I’ve been toying with the idea of an open library for a long time. I am
of course referring to an open library of Inventor resources, parts, iparts,
ifeatures, tube & pipe fittings, content center libraries, illogic routines
and snippets, customization files, manuals, links, etc.
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| my type of place to be... |
In other words anything Inventor related. There are a lot of websites
out there where you can find cad files and resources and I’ve shared my preferred
list before so why go through all the trouble and effort of doing this instead
of using the already existing services?
More than anything I am driven
to share a library of parts authored as TP fittings ready to use in your
projects.
I feel that there are not enough
T&P users out there to drive growth and force Autodesk to rethink its
portfolio. A lot of people don’t use TP because of lacking resources like
manuals, libraries etc.
Not sure if you are aware but
the new collections presented by Autodesk suck and I was better off with suites
that we had before. Why? Because I had the Factory Design Suite which had
AutoCAD P&ID, Inventor with routed systems, Plant 3D, etc..
Now we either get Inventor (PRODUCT
DESIGN COLLECTION), or we get AutoCAD P&ID and Plant 3D (ARCHITECTURE,
ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION COLLECTION) but nothing in between.
I bet there aren’t many
companies are out there who manage to do plants without the need to create
skids (inventor frame generator, FEA, etc.). Most of our plants are either containerized,
skids, cabinets or enclosure type of installation.
Everyone expects modular systems
which they can rip and throw when they want instead of having a myriad number
of pipe routes, fittings and equipment spawning over several rooms, floors,
buildings.
With this
in mind I wanted to see if we can find a solution and share the knowledge but
it would do us no good if we don’t collectively share our files so my question
to you is:
Would you be willing to share
your library of fittings? Other Inventor resources?
I have sent my entire library
out more than once and I’ve only asked that you use it at your own risk. Some
might argue the benefits of this but I can tell you they pay off and I got lots
of messages on fixing various errors which would have proven difficult to find
otherwise.
Second part of the problem is
where, how to store and share this.
I was thinking to use a single DropBox,
Google Drive, Name Your Preferred Here, online storage systems and they would
just be a list of folds with all the parts which you can download as a whole or
partially.
This however requires a business
account (size wize) and while I can pay for this myself it needs to live outside me and
outlive my personal carrier.
Who knows, I might win the
lottery and decide to do this for living but most likely I ... won’t and might
need to change careers.
I do suggest the download is
available for those who make a small contribution, as small permitted, like 0.1
YourCurrency, just so that it’s still free but helps maintain it.
If enough money are raised to
sustain the storage then the excess would be used to hire someone and develop new
libraries. We’ll do a pool and we vote for our most needed library, we find
some students form a low cost labour part of the world and hire them to help us build it.
We will also need a couple of
administrators to oversee this and make sure the funds go to the right place,
permissions are set, download links are working, etc..
Have no idea if this will work,
if I am asking too much, so I will end by asking you to please get in contact
and give me your personal thoughts on the matter. What do you think will work,
what won’t, are you willing to share your library, have some storage ideas,
etc.
GET IN
TOUCH,
ADS.
