Connecting to Inventor’s Interface - Inventor 2013 and Inventor LT 2013 Essentials - page 8

FIGURE 1.9 Continuing to hover expands the tooltip.

Using the Browser
Inventor's process of design is often referred to as parametric solid modeling.
Although parameters play an important role in using Inventor, what makes its
design process powerful and flexible is its ability to maintain a history of how
the parts were constructed. This history also shows how they are related to one
another in an assembly. The interface to see these actions is the browser.
On the left side of the screen is a column that contains a hierarchical tree show-
ing the name of the active file at the top, the Representations and Origin folders,
and then the components or pattern of components that make up your assembly.
Understanding how to read the browser and how to control it is an important step
in understanding how to control and edit your designs.
Let's do some exploration of the browser to see what it can tell you:

Certification
Objective

A filter tool at the
top of the browser
offers ways to limit
what information
is shown in the
browser. The Show
Extended Names
option will include
addition information
on model features
such as fillet radius
or hole size.

1. Keep using or reopen the c01-01.ipt file used in the previous exercise.

2. In the browser, find the Origin folder, and click the plus sign to the
left of the folder to expand the folder's contents.

3. Pass your mouse over the planes and axes displayed in the browser, and
see how those entities preview in the Graphics window to the right.

4. Right-click the XY Plane icon, and select Visibility from the context
menu that appears.

The browser displays the features that make up the active part (see Figure 1.10).
Since it is a part file, the Ribbon has also changed, making the Model tab active
for adding features to the part.