Creating Free Body Diagrams Using Inventor & Word

This tutorial will go over how to create professional looking FBDs and labeled figures using Inventor and Word for use in reports as well as presentations. Methods for creating FBD images with Photoshop or Paint will also be discussed. For FBDs a 2D image is best used in order to make sure its clear exactly where each force is applied. For figures showing how something works, 3D images are often better and can be accompanied by 2D images to improve clarity even more. The end result of this tutorial will look similar to this:

Create a jpeg using Inventor 1) Open the part or assembly file you wish to use 2) Use the Look-At tool (Page-Up) and select the surface that you wish to view in 2D

3) Zoom in around the part so that it is centered in the middle of the screen 4) Adjust colors and background so that all parts are easy to see 5) Go to File Save Copy As Select jpeg from the file type drop down menu Save

Edit the jpeg with Photoshop or Paint 1) Open up your favorite image editing program 2) Using the Crop tool, drag over only the area you wish to keep then press enter

Create labels in Word 1) Open Word and go to Insert Picture From File 2) Activate the Drawing Toolbar by going to View Toolbars

Drawing

3) From the Drawing Toolbar, select the Arrow tool 4) Create the arrow by first clicking and holding where you want the arrow to end (where your text label will be) and drag to where you want the arrow to point

5) Next click on the text box in the drawing toolbar and create a text box at the end of the arrow you just created

6) After the text box has been created, right click on the border and select format text box. Under Fill select color: No Fill and under Color select color: No Fill. This will get rid of the border around the text box and make the text box transparent.

7) After all forces have been labeled you can chose to move on a create a FBD image Create an image of your FBD 1) To make your FBD easy to move into presentations, websites, etc. create an image from the FBD youve created in Word 2) Center the FBD in the middle of the screen and hit Print Screen on the keyboard. 3) Open up Photoshop or paint and create a new file 4) Go to Edit Paste to insert your screenshot 5) Use the crop tool to delete everything except your FBD 6) Save the image a jpeg and your job is done