Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Hello everyone.

Does anyone know of a way to render my 3d parts into a vector image format?

I do not have access to Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

We are a software company that uses these models in our applications. Originally we just used .bmp redered images.

If there is no way to do this, do you know of a way I can turn .bmp into a vector image format like .ai or .eps?

Thanks in advance.

-Chris

[#2]

You can save your IDW to PDF, and then use Ghostview and Ghostscript to convert to EPS. Or you can try to open the PDF in Inkscape.

3ds might also have some tricks you can try. There is no silver bullet for converting raster images to vector that I know of.

[#3]

I don't think you can get "true" vector images from Inventor no matter what you do.

[#4]

by "render to vector" what do you mean?  create a vector of a drawing or of a Studio/raytraced rendering.

drawings - 2 methods spring to mind:

1) save as a dxf (version 2000) and import that into a compatable paint program like CorelDraw

2) use PDFCreator printer program and "print" what you want, select save and from the drop-down you can choose eps.

^ both methods will still need something like CorelDraw or Illustrator to edit the result to crop to the desired results, but can create some very decent scalable vectors of idw views (and can edit line-thickness/styles easily).

rendering - don't think it's easily possible or suitable.  A rendering has thousands of colours for all the shadows and gradients and thus I don't think you will easily get a vector that looks decent.  Only option is to create an image (png) of what you want and use a program to rasterize it into a vector (and some results are v v mixed).  CorelDraw or Google for a "bmp to vector" program.  Bottom line, if you want a rendering then use a proper graphics file-format like bmp, jpg or png (and would highly recomment png for file-size and quality).

At the end of the day, you're going to need more software than just Inventor for this.

[#5]

I hope I understand what you want to do. I often create vector line drawings from parts and assemblies using Inventor. If I am making an exploded view, I create a presentation file, explode the assembly, and then import that presentation file into a new drawing file. Then I have to save it out as an AutoCAD DWG - the goal is to bring it into Adobe Illustrator. To do that, I need to save to an earlier version of DWG. I typically use 2004 - seems to work fine. Then I can open the file in Adobe Illustrator and save it as an EPS or AI file. Then I can place it into InDesign files for publication. Ofcourse it's a line drawing and not in color - but as far as I know it's not possible to export a vector color drawing out of Inventor.

I wish there was an easy way to create vector from bitmap - but it's really like trying to reassemble a tree after you've chopped it down. Kinda impossible. There are tracing programs - but they are highly unreliable. But if I wanted a color image file, I'd stick with bmp and export it as a TIFF or PNG. 

[#6]

This is an extra cost, which I think you are trying to avoid, but Inventor Publisher will let you publish in the vector format.

[#7]

I've had major issues with the quality of the vector output from Inventor Publisher. The SVG file is nowhere near as clean as the kind of output I get from coming out of inventor > AutoCAD DWG> Illustrator AI. When I use the Publisher export to SVG, there are way too many overlapping segments. Plus some segements are disconnected and curved segements are in pieces. For what I do, this is unacceptable. Has anyone else seen this issue with SVG out of Publisher? 

I find this to be a major issue with the program and am pleading with Autodesk to find away to fix it. At very least we should be able to get the same file export results from Inventor as we do Publisher. And I still think Publisher and Inventor should export  directly to AI and EPS formats for compatibility in the Adobe Creative Suite. Not all of us use MS Word for publications. 

This is a general rant directed towards the software and not towards anyone as an individual. 

[#8]

Just sit tight for a bit. I think things will be improving

[#9]

Could you please elaborate on that with any info you have? Is there an update coming to the software or new release? Any glimmer of hope with details would be very appreciated!

[#10]

sorry, I can't elaborate. Sometimes you just have to trust.

Autodesk generally releases its new software versions in the spring of the year. I would assume we will see a new version of Publisher in the next couple of months, but I can't guarantee that. I just have a very very strong hunch ;-)