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Autodesk® Inventor® iLogic: a Great Autodesk Tool to Improve
Inventor Features Dario Nicolini – Prisma Tech S.r.l.
MA5901-V
In this class you will explore how Autodesk® Inventor® iLogic manages all Autodesk® Inventor®
features, the approach to create a new iLogic project, problem analysis and its synthesis in order to
improve your productivity. You will also learn how to create and manage iLogic parameters, rules,
interfaces and how to work whit Autodesk® Inventor® iLogic Events.
Learning Objectives At the end of this class, you will be able to:
Describe how iLogic works
Create and manage iLogic parameters
Add and manage iLogic rules
Work with events and interfaces
Describe our experience
About the Speaker Dario was born on November the third, 1982 in Bologna (Italy). He attended the mechanical engineering
faculty at the Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna (Italy). He graduated in 2007 cum laude. Immediately
after graduation, his collaboration with Prisma Tech S.r.l. began. Prisma Tech S.r.l. is an Autodesk
Reseller. Dario started as a customer support engineer solving AutoCAD, Inventor, Producstream
Professional and also Vault issues. Then he became a CAD and PDM trainer specialist. With the
experience gained Dario started the Project Manager carrer on Vault and concurrently he approached to
product development. Now Dario follows about 10 Vault (Workgroup, Collaboration and Professional)
customers and has developed about 8 Apps on Autodesk Exchange Store. Today Dario is a Prisma
Tech's Product Manager.
Email: [email protected]
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Describing how iLogic works
What is it? Autodesk
® Inventor
® iLogic is an Autodesk
® Inventor
® add-in that you can find on every Autodesk
®
Inventor®
package. It is based on Visual Basic .Net language an object-oriented computer programming
language which is implemented on the .Net Framework. Ilogic manages all types of Autodesk® Inventor
®
files so it is available on parts, assemblies and drawings environment.
Rules are the center of gravity of this tool. All iLogic functionalities are based on rules that manage iLogic
parameters.
iLogic commands You can find iLogic commands inside “Manage” ribbon tab on the “iLogic” ribbon panel. The principal
command is represented by Add Rule that allows user to create a new logical engine for the model
transforming it from standard component to iLogic component.
You can explore all the logical content of the model by clicking on iLogic Browser. After that, a new
browser will be showed on the Autodesk® Inventor
® interface.
Event Triggers allows you to manage all events, like New document, Save Document etc…, while
iTriggers automatically fires the default rule.
iLogic features
iLogic is a tool designed for final users and not for developers so you just need to know Autodesk
Inventor. You can interact with all Autodesk Inventor objects in an easy mode using the code snippet
provided by the tool. Code snippets are the simply way to insert inside a rule an iLogic statement. You
can choose the objects category, like parameters, features, iProperties and so on and then you can select
the action. For example if you want to drive a parameter, you can choose the parameters category then
the “Parameter (dynamic)” statement.
There are 2 snippets types:
System snippets that manage only a single Autodesk Inventor object. For instance: parameters
snippet, features snippet iProperties snippet etc…
Custom snippet that provides you not only the possibility to manage a single object but also a small
procedure. For instance: read CSV file, export to IGES or STEP, create or read text file... In this case
you are going deep inside inventor and you need to have a small developer experience.
If you have a small developer experience, good to know, iLogic will be a good friend for you because you
will take advantage of all its capabilities. You can explore all advanced API or you can integrate your own
external libraries. Don’t worry about external library programming language because you can develop it
also in C# or in any other programming language.
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Create and manage iLogic parameters
iLogic Parameters With iLogic, the concept of parameters takes a different meaning. Before iLogic, a parameter was only a
piece of memory used for storing a dimension value, now with iLogic a parameter is a powerful entity that
can be numerical, boolean and also textual. Inside a parameter you can store a dimension value, a
choice or also a textual indication. Parameters can also become multi value offering to users a lot of
choices. In iLogic is very important the difference between key parameters and not key parameters. A key
parameter is a main parameter by which you can change the whole model behavior. A not key parameter,
instead, is a secondary parameter that is less important than a key parameter because it is a driven
parameter. A key parameter can exist without not key parameter while a not key parameter can not exist
without a key parameter. The first thing that you can choose during a new parameter is the type of
parameter. Numerical parameters are all parameters that have a numerical value such as integer,
decimal and also double. If you want to create a True/false parameter you need to choose the Boolean
one. This kind of parameter allows you to enable or disable particular objects. For example you can drive
a plane visibility with this parameter. The last one is the Text parameter that allows you to create a textual
choice. This kind of parameter is very important because it offers the possibility to create model variants.
For example you can drive the suppression of an hole feature on a model creating a text parameter with 2
choice: With Hole or Without Hole.
The numeric and text parameters can become multi value.
Exercise #1: Create a multi-value parameter 1. You can open the parameters window, choose the parameter type (numerical, bool or text) and then
by right clicking on the “Equation” column you can make a multi-value parameter.
