The Autodesk® Inventor® 2017: Design Tools and Strategies student guide provides instruction on how to incorporate the use of top-down design and advanced modeling techniques into your design environment.
This student guide begins with an introduction to top-down design and the Autodesk® Inventor® software tools that can be used. There is a focus on multi-body design, deriving components, working with layouts and sketch blocks, and how associative links and adaptive parts can help you incorporate design intent into your models so they react as expected to change.
This student guide also includes chapters that cover Generative Shape Design, Frame Generator, and Design Accelerator, teaching you how you can use these advanced design tools to quickly create designs that meet your requirements.
The topics covered in this student guide are also covered in the following ASCENT student guides, which include a broader range of advanced topics:

Autodesk® Inventor® 2017: Advanced Assembly Modeling Autodesk® Inventor® 2017: Advanced Part ModelingTopics Covered

Define and compare the differences between bottom-up and top-down design. Learn how to enforce design intent using three major top-down design techniques. Create solid bodies and correctly assign features to specific solid bodies. Modify solid bodies in a model by moving, removing, splitting, combining, or redefining them. Create new parts and assemblies from the multi-bodies in a single part. Derive new geometry in a part by importing and referencing objects from a source part. Create and modify layouts and sketch blocks. Define and test the kinematic motion of an assembly with the use of nested sketch blocks. Create 3D models from sketch blocks. Break the associative link between a sketched feature and reference geometry. Specify geometric entities of part features to change, while controlling the size or location of other entities in an assembly. Create a Shape Generator study that sets a goal to meet a mass reduction target. Assign criteria in a Shape Generator study to accurately define a model’s working environment. Promote a Shape Generator study to the modeling environment. Quickly and easily create structural frames and defining the location of structural frame members using a skeletal wireframe part. Adjust frame member ends to obtain required joints. Create and publish custom frame member profiles to the Content Center. Automatically create geometry using component generators.

Prerequisites The material covered in this student guide assumes a mastery of Autodesk® Inventor® basics as taught in the Autodesk® Inventor®: Introduction to Solid Modeling student guide.