Introducing the Manipulate add-in for Autodesk® Inventor®. Move and rotate assembly components with numeric precision directly from the canvas. Right-click a component, choose Manipulate, and a color-coded 3D manipulator with an in-canvas toolbar appears on the selected component. Enter exact translation and rotation values, watch a live preview respond to your input, and click OK to apply the transformation.

Whether you are positioning purchased components, aligning fixtures, adjusting mechanisms, or fine-tuning assembly layouts, Manipulate provides a fast and accurate alternative to traditional drag-based positioning.

Key Features

Interactive Manipulator Glyph

Color-coded translation arrows and rotation rings (red, green, and blue for the X, Y, and Z axes) appear directly on the selected component. The handles maintain a fixed on-screen size at any zoom level, and the active axis is highlighted while you edit its value.

Type Exact Values

An in-canvas toolbar provides six value editors: translation along the X, Y, and Z axes (mm) and rotation about the X, Y, and Z axes (degrees). The fully keyboard-driven workflow is designed for precise component positioning instead of imprecise dragging.

 

Live Preview

A translucent preview of the component follows your input in real time, including subassemblies, allowing you to verify the final position before applying any changes.

Local or World Reference Frame

Press TAB to switch between the Local reference frame (following the component's orientation) and the World reference frame (aligned with the global X, Y, and Z axes). Rotations are applied first, followed by translations along the resulting axes.

Clean Undo

The entire transformation is committed as a single Manipulate transaction, allowing a single Undo operation to revert all changes.

Enhance your Inventor experience with this powerful tool, designed to make positioning assembly components faster, more accurate, and more efficient.

For more information, click here.

The latest version of this application is always available at: https://basautomationservices.com/products/manipulate/.

There may be a slight delay before the latest version becomes available for download from the Autodesk App Store.

Note: This app uses a custom installer rather than the standard Autodesk App Store installer.