Creating Plastic Parts - Inventor 2013 and Inventor LT 2013 Essentials - page 203

CHAPTER 9
Creating Plastic Parts
A combination of specialized plastic part features and common solid mod-
eling tools is needed to make any plastic part. Because certain types of geom-
etry are common in plastic parts, automated tools were created to build this
geometry quickly and easily. Taking features such as lips, bosses, and grills and
then building wizards around them can save you hours on even a simple part.
In this chapter, you will learn about many of these specialized tools in the
context of a workflow that will show a different approach to building compo-
nents. There are many options that I will not cover, but you will see that these
tools give you all the options you need in a way that is nearly self-explanatory.
Developing specialized features for plastic components
Creating an assembly using a multibody solid to maintain a
consistent shape
Developing Specialized Features
for Plastic Components
Plastic part features are specialized tools that create geometry that you could
create using traditional features, but it would take many features to create
geometry that is common in these types of parts. Figure 9.1 illustrates the
model you'll complete in this chapter's exercises. To create and refine its shapes,
you'll use many of the most common sculpting tools available in the Autodesk ®
Inventor ® 2013 software.
FIGURE 9.1 The completed model from this chapter