The Ultimate Glossary of iLogic Terms

If your product design process would benefit from automating repetitive tasks, iLogic should be in your future. Included with Autodesk Inventor, iLogic adds another level of intelligence in your design work. It provides a simple way to capture and reuse your work with rules-driven design. With iLogic you can standardize and automate design processes when configuring your virtual products, saving time and boosting productivity.

Each of the following iLogic rule functions is accessed by expanding the appropriate node under the System tab in the Snippets area of Inventor.

Advanced Drawing API – If you want two applications to communicate with each other, you can use Application Programming Interface rules to achieve that, including the drawing document, the underlying sheet, the underlying view object, or the document for the current view.

Advanced API – Go a step beyond the drawing API to the current Inventor session, document where the rule is stored, part or assembly document, automation, component, or feature.

Assembly Constraint – Define optional configurations for a component in an assembly by constraining or unconstraining the positions of the component.

BOM – Change the bill of materials, override calculated quantities or export BOM data to Excel.

Component – Replace one component with another to change configuration of parts or assemblies.

Document – Access the underlying document or file name for an Inventor part or assembly.

Drawing – Update a model efficiently by customizing the way changes are depicted in the drawing sheets.

Excel Data Links – Read and write to Excel spreadsheets, either from tables or specific cells. Also export bills of materials to Excel.

Feature – Set or read colors, suppression states, and thread and tapped holes properties.

iPart and iAssembly – Change the configuration of an assembly. Custom parameters can be used to drive part configuration.

iFeature – Change the active row of a table-driven iFeature where each row contains different parameters to drive the feature.

Math – Add your choice of 13 standard math functions to your function rules, 5 trigonometry functions, 6 comparison functions, 9 others, plus custom iLogic math functions.

Measure – Find and list values for area, perimeter, distance, extents and angles.

Message Box – Create message and data input boxes.

Parameter – Change parameter values of components directly.

Run Other – Run a rule that is set to not run automatically or one  that does not have trigger parameters.

Sheet Metal – Read or set the current sheet metal rule in a sheet metal part, and change the rule automatically depending on type or thickness of material.

Standard and String – There are 7 standard string functions for text in your rules, plus 5 specialized string functions.

Variables – Pass data between rules with shared variable or new array functions, which are stored in memory and are not associated with any part or assembly.

Work Feature – Redefine a sketch, or redefine the workplane by adjusting/flipping the normal vector.

If you’re not using Inventor and iLogic to streamline your virtual product design work, maybe it’s about time to check it out at Applied Software. Contact our industry-trained experts today for a 15-minute discovery call that can show you how to add another level of intelligence to your product design work.