Hey everyone, I'm Alex. Welcome to part one of the Autodesk Inventor home screen
user interface tutorial module, where we'll be taking a look at the top
toolbar and "file" tab. I broke this series down into easily digestible segments to
deliver you the most relevant content for your convenience so if this video
doesn't contain what you're looking for, go ahead and check out the other parts
of this module. If you want to stay up to date on future tutorials like this one,
or fun engineering projects and other cool stuff, make sure you subscribe and
turn on channel notifications. In this tutorial, we're gonna start with the top
left corner of the screen and we're gonna work our way down into the right.
So with that said, at the top left, we see the Autodesk Inventor icon in the shape
of an "I"; this gives us some control over the application window itself so
when we click on this, we get some options here we get restore, minimize,
closed, and some other grayed out options, so if we were to click restore it would
actually shrink the window we could actually maximize the window from here
clicking the maximize button or we could go up here to the top right corner of
the window. So we're just gonna go ahead and use this. The other options are
self-explanatory and you can play around with those as you wish.
The next option here, is the "new" button. You'll notice that there's a little
drop-down arrow here, if we click that, it gives us some basic options for opening
a new window so it gives us assembly, drawing, part, and presentation. We could
actually go ahead and click this to launch the relevant workspace, but we're
gonna hold off on that for now, and we're gonna actually click on the "new" icon
itself. So when we click "new", it brings up this new dialog box titled, "create new
file". We get some options here, so let's just sort of step through and see what
we've got. We have our templates folder; if we click on that we don't see
anything in here. Obviously we have more stuff housed in it, let's step through
those. So if we go into "en-US", we get some options for some, some different types of
files. So we get our part files, assembly, drawing, and presentation. Let's take a
step further and start out with the "English" folder. This gives us an
additional option for mold design here. But let's go and start with part. So, the
differences in these folders is it gives you some different options for
part files with reference to the units that you're using. So we're using English
units here, hence the "English" title on the folder.
Starting with the top, we can create a part file this takes the form of either
a sheet metal variant or a standard part file. So, the standard part file is what
you would use if you're just creating a normal 3D model, so that would give you
extrudes or if you're a CATIA user, it would be called a pad, and all of those
other basic functions that you're probably familiar with or have seen
elsewhere. Stepping down, we have our assembly options. So, our assembly options,
we can click on these and you'll notice it gives us a brief description on the
bottom right-hand side. If you are away from your computer with this tutorial
video, or you just need a refresher on what each of these are, it's sort of nice
because Autodesk Inventor gives you a brief description of what these are. Our
first option is mold design. This is for those creating an injection mold
design for your injection molded parts; super handy utility if you're in the
manufacturing space. Stepping over, we have our standard assembly. So, this would
be your standard assembly file that you would be using to create your sub
assemblies, your main assemblies, whatever that you're doing with your project at
that time; and we have our weldment. So this is creating an assembly joined by
welding. So if you're dealing with welding parts such as frame structures
or anything of that variety, this is where you'd want to work. Moving down, we
have our drawing section. In our drawing section, we have two options here; and
this is something that comes up quite a bit on online forums with regards to the
difference between both files. so our first one is our "ANSI .dwg" file. And then
our next one, is our "ANSI .idw" file. So, what an "idw" file is, is the inventor
drawing file format that was originally with the Autodesk Inventor software back
when it first came out. Originally Autodesk Inventor would not
be able to read ".dwg" files or open those files in the beginning. However, over time,
they've actually added that functionality so you can now open ".dwg"
files and vice-versa with other programs. Moving over, we have our "dwg"
file. This is a file format that is common with AutoCAD. This is nice to be
able to start a file in this format because when you start a file in this
format you can actually open these files in AutoCAD and make some edits to the
dimensions and stuff themselves. It will not change the model dimensions. Those, to
do that, you'll either have to break the link to the model or save the file as
something else in AutoCAD so that you can edit the
geometry itself. But, this is really useful for keeping a nice compatible
environment with other teams. So, 9 times out of 10 you'll probably want to do
your 2D engineering drawing files in this format here. And then lastly, we have
our presentation section. The presentation section is useful for
animations, exploded views, and things of that nature. This is very useful if
you're doing, let's say, a work instruction in a manufacturing
environment. So maybe you want to do an exploded view and have step-by-step
assembly instructions, you can actually do that here and this is very valuable.
