About iLogic Functionality

iLogic enables rules-driven design, providing a simple way to capture and reuse your work. Use iLogic to standardize and automate design processes and configure your virtual products.

iLogic functions

iLogic embeds rules as objects directly into part, assembly, and drawing documents. The rules determine and drive parameter and attribute values for your design. By controlling these values, you can define behavior of the attributes, features, and components of a model. Knowledge is saved and stored directly in the documents, like how geometric design elements are stored.

iLogic rules can utilize custom parameter types now available in Inventor, such as text, true/false, and multi-value lists. You can use these parameter types to write rules that involve more than numeric input values.

The Inventor Parameters dialog box supports these specialized parameters, with advanced filtering functions to assist in parameter input definition, management, and editing.

Automation functions in iLogic

Designers and engineers can implement iLogic automation functions with little or no programming experience. Use automation functions to:

Functions for message and input boxes provide feedback, options, and information as rules are running.

Custom interface created using iLogic rules

Use iLogic rules to connect custom forms directly to part or assembly design parameters. This capability provides a user interface for a rules-driven design template.

Note: To download Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition, visit the Microsoft® web site.

Integrated VB.NET in iLogic rules

By using VB.NET directly in your iLogic rules, you can:

Parameters in iLogic

In addition to standard parameters, you can create and edit text and true/false parameters in an Inventor model. Text parameters are strings that consist of text characters, and true/false parameters consist of a Boolean value of either True or False. Both types of parameters can be used in rules to drive Inventor parameters or anything else that a rule can drive. In a rule, these parameters represent the standard VB.NET types String and Boolean.

In VB.NET, you surround string values in double quotes. For example:

string1 = "Left Side"

Many iLogic functions contain string arguments, which are also put in quotes. Examples include names of components and features in the Autodesk Inventor model.

As mentioned previously, Boolean parameters can be True or False. For example:

boolean1 = True
boolean2 = False

The Boolean values of True and False do not use surrounding quotes.

String (text) parameters can be assigned to Inventor iProperties of type Text. Boolean (true/false) parameters can be assigned to Inventor iProperties of type Yes or No.

The following is an example of the rule syntax:

iProperties.Value("Project","Description") = string1
iProperties.Value("Custom","Passed") = boolean1

Conversely, you can also set iProperty values from text and true/false parameters:

string1 = iProperties.Value("Project","Description")
boolean1 = iProperties.Value("Custom","Passed")

Multi-value parameters in iLogic

A multi-value parameter is an Autodesk Inventor parameter with a stored list of possible values. However, like other parameters, a multi-value parameter has a single value at any one time. It is not automatically locked to one of the values in the multi-value list, although you can accomplish that with a rule.

You create and edit multi-value parameters in the Parameters dialog box. Right-click on a parameter in any column, and select Make Multi-value to specify that the parameter can have multiple values. Use the dialog box that displays to enter a list of values. You can also paste a list of values from a text editor or another application such as Microsoft® Excel.

For a numeric parameter, the value list can include fractions or equations. Examples include:

For multi-value or true/false parameters, the Equation cell features a drop-down list from which you can pick the current value (or equation for a numeric parameter).

In a rule, you can read and write the list of values for a parameter using the multi-value functions.