Autodesk® Inventor™ 2009

D3 White Paper

Inventor 2009 Projects Overview

Project File Locations

Project files in Inventor are XML files that define folder locations. Think of it as a simple mapping file for
Inventor. As an example, if you hit “New” in Inventor to start a new part or assembly file, Inventor looks in
the Project file to find out where the template files are located. There are 5 folder locations that the project
file controls that the administrator needs to be aware of.

 Workspace
 Libraries
 Design Data / Styles
 Templates
 Content Center Files

Workspace
The Workspace location is the top level folder location that all user design files should be stored. Any
Inventor design files that are not Templates Library parts or Standard Content Center Parts should be
stored under this Workspace folder. The folder level under this Workspace folder is not restricted. You
do not have to change your way of storing files or current folder structure. Simply recreate your current
folder structure under the new Workspace folder. For example, if your company currently stores files on a
network drive by Sales Order Number, then create folders for each Sales Order Number under the
Workspace folder and store the corresponding Inventor files in their Sales Order Number folder. The
Workspace folder doesn’t have to be named “Workspace”. It can be called “Inventor Design Files”, “My
Companies Designs”, etc.

Libraries
The Libraries location allows you to designate a folder location for all library files. In Inventor, Library files
cannot be edited and will behave as read only files. This is intended to be the location for standard
components such as a bracket that is used on several different designs or product lines. The Library
folder does not have to be named “Library” “Libraries” in order to work, however, it does make it easier to
locate and identify these files and folders if using Windows Explorer.

Design Data / Styles

The Design Data location is where all the configuration and options for a styles library are stored. When
using Inventor in a multi-user environment, it is best to use a styles library instead of storing the
configuration for styles in a single document (see D3’s Styles Library Whitepaper for more details). When
using a styles library, a location needs to be specified as to where these settings will be saved. This is
done by defining the folder in the project file. There are also some sub folders in that will be located here
for other tools in Inventor like the Frame Generator, Gear Generators and the spreadsheets that control
the threads in Inventor.

Templates
The Templates location is used to store all Inventor template files. Inventor templates do not need a
different extension, they just need to be placed in the template location or in a subfolder under the
template location, and then have the project file recognize that location as the template directory.

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Content Center Files

The Content Center Files location is a folder location used for storage of Content Center part files after
they are created. Before the first use, each component in the Content Center is simply a collection of
dimensions and other part data found in the Content Center database tables. When you place a part
from Content Center, Inventor first checks this location to see if it exists. If it does, then that file is used, if
not the part file is generated on the fly by the data in the Content Center databases. The Content Center
Files location in the project file is where these newly formed part files will be stored after they are created.

D3 Recommendations
Inventor project file configuration is a very important part of implementing Inventor. If the project file is not
configured properly, end users can experience many issues. The primary role for the project file is to
define the search paths used by Inventor to look for parts files that are referenced by drawings and
assemblies. When an assembly is opened in Inventor, the entire path of all the part files that are
referenced by the assembly are not hard-coded, instead the assembly only holds the file names. Inventor
will look for the file in the last known location first, but after that, it will search the entire workspace
location for the referenced part files.
D3 recommends the use of just one project file, set to use unique file names for all Inventor designs. The
picture to the left shows where to set the project to use unique file names in the project settings dialog
under Options. There are two reasons for the use of just one
project instead of using multiple projects. First, using just one
project makes it easy to start the implementation and easy to
make changes. Second and most importantly, by using only
one project, the transition to a data management system such
as Autodesk Vault will be much easier. There are instances where creating a new project file for each job,
customer or product line is the right choice, but those situations are rare. Instead, using just one project
file to control all of your Inventor data is typically your best bet.

In addition to the above recommendations, listed below is a table for recommendations on general project
file settings:
Category Description D3
Recommendation
Type Defines the type of Unless you are using
Project. Options are Vault Vault use “Single User”. If
or Single User. you work in a
collaborative environment
but do not access the
same file concurrently,
then the “Single User”
project type will work
despite the name. If users
are accessing the same
files at the same time,
using Vault should be
considered.
Workspace This is the folder that all of Can be named anything,
the users work will be but needs to be directly
stored. under top level “Inventor”

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folder.
Workgroup This is a “legacy” setting This option exists only to
and should not be used. support older project
types that are no longer
supported.
Use Styles Determines whether See D3’s Styles Library
Library Inventor will check styles white paper.
settings with those in a
library.
Libraries Libraries are used to store Best if not used.
files that are supposed to Autodesk Vault can be
be “standard” and not used to protect files.
changed.
Frequently Frequently Used Can be used to create
Used Subfolders can be used to shortcuts to different
Subfolders create shortcuts to any company or engineering
folders in the project projects.
structure.
Folder Folder location for all files It is recommended to
Options - to store settings for a create a folder directly
Design Data styles library. Also under the “Inventor” folder
contains various files for and call it “Styles”.
things like Frame
Generator and Design
Accelerators.
Folder Folder location for Inventor It is recommended to
Options - templates. create a folder directly
Templates under the “Inventor” folder
and call it “Templates”.
Folder Folder location for the It is recommended to
Options - models generated by the create a folder directly
Content Content Center Database under the “Inventor” folder
Center Files information. and call it “Content Center
Files”.

Project File Creation

1. Click File – Projects and select “New” at the bottom middle of the dialog box

2. Select “Single User Project” and click “Next” at the bottom of the dialog box.

3. In the Inventor Project Wizard, fill out the name you want to use for your project. In the “Project (Workspace)
Folder”, select the most top level folder that you want the project to reside. The folder selected should include the
folders for the Workspace, Templates, Content Center Files etc.

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4. After putting in the Project Folder location and the Name of the project, click “Finish” at the bottom of the dialog
box. After doing this, you will be taken back to the project dialog box and your new project file will be listed in the
available projects. To make it the active project, double click it in the list. Before the changes are complete, there
are some other changes that need to be made. At the bottom of the project file dialog box we will change several
folder locations.

5. To show the Workspace,

you must first click the
“>>” button on the right
side of the dialog box to
show the Workspace
location. Once this is
shown, you can right click
on the Workspace
location and select “Edit”
and browse to your
Workspace folder.

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6. Repeat the same steps for Templates, Content Center Files, and Design Data. Once you select a Design Data
folder, you will see the dialog box shown on the following page. Since there are several files and folders that are
needed in the Design Data Folder, when you select your new location, Inventor will automatically copy the default
files and folders from the installation (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2009\Design Data on Windows XP and
C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Autodesk on Windows Vista) into your newly specified folder for Design Data.

7. The Templates location will also need to be populated with files at this point. You can copy the default template
files from the installation (such as C:\...install directory\templates) or create your own templates files. Template
files in Inventor have the same file extension as normal Inventor files so it is as simple as creating the files and
saving them in the Templates location.

8. Once you have specified these directories, expand Options at the bottom and right-click on “Using Unique File
Names” and select “Yes”.

9. Click “Save” at the bottom of the dialog box.

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10. You do not need to recreate the project for any additional users, instead simply select “Browse” on the project
dialog box and select the new ipj project file, from their workstation.

Relative Paths
In the lower portion of the project dialog box, the folder paths are listed starting with “.\” instead of the full
path. This is because Inventor project files use relative paths. An easy way to look at this is that everytime
Inventor sees the “.\”, it will replace it with the path of the location of the project file. This makes it very easy
to copy an entire project and files to another drive or folder and use them without having to edit all the project
file folder locations. This works because the project file automatically updates to reflect its current file path.

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