Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Working on a part and after much extruding and intersecting ended up with pretty much what I was after, but there are all these surfaces that don't seem to clean up by boolean operation of the solids.  Will this cause a problem when I go to manufacture from STL file ?  Cluters up the part quite a bit - any thoughts ?

Thanks,

Tim 

[#2]

Can you attach the finished part here - there might be a better way to model it.

Is there a folder at the top of your browser called Surfaces?  What happens if you right click on that folder and turn off Visibilty of the surfaces?

[#3]

Hi JD,

Sure, here is the part file.

Tim

[#4]

Did you attach the right part here? (that file doesn't look like your image file)
Did you try turning off surface visibility as I suggested earlier?

[#5]

JD,

Thats the part - I did turn off the surfaces and it did clean up the visual representation - my concern is if I print up the part via rapid prototyping, will those surfaces print out ?  Maybe the better question is does an export in STL format include just the visable elements of a part of the hidden elements as well.

Thanks for your advice on turning off the surfaces.

Tim

[#6]

The part and the image don't look alike?
In any case, only the solid body will be exported by the stl.

Be aware that there is a bug in 2011 and 2012 in that the stl export is set to Centimeter by default rather than to Document Units.  Be sure to set Options to correct units when saving the stl file.

There are several free viewers that you can read the stl back in to view.
(somewhere there is also an add-in for Inventor to import stl files, facet enabler or something like that - I think Brian Eckins is the author)