New tools in Autodesk Inventor™ Suite 2008

Inventor users everywhere have always had one thing in common. It has been difficult to use 3D models that come from a source other than Inventor. Sure, Inventor has been able to import IGES files. Inventor has even been able to use STEP files. STEP files have been the recommendation for quite a while as they typically have more consistent solids translation. Imagine what it would be like if Inventor could now open up native solids files from other CAD systems.

Inventor now has a set of tools that will allow you to open native UG, PRO/E, Granite, SolidWorks and Parasolids files. With this tool, Inventor users will now see some new items in the standard File Open dialog box. In the drop-down menu for file types, you will see the choices for different systems.



At that point, it will function just like opening up a STEP or IGES file. If it is an assembly file that you select, each part will be created into its own part file. Every part file becomes a base solid.

Since each part becomes a base solid, there is no real data driving that model. All of the modeling information that was used to create the model in the original system has been lost. That becomes the secondary problem with translating files from one system to the next. Again, we now have a solution that you can use to take that base solid and turn it into features.

This tool is the Feature Recognizer. With this tool, when you open a solid file through one of the methods discussed previously, you can turn that base solid into features. There are a few different methods you can use to complete this process. The first thing you will notice is a dialog box that asks if you want to complete this process.



If you were to say yes, your panel bar will now change to show you the Recognition tools.



As you can see, there is an Automatic Feature Recognition tool. This tool functions quite well. The only drawback is that you have no control over what is going to happen, whereas you can use the individual feature recognition tools to manually select feature by feature, to produce a part in a fashion which you have much better control over. Once all the features have been discovered, you can go in and modify the part as if you had created it from scratch.

Before:


After:


Now, you have a fully functional Inventor part model. This, of course, means that we might need to get this information back to the original user. At that point we will need to translate it back to either a STEP or IGES file. Unless what the end user needs is a Parasolid or PTC Granite file. Either of those 2 file types can be saved to straight from Inventor as shown by the dialog box below.



The combination of these two tools should make working with other systems much easier and, hopefully, less painful for Inventor users. To get these tools visit http://labs.autodesk.com/.  They can be installed and used with Autodesk® Inventor™ 11, Inventor Series® 2008, or Inventor LT. For more information on Inventor 2008 or how you can get a copy, visit www.hagerman.com or call you local Hagerman & Company, Inc. sales representative today.