This accelerates the amount of time it takes to create work instructions. You
don't have to create separate models to show various steps in the assembly
process. You can animate all of this and it's really useful.
Moving down on the left side here, we get to our "metric" section. These options are
the same as the "English" section, we just have different standards within each
subsection. So, you can see those here depending on where you're located
geographically, what type of standards you're adhering to within your industry,
you can explore all of these options and choose the relevant one for you.
And then lastly, we have our mold design. This just gets back to our basic mold
design utility that we saw in the other windows.
This folder just separates it from the other options. Let's see, on the bottom
left here, we have our help launcher button. So, if you click this
it'll take you to the Autodesk "help" page on the Internet.
Moving over, we see a box called project file. Now, I'll go into depth on project
files shortly here. But, essentially, what this is, is it subdivides your, like it
says your project, in two separate places and it allows you quick access to those
workspaces and projects individually and I'll show you how to do that here. The
next button, actually launches your project dialog box where you can create
new projects, edit projects, and move stuff around, rename files, whatever you
need to do. And then, of course, your create button actually launches the type
of file. For me, I typically use English units.
I would, let's say, make a 3D part in the standard part utility here and click
create. That would launch the part creator there. Next, is cancel, and at the
top right, is your view drop-down box. So, I can change how these tiles show up
here so if I choose extra-large icons, it gives me extra large icons, and so on and
so forth. We can see these different options in various ways depending on
your preferences. So we're gonna go ahead and click cancel here. And then moving
back up to the top, we have our "open" command. This is pretty self-explanatory.
You click "open", you can, you know, search through your file directory, you see your
workspace which is basically where your project directs your file explorer to, to
view your models, drawings, whatever you have in there that's relevant to that
particular design effort. Moving over, we have our "home" icon. This is really useful.
So, let's say for example we're in a separate "part" file. You can always come
up to the top here and click "home" and it'll take you back to this screen. So, you
can quickly navigate between various part, assemblies, drawings, whatever you're
doing. But you can always have a quick way to get back to the home screen here
which is super useful. And then, lastly, on this line, is just your customization of
your "quick access" toolbar. Let's say we want to see a
"projects" option here it will add that to your screen up here at the top. Let's say
we don't really need a "save" button here because we're not really saving anything
on this screen, we can take that away. But, we're gonna take everything back to
default there. Moving over to the right, we have our "minimization arrow", which
just basically collapses the "search help and command" bar. We're gonna open that
back up because that's pretty useful at times. Over here is your account
information drop-down tab. So, this allows you to sign out, see your account details,
manage your license, so on and so forth. We have a little App Store icon here. So,
this is so you can purchase various Autodesk plugins and other apps that
work with the software suite. And then, lastly, you have your little "help" button
here, you know again to access the Autodesk "help" menu. Moving over, we have
our "file" tab. Now, this is pretty common in most Windows applications. So, if we
click the "file" tab, you know we see our basic options here. "New", again, it takes
you back to your basic list of options here for starting at part, presentation, so
on and so forth. You can see that from here as well. So, we'll go back to "file",
you know, "open" you can open various file types, you can share views and such. But,
this is really useful if you're collaborating with suppliers, or a
customer. So, say for example, you have a part that you need the surface finish or
the color selection approved by your customer, this is a great way to share
some views with them; they'll be able to rotate it, zoom in and out, but they won't
actually be changing the file. So, this is very useful. It won't disturb any of your
geometry or any of the data that you've assigned to this model. "Manage" allows us
to create or edit projects and work through each of these drop-downs here.
There's a brief description provided under these so I'm not going to go too
in depth there. And that concludes this segment of the Autodesk Inventor home
screen user interface tutorial module. I hope this helped you obtain a better
understanding of the home screen and its user interface don't forget
to subscribe and turn on notifications to stay up to date on
future content as its released. And of course, don't hesitate to reach out and let
me know if there's anything else you'd like to learn about or see on this
channel. Thanks for watching!