Simulate Motion; Understand Degrees Of Freedom - Autodesk 466B1-05A761-1304 - AutoCAD Inventor Simulation Suite 2010 Getting Started Manual

Simulate Motion

With the dynamic simulation or the assembly environment, the intent is to build a functional
mechanism. Dynamic simulation adds to that functional mechanism the dynamic, real-world
influences of various kinds of loads to create a true kinematic chain.

Understand Degrees of Freedom

Though both have to do with creating mechanisms, there are some critical
differences between the dynamic simulation and the assembly environment.
The most basic and important difference has to do with degrees of freedom.
By default, components in Autodesk Inventor
of freedom. Unconstrained and ungrounded components in the assembly
environment have six degrees of freedom.
In the assembly environment, you add constraints to restrict degrees of freedom.
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Simulation have zero degrees
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