This topic introduces the 2 types of assembly manipulation tools; representations and configurations, and recommends how to use them together for a variety of workflows.
What are representations?
You can use representations to maintain a group of saved states or attributes for an assembly document. Some examples of attributes that can be captured by representations are; camera angle, constraint value, component visibility, appearance, and component suppression.
These attributes fall into 3 categories:
- View
- Position
- Memory and Detail management
Often, you will want to control these 3 groups independently. For this reason, Autodesk Inventor has 3 types of representations to capture them separately:
- View representations
- Positional representations
- Level of Detail representations
You can make use of all 3 types at any time, in any combination. For example, you may be designing the steering linkage for an automobile. The full assembly consists of the chassis, engine, drive train, tires, body panels, and electronics. The suspension can be set level to the ground or raised and lowered. The entire assembly consumes a significant portion of memory and system resources. All you may want to do is design an optimal steering linkage.
You can combine:
- A View representation that hides all components except the steering system, front suspension, and front wheels.
- Three Positional representations: 1 for straight driving, 1 for a left turn, and 1 for a right turn.
- A Level of Detail representation that suppresses or the body panels, engine, and electronics.
- A Substitute Level of Detail to replace the entire assembly with a single part.
The working environment is optimized but remains flexible and easy to change for other tasks.
What are configurations?
Assembly configurations are used to maintain a common set or series of designs with 1 primary assembly file. Extending the iPart paradigm, these configurations are called iAssemblies, and are familiar if you have authored an iPart factory. iAssemblies maintain a table with each member as a row and each unique attribute of the configuration as a column.
You can alter many aspects of an assembly, including component inclusion and placement, bill of materials properties, parameters, and properties. Members can be as similar as a right- and left-handed pair of scissors or as different as a 2- and 4-wheel drive automobile.
What makes representations different from configurations?
Autodesk Inventor separates these topics into distinct tools to give you ultimate flexibility in the design process. Representations are intended to be a set of modifiers on a base, or master, design. While View representations, Positional representations, and Level of Detail representations can cause an assembly to appear quite different from the master, they are used for the purpose of making modeling more efficient, validating design, and generating proper documentation.
Configurations are intended to maintain a group of assemblies, each with a different master state. Such differences could include BOMs, component placements, and parameter values. They are the definition of the members, not just modifiers from a master.
How can you combine representations and configurations?
You can mix configurations and all 3 representations as needed. By default, all members inherit the same representations that are in the factory. For example, a hydraulic cylinder may have 3 Positional representations: Extended, Closed, and Free. If this cylinder is also an iAssembly factory with 6 members, each member can facilitate these Positional representations, avoiding a need to recreate them for each member.
How is this an advantage?
By separating these items into effectively 4 axes of modification, you can realize a very large number of combinations, as needed, without exhaustive effort in replicating the characteristics of each 1 for any given task.
For an extreme example, consider the original example of a steering system. If you have just 3 View representations, 3 Positional representations, 2 Level of Detail representations, and only 2 configurations, there are 3 x 3 x 2 x 2 = 36 combinations. Imagine having to copy each of those settings each time a new task demands it.
With Autodesk Inventor, you only need to author each representation and configuration once. Any of the 36 combinations can be realized by activating the appropriate representation in the appropriate configuration.
Furthermore, modifications to the design are associative. The steering pump must be exchanged from a U.S. to European vendor? No problem. Replace it, and all representations and configurations maintain their associativity.
How do I know which one to use?
The following chart contains a description of the usage and areas of impact for the various types of representations. Use this information to determine the appropriate type and combination of representations to use.
| Representations | Representations | Representations | Configurations | |
| Tool |
View
|
Position
|
Level of Detail
|
iAssemblies
|
| Purpose | Control component visibility, enabled state, appearance overrides, camera position, parts list filters, and work feature visibility | Display assemblies in different physical positions or states | Control visibility and manage memory consumption by suppressing components or by substituting a single part to represent the assembly | Create table driven assemblies for product families |
| Used to manage | Visibility (and other attributes listed above), color coded assembly groups | Constraint value, grounding status, positional offset values | Component suppression (load/unload from memory), assembly simplification (substitutes) | Component exclusion (and other configuration properties) |
| Browser representation | Grayed out (unavailable) | Bold text | Strike through for suppressed components, not shown in a substitute | Table folder |
| Effect on graphics window | Visible/not visible Enabled/Not enabled (opaque/transparent) | Modifies position of assembly components | Suppressed components are not displayed (bounding box visible on mouse over) Single part displayed if in substitute rep | Model display changes to reflect active iAssembly table row |
| Effect on assembly BOM and drawing manager parts list | Yes (parts list can be filtered to show only design view members) | No | No | Yes |
| Affects system memory consumption | Yes (see * note) | No | Yes, removes suppressed components from memory | Yes (impact determined by configuration) |
| Drawing manager command access | Base View, Edit View | Base View, Edit View (for Base View only) | Base View, Edit View (for Base View only) | Base ViewEdit View (view can display any of the defined configurations) |
| Usage in drawing manager | Creating custom, or specialty views without reorganizing the assembly (include/exclude)Speed up view generation, filter the parts list to show only design view members | Showing assemblies in different positions | Suppressing detail, such as internal parts and/or standard components or simplifying the model to speed up view generation | Documenting assembly families and variants |