Waguespack - Mastering Autodesk Inventor 2015 and Autodesk Inventor LT 2015

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Copyright 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-86213-1

ISBN: 978-1-118-91006-1 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-86198-1 (ebk)

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To Jennifer for all of the love, support, and encouragement.

This book is a collaborative effort involving many more people than those listed on the cover. Personally, I would like to thank my family, whose patience and understanding made this, and all other pursuits, possible. Professionally, I would like to thank the co-workers, clients, customers, and friends whose input and ideas have helped build the knowledge and experience that I draw from in applying concept to practice.

I would like to thank Lucas Larue for the outstanding work he performed as technical editor as well as the many tips and tricks he's contributed to this book as well as my overall knowledge of Autodesk Inventor software. A special thank-you goes out to those who have contributed content to the Mastering Inventor series in the past: Thom Tremblay, Sean Dotson, Bill Bogan, Andrew Faix, Seth Hindman, Loren Jahraus, Shekar Subrahmanyam, Bob Van der Donck, and the late Dennis Jeffrey, all of whom are true masters of Autodesk Inventor.

Thank you to the team at Wiley Alexa Murphy, Dassi Zeidel, Kim Wimpsett, Connor O'Brien, and Pete Gaughanfor their patience, focus, and professionalism, without which there would be no book. Your hard work and support always ease the effort of turning ideas into pages.

Curtis Waguespack is an Autodesk Expert Elite member and an Autodesk Certified Instructor. He has served as lead author on six previous Autodesk Inventor books, covering Autodesk Inventor 2009 through 2014. He has taught Inventor in the classroom and has consulted with and supported manufacturing and design firms in a wide range of industries, including aerospace, consumer products, and industrial machinery. Currently, Curtis uses Inventor daily in a real-world design environment to design and document various product types, starting from the prototype stage and following through to the fully documented project completion. In the past, he has used Inventor to design a wide range of manufactured products, large and small.

The Autodesk Inventor program was introduced in 1999 as an ambitious 3D parametric modeler based not on the familiar Autodesk AutoCAD software programming architecture but instead on a separate foundation that would provide the room needed to grow into the fully featured modeler it is now, more than a decade later. Autodesk Inventor 2015 continues the development of Autodesk Inventor with improved modeling, drawing, assembly, and visualization tools. Autodesk has set out to improve this release of Autodesk Inventor by devoting as much time and energy to improving existing tools and features as it has to adding new ones.