Each Woodwork for Inventor part has one required Fill Workpiece and can have extra optional Cover Workpieces. Each workpiece, in turn, is produced from a selected material. Thus a part can consists of:

1.  Fill workpiece.

2.  Additional cover workpieces.

In the Autodesk Inventor environment, the constructor creates geometry for furniture parts. Using Woodwork for Inventor tools, the constructor can assign a fill material to the part and indicate which surfaces of the part should be covered by different cover materials. When generating reports containing information about such a part, the system automatically breaks down this information into required workpieces containing relevant materials. For example, a cut shelf can only consist of a single workpiece, i. e. board type material. If the edge of the shelf is covered with a band, it means that such a part consists of two workpieces: board workpiece and edge band workpiece. Depending on the part geometry, material grain direction and oversizes, workpieces have length, width and height automatically calculated by the Woodwork for Inventor add-on which are used in generating data in reports and calculating required quantities of materials. One exception applies in this case: the amount of paint required to cover a surface is calculated in terms of surface area and thickness of the layer of paint. It is important to note that the part size and the size of the workpiece from which the part is produced, may differ (see Dimension calculation section).

The fill material is usually a solid piece of material, e. g. chipboard or solid wood. However, in the production of wooden products, there are situations where a fill workpiece of the part can be composed from other workpieces. There are two cases in Woodwork for Inventor where a fill workpiece is not a solid piece of material:

1.  Multilayer board.

2.  Composite part.

A multilayer board is produced by the manufacturer by gluing several layers together using different boards. If necessary, such a “sandwich” can be covered with a veneer or paint. This “sandwich” is later cut into separate parts, thus Woodwork for Inventor considers such a multilayer board as a material and not a workpiece. The composition of such a material is described in the Woodwork for Inventor material database, using the multilayer board constructor.

Composite parts. A furniture part can be produced in several stages. First stage includes manufacturing of parts which are then glued together or otherwise attached to one another to form a single workpiece. Such a workpiece can be subjected to additional processing, e. g. calibration, drilling, edge-banding or painting, in this way creating the end form of the part. In Woodwork for Inventor such parts are referred to as composite parts. It is considered that such a part consists of a composite workpiece which is made from two separate parts.

Composite Part

Such a part is designed by deriving a part assembly (Autodesk Inventor Derive Component command). If the derived assembly consists of Woodwork for Inventor parts, the system itself automatically recognizes such a situation and generates relevant data about the part workpiece consisting of the parts that have their own respective workpieces.

Each workpiece is made from a certain material. As mentioned above, Woodwork for Inventor uses certain material types which are classified into:

When generating manufacturing information, it is important to estimate the materials assigned to parts during the design process. For instance, you have to know how many square meters of one or another board are required to manufacture a designed cabinet, or how many cubic meters of wood are required to manufacture staircase. From the examples above, we can see that we can classify materials based on the method for calculating and presenting them in reports, i. e. the unit of measurement of the material can be volume, area, length, or units.

Below you will find detailed information about each type of material.

Solid Wood - calculated in cubic units. An example of such a material is a fragment of a staircase handrail.

Solid Wood

Board - calculated in square units. These materials are classified into the following sub-groups:

Laminated Board

Multilayer Board

Rod - calculated in units of length. Rods are used in the production of various frame components, e. g. aluminum profile doors. Meanwhile, wood profiles can be used in the construction of different façade frames for buildings.

A typical structure consisting of wood, plastic and aluminum rods (profiles)

Desktop - calculated in units of length. Examples include kitchen tabletops.

Unit - calculated in units. Units, as a rule, are products purchased by a manufacturer to create a complete piece furniture. These may include screws, hinges, metal legs, etc. Woodwork for Inventor treats all Purchased-type Autodesk Inventor components as products calculated in terms of units.

Below you will find detailed information about each type of cover.

Veneer - calculated in units of area. These include wood veneers and various films which are used as additional coating applied to a part. Currently, Woodwork for Inventor allows the user to assign a veneer type cover only to cylindrical and flat surfaces.

Edge Band - calculated in units of length. An edge band is only applied to board-type parts and for edge covering.

Paint - calculated in units of area to be covered with paint.

Cover can only applied to a part to which a fill has already been assigned. Speaking about materials in terms of Autodesk Inventor categories, a fill material can be assigned to a Part and it corresponds to the concept of Autodesk Inventor material. Meanwhile, a cover material can be assigned to a Face and it corresponds to Autodesk Inventor Appearance assignment to a respective part face.