Inventor 2022 has been out for a few weeks now and I have used it a little bit, but I haven't fully migrated to using it full-time. Today, I had my first introduction to the new Model States function in Inventor 2022. I had a rough idea of what they were going to be capable of because I read a few articles and saw a few presentations on what Autodesk was looking to add in Inventor 2022. I will say that I was blown away by how much Model States are capable of. I was also not aware they are essentially replacing Levels of Detail.
I have been using Inventor for over 15 years and have used Levels of Detail quite often in that time. In my current job, I teach a class in Large Assembly Management, in which Levels of Detail and Level of Detail Substitutes are a large portion of that class. In watching a What's New In Inventor 2022 webinar, presented by Autodesk, they were talking about Model States and said how any custom Levels of Detail will be migrated to Model States when the file is opened in Inventor 2022. This really caught my attention because I just figured that Model States would be a new way of doing some of the things that I used Levels of Detail for in previous releases and that both functions would be available. I was wrong, Model States have replaced Levels of Detail.
As I was thinking through the new workflow using Model States, I had the realization that Model States will eliminate a frustrating behavior that has plagued Levels of Detail for as long as I have used Inventor. When working with Levels of Detail and often when having the model and drawing open at the same time, Inventor would eventually give the user an error stating that the current Level of Detail cannot be saved because another one is currently being edited.
Model States do not need to be saved as you transition between them, so this should be the end of an error that has driven plenty of users crazy.
