Inventor - Making Z Your Up Axis (Rather Than Y)

20. November 2008, 21:25 Uhr_Tutorials - InventorDavid fano

Software : Autodesk Inventor
Level : Beginner

inventor-z-up_p
Description : By default Inventor sets the Y axis as UP.  For architectural modeling this is a real in pain.  If you import/export models they will come in sideways.  In this quick video we will cover how to change that setting with the view cube. (Thanks to Josh Emig for teaching me this trick, and pretty much anything i know about inventor)

Topics Covered
- Flipping Z to Up Axis
- Resting Home View



Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Related DesignReForm Articles

7 comments:

  1. Ken, 21. November 2008, 12:25


    David, In working with 3D modeling software (mechanical) for the past 19 years, I have never seen a system that treats the Y-axis as “Up” with the exception of Inventor, so I don’t think it is a “Mechanical vs. Architectural” discussion so much as a “Inventor just did it wrong” discussion.

     
  2. David fano, 21. November 2008, 20:12


    well…. It may not be a Mechanical thing but a few apps use Y as up. The first ones that come to mind are Alias Studio and Maya. From what I have been told this originated from the way designers first interacted with design models. I’ll try to make this clear. I just spent 2 hours googleing this and couldn’t find much (Might be telling me something :) ) so here goes…. plan based design processes (loosely defined) were worked on mainly looking at object from the top or plan view which in turn resulted in a horizontal XY plane. Other fields (i’m thinking automotive) and Industrial Design work mainly in Elevation so the XY plane became vertical and the view out (towards the user) became Z. So the short version. Design fields that design in plan have Z up fields that design in elevation have Y up. I am going to keep looking for data to back this up but i have been running on this assumption for a while. Please let me know if you know different or if I am just plain WRONG. :)

    Thanks,

    Dave

     
  3. Hanson, 25. November 2008, 9:07


    I was using Inventor 08 and I found the same trick (it might be the only way) to kind of “fix” this annoying orientation. I had talked to an Autodesk sale engineer about this issue and shown him how SolidWorks does in this matter. He totally agreed with me and had no clue why Inventor did it differently. Anyway, when you make a 2D drawing out of a solid model that is created in the “fixed” coordinates system (Z-up), the views of the model you are expecting will be oriented 90° in different ways. You might have to use Projected View couple times to get what you want.

    Thanks to David Fano for showing the video.

     
  4. Jose Rodriguez, 26. November 2008, 13:51


    I couldn’t agree more that Inventor did this WRONG. I find this very annoying and worst of all this fix has to be done per part/assembly. I strongly WISH & HOPE for some sort of “permanent” options fix.
    This is a great tip to anyone not in the field of automotive field (i.e. everyone else, hehe)

     
  5. Zach Downey, 9. December 2008, 13:09


    Dave,

    Thanks for the tip. I also suggest that after setting the view do a “Save As” and create a template from the view. I called mine something like “ArchStandard_Template.ipt” It makes it so you don’t have to do it again. You can also project the centerpoint and save that with your template so you can always have a reference to the part’s origin.

     
  6. Randy Mabery, 12. December 2008, 7:35


    Dave,

    Is there a way to redefine the front view in Inventor 2008?

    Thanks,
    Randy

     
  7. Tamas, 29. December 2008, 15:25


    David,

    I am totally new to this and was wondering if you could take a minute and explain how I get the model to show in the upper right comer of your design space.

    Thank you for your time, and a HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU.

     

Write a comment: