Mastering Autodesk® Inventor® 2012 and Autodesk® Inventor LT™ 2012

The Bottom Line

Create thicken/offset features. When creating plastic parts, you will often find that working with surfaces allows you to achieve more free-form shapes than working with solids. Once the surfaces are created, you'll need to give them a thin wall thickness.

Master It How would you create a plastic part file with many curved, free-form elements?

Create shell features. Shelling solids parts and features is a common way to create base features for plastic parts. Once the shell feature is created, other features can be added to it.

Master It You want to create a shell feature but need to have some faces be thicker than the rest. How would you accomplish this?

Create split features. Many times you may want to establish the overall ...