What every drafter needs to know about Autodesk Inventor iFeatures.

Autodesk Inventor’s iFeatures are a handy time saving tool , that allow you to save a feature (or a set of features – even a whole part) out to a separate file so that you can re-use them later.

If you want to know more about how to create iFeatures, read my iFeatures Primer.

But What do I do with an iFeature when I have it?

If you come across an iFeature that you want to use on the Internet, adding it to your library is fairly straightforward.

You can find out where your iFeatures are being stored by opening the Application options dialog and browsing to the iFeatures tab.

Tools tab > Options Panel > Application options

The Autodesk Inventor Application options Button

 

 

 

The default path will be on your C: Drive, but if you are working in a corporate environment this could be pathed to the server.

The Autodesk Inventor Application Options Dialogue - iFeatures tab

A quick way to open up this folder is to use the link on the Ribbon drop down:

Manage tab > Insert Panel > Insert iFeature

and pick on the ‘View iFeature Catalog’ button at the bottom of the drop down.

The Autodesk Inventor iFeatures Catalogue pull-down

Place your iFeatures in this location and they will be ready to use!

 

You can find out more about iFeatures here:

Autodesk Knowledge network – Punch tools for sheet metal

You can download some free iFeatures here:

Charles Bliss Inventor iFeature Download Page

Or you can check out this sample:

Download “Lark's Tongue Stopped Chamfer” Larks-tounge-chamfer.zip – Downloaded 1026 times – 834 KB

Here’s the Stopped chamfer iFeature in action

Read the  iFeatures Primer to find out how to create iFeatures for yourself!


5 Responses to “What every drafter needs to know about Autodesk Inventor iFeatures.

  • Hjorleifur Ingason
    12 years ago

    Autodesk has better realize that the rest of the world is metric

  • Hjorleifur Ingason
    12 years ago

    In the following releases of Inventor, please iclude METRIC iFeatures!

  • I would really use the ifeatures more often if they would show up in metric and not imperial.
    Inventoron my machine is installed acc. to metric, templates , CC, everything is metric but the ifeatures keep popping up in imperial.

    • Jo, I never noticed that before!

      I know that it is a bit of an annoyance to see Inch units in a metric model file, but Inventor is clever enough to notice the difference.

      If the part file you are inserting the iFeature into has the default units set to mm, then Inventor will assume any dimension that you type into the iFeatures inputs will be mm.

      Thanks for pointing that out :)

      • Well Paul that would be logic, unfortunately its not like that. Just place a slot from the I feature library and try it out. Its one of these things that keeps annoying me since as long as I use inventor. I features , great potential, at the moment only pain in the ###