Using Model Sketches on a Drawing in Autodesk Inventor

“You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.”
John Singer Sargent

Last week, I was talking to someone about how to best represent a spot weld in Autodesk Inventor.

The first observation to make is that Inventor has a Weldment environment that provides several tools to help with welding.  It's got a variety of tools.  It can separate the weldment into different sections, the assembled environment, the preparation environment, the welded environment, and finally machined environment.

This is a great tool if a high degree of detail is needed in creating a welded environment.

But what if  just a simple representation is needed?

In the brainstorming session, an idea was brought up.

What about creating a sketch in the assembly, showing the spot welds in the sketch, then showing it on the drawing?

The sketch added to the model

The sketch added to the drawing

I tried it.  It works!  The sketch can be shown, annotations can be added and so on. 

Here are the basic steps:

1. Create a sketch on the model (part or assembly)
2. Place the view in a drawing.
3. Right Click the Assembly in the Drawing Browser
4. Choose "Get Model Sketches"

And BOOM!  That's it.  It's pretty easy!

So keep this in mind for your designs.  And keep it in mind for any application it can help in.  I used spot welds in this example, but any place a sketch can help, use it! 

Of course, here's a video showing the example I described!

One last thing.  Do you have a place where this workflow helped you out?  Share a comment and let me know!