Find us on Google+ February 2008 ~ Inventor Tales

Monday, February 11, 2008

Using Your Design View in a Drawing

So last time I talked about creating a design view, but here's a little about how to put one in a drawing.

I have two covers, a blue and a green one (you might recognize these from the last blog on this).


Now I'm going to put these into a drawing, but continue to reference the views.

1) Create your base views like you would normally, but now choose the design view that has the assembly you want. I'm choosing the assembly with the Blue cover. Also, I'm going to associate the drawing view to the design view.


Now, I have a view of a blue cover on my drawing.



Of course now, comes the inevitable 'so what', and I don't blame you, but here's where the little used 'Associative' check box can help.

Now, I can go back to my assembly, and change the color of my view, I'm going to choose Cyan. Don't forget to unlock the view first!


Now lock your view again, and switch back to the drawing.


The drawing view will also be cyan. I know this may not be a big deal on smaller drawings, but if you're creating larger drawings (particularly some where the drawing views are used to show color changes), this can help document the drawings a great deal.

Happy Inventing, I'm already thinking of the next thing to blog!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

New Tech for the Home Shop

Sitting at home today, I was watching T.V. in between checking my eyelids for light leaks (in other words, I was napping), and caught a comercial for, of all things, a what amounts to a CNC router for the home shop.

It's not too extravagant, but looks like it would do most things a hobbyist would want! At $1800 U.S., it's not cheap, but it's also something that's in the realm of the hobbyist.

I guess it's another case where technology is working it's way down to the masses. Here's a link.

I'm working on putting another Inventor blog up! I'm thinking about one that talks about putting design views into drawings, so stay tuned!