Derived Parts

New derived part functionality has been added to Inventor that has caused some changes to the existing API. Old functionality is still supported for existing binaries, but existing source must be changed to use the new functionality before it can be recompiled.

Derived parts now support some additional transform methods. In Inventor 5.3 the only types of transforms supported were uniform scaling and mirroring about one of the primary work planes. Inventor 6 now supports non-uniform scaling, translation, rotation, and general transformations. In order to support this new functionality additional definition types have been introduced. The previous DerivedPartDefinition object has become the base class for these new types. The sample code below illustrates creating a derived part in Inventor 5.3 and it is followed by the equivalent in Inventor 6 so you can see the changes required.

Inventor 5.3
Dim oDerivedComps As DerivedPartComponents
Set oDerivedComps = oReferenceComponents.DerivedPartComponents
    
' Create a derived definition.
Dim oDerivedDef As DerivedPartDefinition
Set oDerivedDef = oDerivedComps.CreateDefinition("C:\Temp\Part.ipt")
    
' Set the scale to use.
oDerivedDef.ScaleFactor = 1.1
    
' Create the derived part.
Call oDerivedComps.Add(oDerivedDef)

Inventor 6
Dim oDerivedComps As DerivedPartComponents
Set oDerivedComps = oReferenceComponents.DerivedPartComponents
    
' Create a derived definition.
Dim oDerivedDef As DerivedPartUniformScaleDef
Set oDerivedDef = oDerivedComps.CreateUniformScaleDef("C:\Temp\Part.ipt")
    
' Set the scale to use.
oDerivedDef.ScaleFactor = 1.1
    
' Create the derived part.
Call oDerivedComps.Add(oDerivedDef)