Save
The new release of Autodesk Vault 2012 Workgroup, Collaboration, and Professional bring a deeper level of integration with both Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD. Vault now provides support to populate the Revision Table within an Inventor .idw/.dwg or AutoCAD dwg. From Vault, you can map the Revision assigned to a file and have it reflect the revision-bumping rules. Bottom line, not only do Title Blocks get updated, but the Rev Table will update or add row to match the correct Revision level in Vault. The benefit? This automation removes another step in the management of files from the users’ workflow, and that’s a very good thing.
Administration
Configuring the Rev Block integration begins in Vault. Log in with Administrative rights, and get to Tools>Administration>Vault Settings, Behaviors tab. In the Properties area, click Revision Table. If you haven't set up Rev Tables, you’ll be met with an initially collapsed dialog box. Check the box to Enable Revision Table Control.
The dialog box transforms into a new window, and a prompt comes up. For the interim, click Yes to accept the default values. You can always modify them later.
Now, the next dialog box is a glimpse into the mapping of Vault intrinsic (system) properties that will be directly mapped to the Revision Table. Toward the bottom of the dialog are option to limit the row count, etc.
Click OK, and your work here in Vault’s administration is done. Time to apply this in CAD.
Application
Ok, now it’s time to use this on a drawing. I’ve chosen Inventor for the following sample. Open an Inventor idw or dwg that is under Revision management. From the Annotate ribbon, select the Vault Revision feature.
Place the Revision table on the drawing, perhaps upper-left corner. The Rev table reflects the up-to-date data from Vault. Save, check in, repeat for all drawings.
Vault family 2012 family takes Revision management further by integrating with core CAD functionality, reducing manual efforts by drafters and designers.
Next, more new in-CAD enhancements with the 2012 release of Vault.
-Brian Schanen
