release) of the CAD application you own (e.g. if I own AutoCAD Mechanical 2009, I can also use Mechanical 2006). This applies even when you have never owned that particular older version. If you do not have it, you can download it from your Subscription Center and claim a separate serial number from Autodesk.

Such older versions cannot be used to increase the total number of the licenses you own – you cannot use them concurrently to your current license (e.g. for another user or computer). This right to use older versions is in effect only for the period of validity of your Subscription contract (renewable).

Autodesk have now changed their policy regarding their redline / markup ‘Design Review’ software and made it free of charge to download and install. Click here to jump to the download page.

What is Autodesk Design Review?

Autodesk® Design Review software helps save time and money with easy-to-use tools for team members to review, mark up, and revise designs and 3D models. This free tool is tightly integrated with all Autodesk design software products and enables project teams to move to a two-way design review process and gain timesaving functionality in their markup and approval processes. Specific timesaving functionality includes the following:

* Intuitive measure, markup, and annotation tools
* DWG™ file viewing, plotting, and publishing
* Ability to combine project data such as images and specifications in a single file
* Powerful status tracking to manage engineering change orders
* Round-trip markup integration with Autodesk design software products, so designers can overlay changes and comments on the original CAD file.

As reported here, and experienced last week internally within Nova, there are issues with importing older 3D models from Mechanical Desktop into Inventor.

Link : “Yesterday, one of my collegues had problems importing his old 3D DWG model into Inventor 2009 on his new workstation. He was sure this or similar model went fine before.
The reason of the problem was simple. This DWG file originated in Mechanical Desktop. And for importing MDT models into Inventor you need Mechanical Desktop installed on the same PC. As he did not installed MDT with new Inventor 2009 (it is not a part of the installation), MDT files could not be imported. Simple installation of MDT has fixed the problem.
It is important Autodesk will keep Mechanical Desktop (even when it is no longer developed) available for future Inventor versions.”

The progressive phase out of MDT started with the release of Inventor 2009 as reported here. It will be interesting to see Autodesk’s solution to this as and when V2010 is released.