Inventor continues to offer active assembly constraints. This means that it continuously monitors assembly constraints. If you drag one part with your mouse, the attached parts follow appropriately in real time. As well as the usual positional constraints, such as mate and flush, Inventor now includes two motion constraints. The rotational one is suitable for such items as a pair of gears, and the rotation- translation one for a rack and pinion.
Inventor can automatically set the ratio by the diameters of the parts involved.
You can drive constraints through a range of values, so you run a mechanism and check for collisions along the way. Sheesh, these programmers are taking all the fun out of engineering. You can apply 3D assembly constraints to sketch geometry. This means that you can play what-if scenarios and tinker with adaptive scenarios with simple sketches, without generating full 3D solid models. Constraining made easy Release 4 introduces a totally new constraining concept called iMates.