About Placing Components

Place Autodesk Inventor or other CAD file type components in assemblies.

Assembly components are individual parts or subassemblies that behave as a single unit.

Autodesk Inventor components

Autodesk Inventor components are created individually and then placed in an assembly.

You can create a part or subassembly in the context of an open assembly. The new component is instanced in the assembly as part of the process.

To ensure components are always available when you open the assembly, add the paths for all components to the project for the assembly.

Other CAD system components

Parts and assemblies from other CAD systems can be placed as components in Autodesk Inventor assemblies. The ability to change the size or shape of the imported components can be limited.

Placing components in an assembly

There are several ways to place components in an assembly.

Use the Place component command.

Tip: Use this method when you want to specify the grounded component or to reorient a component before you place it.

Drag and drop a component from a file folder into the assembly graphics window.
Drag and drop a component from a part file or assembly file browser panel into the assembly graphics window.

Tip: When you use the drag and drop method, the first component in an assembly is grounded and the reorient commands are not available.

When you place a component in an assembly, the cursor is attached to the component center of gravity. During placement, you can:

Use Place Grounded at Origin in the marking menu to constrain the component origin coincident with the assembly origin. Subsequent components are placed using their center of gravity.
Use the marking menu to reorient the component in 90 degree increments about the X, Y, or Z axes.

After placement you can:

Use Copy and Paste to place new instances using the same orientation.
Set Inventor to place new instances of components using the last placed instance orientation.

In the Assembly tab of the Application Options dialog box, enable "Use last occurrence orientation for component placement." If there are multiple occurrences and the last placed instance is deleted, Inventor uses the orientation of the last previously placed instance.