AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for Beginners – The Grid, part 1

Welcome back to our series of AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for beginners. In this video we’ll learn about working with the grid in AutoDesk Inventor. The grid refers to the lines that crisscross the graphic area. They serve as guidelines while you’re sketching. When you enable snapping to grid lines, then you can position your points more quickly and with greater accuracy at the intervals you specify. You can change the intervals at which the grid lines display, as well as their frequency, or interval, of display.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

There are two types of gridlines in AutoDesk Inventor, and they are called Major grid lines and Minor grid lines. The Major grid lines are the darker or heavier blue grid lines in your graphic area. The minor grid lines are the lighter blue lines. In my graphic area, a major grid line appears every 8 minor lines. This is an appropriate interval for an imperial template, where logical groupings are in intervals of 8 rather than 10 as in the metric system.

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If you don’t see the grid, go to the Tools tab, and click Application Options.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

Go to the Sketch tab. Make sure Grid lines and Minor grid lines are checked. Make your changes, then click Apply and Close.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

If you zoom in on one quadrant you can better see our snapping as we create lines. Use the Zoom-to-Window tool to select a quadrant. The dotted line shows a snap preview of the line, and the yellow dot indicates where the snapped point will be.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

For now, let’s return to the Application Options dialog window.Check the Snap to grid option.

The Grid

The same option is available here in the status bar, as an easy-to-access toggle tool.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

Let’s create a couple lines here. Activate the line tool. Notice my pointer snaps now. The yellow dots indicate the snap increments.

– The Grid

Let’s create a few lines. Notice the symbols that appear as you sketch your lines. These are constraint glyphs. The one shown in this screen shot is the parallel constraint glyph.

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This concludes the first part of this article in our AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for beginners series, about working with the snap functionality. We’ll see you back in a moment.

Thanks!

Rosanna D, VTN – www.video-tutorials.net

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