Autodesk Inventor enables you to configure your products and see the results in 3D. Normally, a designer creates parts and assembles them together, and this process can take hours, days, or weeks, depending on the complexity of the design.
Inventor comes with a publicly accessible Application Programming Interface, or API, that makes it possible to use code to tell Inventor what to do. This enables powerful automation that can drastically reduce design time and effort from days or weeks down to minutes or hours.
The Power of Automation and How to Get Started
Automation can be compared to teaching. It always takes longer to teach someone how to do a task than it takes to do it yourself. But, once your student knows how, they can help you get the work done faster. Automation is essentially teaching Inventor how to do the work itself. Writing code to tell Inventor to do a thing takes more effort than to manually use Inventor to do the thing, and it requires knowledge of both Inventor and programming. But once the code is developed, it can massively improve your output.
The upfront investment required to automate Inventor can be high, but strategically choosing the right products to automate (such as high-volume products or ones that require a lot of design effort) can quickly return that investment.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to automating Inventor. It all depends on what you want to get out of it and which stages of your process you are trying to automate. But we can simplify all approaches down to these three basic steps:
- Collect design input from the user – Someone needs to tell Inventor what product to build, and what configuration that product should be.
- Encode business logic – This is the bulk of the code containing all the logic for interpreting the user input to determine how big the 3D model will be, what features it will have, etc.
- Drive design output – This is the code that tells Inventor to create the parts and assemble them. This code generates the end results, including 3D model files, bills of material, drawings and other design documentation.
The Two Main Ways to Automate in Autodesk Inventor
There are two main entrances into the world of Inventor automation. You can leverage Inventor’s built-in tool called iLogic, or create a custom Inventor Add-In.
1. Using iLogic to Automate in Inventor
iLogic is a tool that simplifies Inventor automation by providing:
- A programming interface with a code editor, syntax assistance, and error checking
- Simplified commands and ready-to-use snippets
- Tools to create forms / dialogs for collecting user input
iLogic is designed to make it easier to get started with automation and is a great option for those with no or little programming experience. iLogic’s built-in, simplified commands make it easier to learn and use, but these commands are limited to the most common functions. However, the list of built-in commands has been expanding with each new version of Inventor.
Another thing to keep in mind with iLogic is that the user’s interaction with the automation must take place within the Inventor environment. This requires users to have access to an Inventor license and to be familiar enough with Inventor to be able to initiate the automation. This can exclude some potential users, such as sales personnel or customers.
Real-World Example
JWC Environmental, renowned for their dependable waste shredders and screening systems, collaborated with KETIV to enhance their engineering processes. By implementing iLogic within Autodesk Inventor, they transformed their design workflow, reducing engineering time for projects from 40 hours down to just 4 hours. This significant time savings allowed their engineering team to allocate more resources to research and development, fostering innovation and enabling the creation of new designs.
Learn How to Automate Using iLogic
2. Automating with a Custom Inventor Add-In
You can surpass the limitations of iLogic by developing a custom add-in for Inventor. This requires more experience with programming and familiarity with a software development interface, such as Visual Studio. This is a higher barrier to entry, but it pays off by unlocking the full potential of Inventor’s extensive API. With very few exceptions, anything you can do manually with Inventor can be automated through the API.
The add-in approach supports more flexible and complex user interfaces and enables user interaction outside of the Inventor environment. This makes it possible for anyone to interact with the automation, including customers.
Real-World Example
A great real-world example of Inventor automation using a custom add-in comes from Superior Tank Company. To streamline the design and documentation of their configurable bolted steel tanks, they partnered with KETIV to develop an Inventor add-in that allows users to select configurations from a custom interface—no CAD experience required. Behind the scenes, the add-in uses Inventor’s API to generate all necessary parts, assemblies, and drawings automatically. This approach bypasses the limitations of iLogic and showcases the full power of Inventor’s extensibility, making it a perfect example of how custom add-ins can transform engineering workflows.
Learn How to Automate with a Custom Inventor Add-In
Which Automation Option to Choose?
For those who are just getting started with automation, or whose needs are not too complex, iLogic is a great place to start.
While the built-in commands and snippets of iLogic are limited to the most common functions, you are not limited to only these commands. You can access the full Inventor API while writing code with iLogic. This means that you don’t need to worry that choosing to start with iLogic will lock you into those limitations in the future. iLogic code can be supplemented with external forms and code libraries.
As your skillset improves and your needs evolve, you can take the step into add-in development at any time.