The guys and girls at Autodesk Labs have once again been busy updating and refining some of the great new technologies for Autodesk Inventor 2011.

This one below will take AutoCAD 2D drawings and assist in creating 3D Parametric models within Inventor 2011.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/2d_to_3d_tool/

Simply start with at least two 2D drawing views in AutoCAD.

Import this into an Inventor Part file and then finish the sketch. Notice the 2D to 3D panel shown below.

Click the base view.

Once this is done add the Projected views as shown below and Inventor will align these views Automatically.

If the Alignment is not correct then use the Align Sketch Tool.

Use the Extrude tool to Extrude to a selected point on the sketch and then a second Extrude, in this case, using an intersect.

Here is the result in 3D.

A quick tool to take 2D CAD drawings and create 3D parametric Inventor components.

LawrenceH