Autodesk Inventor 2018 – Factory Utilities - Asset Properties vs iProperties

Issue:

When building a Factory Asset using the Factory Utilities tools in Autodesk Inventor, updated model iProperty values are not reflected in the Factory Asset Properties.

Explanation:

There are two places you can enter properties that you wish to appear in your factory assets. 1) The normal iProperties dialog, and 2) the Factory Asset properties dialog (accessed from the button shown below in the Asset Builder environment)

Any properties entered here will appear in the properties dialog for an asset when you click on it in a layout (see the below screenshot for Inventor 2018.1).

• And also in the BOM

So a question: Is the Asset Properties dialog just another way to enter iProperties? Or is it in addition to the iProperties? Well if you look at the screenshot below – the dialogs appear to be dealing with the same information. There are some additional tabs in the Asset Properties, but when it comes to the Autodesk Inventor properties we know and love - Description, Stock Number etc. these can be entered into either dialog.

So now – this brings us to another question – Does entering in one dialogue reflect in the other dialog? Are they related? And here’s where it gets slightly confusing. Hang in there – there’s good news at the end, but let’s first take a look.

1. Any of the standard iProperties you enter in the normal modelling environment WILL appear as Asset Properties the first time you enter the Asset Builder environment.

Any changes you make to the Asset Properties in the Asset Builder will NOT be pushed back to the normal iProperties.

Any changes you make in the normal iProperties after the model has entered the Asset Builder environment for the first time will NOT be reflected in the Asset Properties. (this means that if you are making improvements to an existing asset, and modify the iProperties, you’ll have to manually edit the Asset Properties also).

So it’s quite possible that you can have ‘out-of-date’ Factory Asset Properties without realising it, if you’ve forgotten to manually update them in the Asset Builder environment in Autodesk Inventor.

Frustrating? Yes, however there is some good news.

What you should do is enter an expression in for the Asset Property, such as shown below. This will always update to reflect the changes in the master file, and also later on in the placed assets.

=A BOX OF HEIGHT:& WIDTH:

Please contact Excitech if you need some more help with the Factory Utilities in Autodesk Inventor.

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