Autodesk Inventor 2018 introduced us to Model Based Dimensioning (MBD) which gave us some great tools including the ability to add hole and thread notes in the model view. Missing however, there an automatic way to add the count to the hole note. Sure, you could use the tolerance feature to add hole notes with the hole count automatically included but that was more of a work-around.
Inventor 2019 has been released and they have upgrade the “Hole/Thread Note” command to automatically display the hole count in the MBD note. Of course, the configuration is up to you and you can turn it off if desired. The configuration follows one of four default standards which can be selected from the Document Setting dialog box.
These default dimensioning standards can be found in the Standard styles library under the “Dimension” section and are indicated by “– 3DA” after the dimension style name.
The hole count style and method are specified under the “Notes and Leaders” tab for each dimension style. In the screen capture below, “Default (ANSI) – 3DA” setting is shown. These settings may be customized to fit your company’s requirements or turned off completely.
During the Hole / Thread Note placement, the configuration can also be edited by selecting the icon indicated by the red arrow.
In this example, the two holes in the part are the same but were created at different times in the design process. The hole note can be edited to detect them by selecting “Edit Quantity Note” and then selecting “Number of like holes in view (normal)”.
After selecting “OK” to accept the settings and return to the model, you will see the hole count has been updated. This setting will only apply to this hole note. If the quantity notes configuration needs to applied to all holes it would be best to configure the Inventor styles as indicated earlier.
Configuring the hole count is just one customization that can be added to MBD dimensioning styles. Any style change that can be applied to a drawing dimension can also be applied to a MBD dimension style as well. Changes such as decimal procession, fractional display and tolerances can be configured as outlined in our previous whitepaper, Configuration of Model-Based Definition in Inventor 2018.
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