Sketch Object Properties

April 27, 2020 Hal Carruthers

When creating advanced or complex Inventor sketch profiles, it is sometimes helpful to change the display properties of the sketch geometry. Inventor provides some basic options for this … Center Lines, Construction Lines, Reference (Projected) Geometry, and Normal Geometry. Under most conditions these options are all you need, however when you build sketches that will be shared, or used as layout information in skeleton modeling, having visual clues to what the geometry represents can be helpful (think AutoCAD Layers).

To access and set the properties of objects (lines, arcs, circles) in a sketch you have several options available to you.

Tool bar access via a Drop-Down menu

Show format

Right Click on either the Sketch in the Browser or on the individual objects and select Properties from the menu. SketchProperties

Work Flow

In this example we have several sketch profiles defined in shared sketch. To make it easier for other users to visualize the different profile information we will change the color and line styles of the objects in the sketch.

Starting with the rectangle on the left, we select the 4 lines, then right mouse click to select “Properties”. In this example the Color, Line type and Line Weight were adjusted.

Rectangle Results

In the next example we will display the bolt circle as a center line. Currently the Inventor Center Line sketch style does not support Circles or Arcs. In this example an additional change was added by activating Scale to control the size of the displayed Line Style.

Bolt Circle Results

Now that we have adjusted the visual characteristics of the sketch it is easier for the end user to determine the purpose and relationships of the different objects.

Sketch Porp final

After setting the display characteristics of the sketch objects, you can toggle the display using the “Show Format” option from the ribbon bar.

Show format
Show format

About the Author

Hal Carruthers

Manufacturing Applications Expert<br><br>Hal has been working closely with clients since 1997 to develop and deliver integrated solutions utilizing Autodesk products including AutoCAD, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechanical, Inventor and Vault. His qualifications range from mechanical design engineering to pre-sales and post-sales consulting for the integration of mechanical software solutions. Hal has over 15 years of mechanical design experience in a variety of industry disciplines. He has worked as a Product Design Engineer to design, develop, fabricate and test new surgical instruments for use in Endoscopic and Open Surgery, specific applications for product use include: vessel ligation, wound closure, endoscopic instrumentation and specialty surgical devices. Hal has been awarded two U.S. Patents for medical devices he developed. Additionally during his tenure, Hal developed and maintained Engineering Documentation and CAD Standards and provided CAD product training and support for all users and new hires.

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