Autodesk Inventor 2015 – Sheet Metal Enhancements

With sheet metal design being an integral part of many Inventor customers, the new features and enhancements are always taken with great interest, so here’s a video I put together:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUUDGGc_cWY&w=640&h=390]

So What’s New in Sheet Metal for Inventor 2015

• Rename End Of Part (EOP) to End Of Folded (EOF) for sheet metal parts
• Enhanced orientation control in flat pattern – You have more control over the orientation angle of your flat pattern
• Prompt message when deleting flat pattern
• Select the A-Side for Flat Pattern or Punch Tool – The A-Side of a sheet metal part indicates the face that is Up in the flat pattern (punch machine). A new command, A-Side Definition , is added to the ribbon in the flat pattern group. With it, you can select the A side of a sheet metal part to indicate the punch direction. If you do not select an A side, when you create the flat pattern, the software creates the A side for you, and adds a browser node entry. You can still change the A-side by flipping the Base Face when you edit the Flat Pattern definition in the browser.
• Window selection on punch creation – You can multi-select and deselect points to punch.
• Punch across bend for sheet metal
• Sheet Metal Cut Normal. (also supports pattern & mirror, etc) – You can tick Cut Normal in the Cut Command. It projects a selected profile (sketch, and so on) onto the surface, and then cuts perpendicular to the faces that the projection intersects.
• Unfold/Refold imported Sheet Metal part with zero radius bend – . In the sheet metal environment, Unfold/Refold command, under Unfold Geometry, you can now select a zero radius bend. You can flatten the zero radius bend when you create a flat pattern. For Unfold, a new face is added where the 0 radius bend edge exists. The K-factor that you define determines the area of the face. After Refold, references that are created in unfolding the model remain. This behavior is the same as in
  nonzero radius bend cases.
• View entire property names in the Bend Edit dialog box.