Its always been there, regardless of where you dock it. But sometimes it is a forgotten tool. I am talking about the browser in Inventor. According to the Inventor 2012 Help file the browser "Shows and hides selected features, filters contents, manages access to feature and sketch editing, and provides alternate access to functions"
Basically, the Browser in Inventor can really help you navigate your part and assembly models. Here are a few quick examples of how using the Browser effectively in Part and Assembly design environments.
Let's first take a look at the Part Browser. Initially, the Browser can be used to quickly filter what you want to see/hide. Things like: UCS, Work Features, Notes, Documents, Warnings and Extended Feature Names.
This can be initiated by simply right-clicking on the Filter icon on the top of the Browser.
A good example of where this is handy is when you choose to 'Show Extended Names' .This option will add addition feature information to the individual features in the Browser...making it easier to visually locate a feature.
Outside of applying filters to what is visible in the Browser, there is a handy little Find icon floating up at the top of the Browser as well. The Find tool allows you to search for a variety of items in your Browser. Here is an example of a Feature search, based on the the Property of 'Fillet'.
Note: All of your search criteria can be saved for future use.
While in an Assembly design environment, the Browser gives you a few more tools to swing around.
As in the Part environment you can show/hide items, perform a find and toggle between the different Assembly View options.
The assembly Browser filter icon brings up you show/hide options.
And the Find icon launches a similar search dialog that lets you establish search criteria for Components, Constraints, Features & Sketches as well as Welds. This gets very handy in large assembly models.
And, lastly, the feature I use the most. The Assembly View option. With this option, you can toggle between 'Modeling View' and 'Assembly View'. Modeling View is the default assembly browser view for Inventor. While Assembly View organizes your Contraints and iMates at the top of the Browser for easy access. Nothing can be as frustrating as expanding the browser tree for a bunch of components in search of a Constraint.
In addition to all of this functionality, don't forget you can alway right-click on featuers in the Browser to access commands.
There you go: short and sweet. Hope it was helpful.
-lw
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