Building the Foundation of the Design - Autodesk Inventor 2010: No Experience Required - page 58

17. For now, you're fi nished sketching. At the right end of the Sketch tab
is the Exit panel, and in it is the Finish Sketch icon. Click this to end
your sketch.
As soon as you select the Finish Sketch icon, Inventor's Ribbon
interface changes, as explained in Chapter 1. Now, you see the tools
that are available to create sheet metal components. Take a moment
to notice that the placed features like Flange, Cut, and Corner Round
are grayed or dimmed and aren't selectable. As discussed earlier in
this chapter, these tools depend on having an existing feature to
build on — and right now, all you have is a sketch.
18. Find the Save icon on the Quick Access Toolbar at upper left on the
screen. Click it, and save the new fi le as Housing.ipt in the Parts
folder of your Workspace (Figure 2.7).
FIGURE 2.7 Save your part file to c:\Data\parts .
The constraints that are placed on the sketch while you're using tools like
Line are just the beginning. Understanding these tools and being able to control
them is the key to creating components that can be edited and behave predict-
ably. Let's take a little time to review the tools that are available for constraining
the sketch.
Sketch Constraints
You can place a number of types of constraint in a sketch. Figure 2.8 shows the
constraints available for sketching, as displayed in the Constrain panel on the
Sketch tab. It's worth taking a little time to review them: