This document introduces the concept of work planes in Autodesk Inventor and how to use them to design parts from different perspectives. It provides step-by-step instructions for creating a new work plane on a rectangular solid in order to draw and extrude a cylindrical handle on one side. The key steps are selecting a surface, setting a reference point to define the work plane, sketching a circle on the new work plane, and extruding it. Work planes allow designing features on different faces of an object and are an essential Autodesk Inventor command.

1. Unit on Work Planes Associate Professor Michael Uenking

2. Welcome to the world of 3-D parametric design! Hopefully, by the end of this semester, you will obtain the skills necessary to create unique designs such as the ones shown in the following images:

3. In this particular lesson, you will learn an essential Autodesk Inventor work command that will enable you to create image features from different perspectives known as work planes. More specifically, you will learn what work planes are and how to strategically use them in the design of non-cylindrical and cylindrical parts in Autodesk Inventor. The first thing we need to do is open up the drawing file that you saved in the previous lesson labeled, ‘box.ipt’.

4. Once Inventor is done loading this part file, you will see under the ‘Model’ Menu a folder labeled ‘Origin’ with a plus sign (+) to the left of it. Please click on the plus sign to see what it is in the ‘Origin’ folder. After clicking on the plus sign, you should see the following: Notice that there are three different planes labeled ‘YZ Plane’, ‘XZ Plane’, and ‘XY Plane’. There are also three axes: ‘X Axis’, ‘Y Axis’, and ‘Z Axis’ along with the term, ‘Center Point’.

5. If you were to highlight all three of the ‘Planes’ and then right-click and then turn on the visibility, you would be able to see the three main work planes of interest in this lesson with respect to the X Axis, the Y Axis, and the Z Axis as shown in this image. But please note that these origin work planes are not visible when you first start a new drawing. These work planes help to take advantage of your geometric and trigonometric skills. These are your standard work planes that can be used whenever you are drawing a part as long as you are drawing your part with respect to the origin of your drawing sheet. But in the event that you are not drawing with respect to your drawing sheet, you need to learn how to create new work planes with respect to a particular point on your part.

6. Let us now go back to our rectangular solid that should be visible on your drawing grid. We are now going to place a cylindrical handle on the right side of your block. This is where work planes are very useful. If you scroll down your ‘Part Features’ menu, you will see a command known as ‘Work Plane’ as shown in this image:

7. After you select the work plane button, your cursor should have a little parallelogram next to it. If you move your mouse to any of the surfaces on the rectangular solid, a temporary work plane will be highlighted on the surface. There are two steps to create this work plane. The first step is to highlight the surface that you want to build on and the second step is to set a reference point that you want the work plane to be developed from. To make things easier, after I select my surface, I usually find the midpoint of one of the edges on the solid object that is in the same plane as your work plane. You can find the midpoint by moving your mouse cursor over the edge until a yellow cross-hair shows up as shown in this image:

8. Once you select this point, it will automatically draw your work plane with respect to that point and the surface that you previously selected. Your work plane should change from blue to orange indicating that the work plane is now placed on your part as shown in this image:

9. Once this work plane has been created, we can now draw an object on that work plane by first selecting the ‘Sketch’ button at the top:

10. and then select one of the edges on the work plane that you just created so that the corners are highlighted with yellow circles as shown in the following image:

11. Once you have selected this work plane, you should automatically go back to the 2D Sketch mode. Your grid should also reappear. All we need to do is draw a circle on this surface by selecting the ‘Center Point Circle’ under the ‘2D Sketch Panel’ menu. At this time, just draw some arbitrary circle on this work plane making sure that it is on the right side of your part. Also make sure that the circle is not bigger than your rectangular solid as well just to keep the design simple.

12. After you are done drawing your circle, click on the ‘Return’ button as before. Extrude just the circle also with a one-inch length. It should look similar to the following image:

13. All that is left to do is turn off the work plane so that it does not appear in your part. To do this, all you have to do is right-click the work plane. You will get a pop-up window. One of the options will show the word, ‘Visibility’, with a check mark next to it. Uncheck the mark by selecting it. The work plane should now be gone. Congratulations! You have just learned how to create and use a work plane to create additional pieces on different faces of your original shape. I would suggest that you practice creating different pieces on the different faces of your rectangular solid to get used to the steps in the process. Feel free to start at the beginning of this lesson or at the part of the lesson in which you created the work plane to draw additional pieces on your rectangular solid. In the next lesson, you will learn how to create a work plane on a cylindrical part.