Thread: Inventor Help
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Unread 27-02-2005, 10:01
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AKA: Peter Kieselbach
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Re: Inventor Help

Quote:
Originally Posted by Garth1388
Now that build season is over I am expected to make a detailed 3D model of our completed bot. I already have a model of our bot when it was about 1/2 finished and it slows down even the Dell XPS that we have. Does anyone know of anyway that would make the best use of RAM (without comprimising too much detail) or making the process go faster.
This is a chronic problem when building an Inventor model with a lot of multi-featured parts. Here are some things which may help:

1. You can never have too much RAM or too good a graphics card. 1 GB is the practical minimum for large assembly modelling. You will need an OpenGL compliant graphics card with as much on-board video RAM as you can afford. The latter is especially important when you do constraint-driven animations of large assemblies. Another factor here: whenever possible, run just the CAD application; log out of IM, kill your Internet browser, etc. Every little bit helps.

2. Divide and conquer: Divide the robot into sub-assemblies, such as chassis, gripper, arm, etc. and complete them separately as much as possible before putting them together for the full robot assembly.

3. The devil is in the details: Use simplified models of things like gears, chains and other commercial components which have a zillion features and surfaces. For gears, make a model which has all of the gear's features except the teeth. For chains, make a solid "belt" which shows the path and space occupied by the chain. Add fine details like screws, nuts, etc. only after you have all your parts finished.

4. Stay with a plain background in your modeling display. To reduce the load on your graphics card, avoid putting a pretty picture in as your background until you are ready to do your screenshots.

Lastly, Be Patient. When you work with the whole robot assembly model, expect the file to take several minutes to open, and take the time save your work frequently.
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