2. You can type the new values on the small window above and then when you finished you need to click
on the Add button. As you can see your new values will be copied into the small window below. This
means that you have filled out correctly the new multi-value parameter. The “Allow custom values”
option means that when you use the parameter you will be able to select the values typed before but
also you can add a new one.
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3. Click OK button to validate the changes
Adding and managing iLogic rules
Internal and external rules Rules are the most important iLogic object. They contain all the logical code and allows you to change the
behavior of whole document.
Rules can be internal or external:
Internal rules are embedded inside the file. These rules belong to model and when you copy this file
you inherit the geometry but also the logical content namely rules. Basically an internal rule can be
used to manage specific objects like parameters, features and also iProperties. You can embed it in a
template if you want to share the logical content for all of your new files.
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External rules, instead, are public rules. Basically they are useful to manage general features. This
kind of rules allows you to create a logical framework shared to all files, new or belonging to legacy.
For example you can use an external rule to manage a particular iProperty that is in all files, otherwise
you will update the property before saving file.
Exercise #2: create a new rule 1. Add a new rule by right clicking on the top Item in the iLogic Browser
2. Type the rule name
3. In the rule editor insert the snippet by double click on it
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4. Change the code argument according to the object name and finally set the value. For example with
this code snippet you can drive the parameter and update view automatically
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5. Click OK to validate the changes
Work with events and interfaces
iLogic Events Event is an action that is usually initiated outside the scope of a program and that is handled by a piece of
code inside the program. For instance, in Autodesk Inventor, events are: save document, create new
document, close the document and so on. Normally an event is composed by a pre event and a post
event this because user can decide to do something in a specific moment. For instance you want to
update something before saving the document because you want to save the document up to date. In
iLogic you will manage a limited number of events. By clicking on Event Triggers command you will
browse all events. You can find application events, like “New document”, “Before and after saving
document”, and also document events like “Parameter change” or “iProperty change”.
The purpose of events is to fire rules automatically. In order to link a rule to an event, you need to open
the "Event Triggers" window, right click on a specified event and select the rules you want to fire. In the
example below, “Rule0” will be fired every time I save the document, precisely before every saving
document process.
iLogic Interfaces The user interface is the point of connection between user and software. Basically during design process,
user has a lot of data that will describe the whole component. User can insert data one by one, or he can
interact with an interface that collects them all. As rules also interfaces can be private or global. They are
private when embedded into the file, global when shared by all files. Furthermore interfaces can be modal
or not. A modal interface is an interface that doesn’t allow you to do anything while it is running.
Conversely, a not modal interface, allows you to interact with the external environment while it is running.
Exercise #3: create a new interface 1. Add a new interface by iLogic Browser
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2. Design the interface by dragging & dropping objects into
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3. Set the interface properties like title, description predefined buttons…
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4. Click OK to validate the changes
5. Create a new rule to show interface automatically
6. Insert the “Show Form” snippet changing the method argument
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7. Click OK to validate the changes and show the interface called by the rule
Describing our experience
iLogic components You can use iLogic to do everything, you can drive parameters, suppress components, make checks
every time you are saving the document but if you are thinking of applying iLogic to configure a product,
you have to find before which components can satisfy the requirements. Not all components in an
assembly are configurable.
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Not all components in an assembly are configurable.
The first requirement is modularity. A modular component has an intrinsic logic that can be reproduced
with iLogic, for instance a shelf unit.
The second requirement is similarity. A similar component can be easily designed through enabling or
disabling features or components if we are thinking about an assembly, for example a steel plate with
or without holes.
The third requirement is scalability. A scalable component can be transformed to another one by
simply changing some parameters, for example a frame.
Normally the industrial segments where you can find a high percentage of these components are:
industrial machinery, plant, building and architecture.
Problem analysis You will analyze all the configurable components trying to extrapolates all model information. You will
analyze parameters structure, features structure and also the model structure in order to categorize all
components.
Problem synthesis You process all information found in problem analysis trying to define something concrete. The purpose
of this step is to define all products families and for each family you will define family parameters, features
and logics.
Components to iLogic components family You will redesign, define, create and finally test your new iLogic family in order to cover all the
requirements. This is the most important step because it will decide the future behavior of the
components family.
Redesign Thanks to problem synthesis you collected all the design information you will use to create a new
template file. This is a component file but contains all features that enclose all components family. You
will design thinking about family and not only about component. For this reason it is very important to find
a scheme name that will drive you during the redesign process.
Define After having redesigned, you need to define the logical structure of your template. First of all logic
structure means parameters, you can define key parameter, not key and multi-value. After that you can
switch to rules where you can define part rules and assembly rules. Try to define simple rules because
simple is better than difficult. Links between part rules and assembly rules are the last things you need to
define.
Create This is the last step that allows you to create the logical content of the template. You can create all
parameters, rules and links according to the previous step.
After parameters structure creation you can write all rules content in order to satisfy the logical behavior
required.