Life with SolidWorks
Import/Export
Imagine my surprise when I tried to import an AutoDesk Inventor part file into SolidWorks. It’s one of the file types you can select on the open dialog box. But you get nothing…unless you have the version or newer version of Inventor that the file came from installed on your system. Which in this case means that SolidWorks ‘works’ in conjunction with Inventor to import your file into SolidWorks. I’m sorry but I have a problem with this logic! If I can afford to have both programs installed on my system then do I really need to translate from Inventor to SolidWorks?
In all fairness I guess the reason this capability is included at all is for persons switching from Inventor to SolidWorks. It seems that we had something similar for Mechanical Desktop files way back when we switched. But I have to wonder what the hold up is, I mean we can import SolidEdge, Catia, ProE, and CadKey why not Inventor. Granted with the mentioned formats we end up with a ‘dumb’ solid but we get nothing with Inventor!
I’ll be on the phone today talking a customer through saving a STEP file of his Inventor part so I can import it. Seems like a waste of his time and mine. Such is:
Life with SolidWorks
I think the reason for needing both programs on a system to do the translation is so that you wind up with native features instead of a dumb solid.
ReplyDeleteInstalling the free Inventor Viewer will allow opening inventor files. The full version of inventor is not required. Parts will come in as dumb solids.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, I'll give this a try the next time I need to import Inventor files.
ReplyDeleteThe Inventor Viewer being installed does in fact allow for the import of Inventor files. See the May 8th post for a link to the download site.
ReplyDeleteThanks again who ever you are..
Jeff
Hi Guys,
ReplyDeleteYou don't need Inventor installed on your computer. You only need Inventor View...which is a free download from Autodesk.