Importing SW 2013 Assemblies to Inventor 2013

[kiraly]

Hello all,

We have a customer who uses Inventor 2013 (we use Solidworks 2013) and they want to import our SW assembly files into Inventor.  What we have is a large die assembly with hundreds of individual parts all assembled into interchangeable sub-assemblies for the prog die and the overall large assembly of the die with the interchangeable subs.  What is the best way for us to export our SW files so they can use them in Inventor?

I've checked with SW and all they have to offer is translators to import to SW not to export to another program.  They also recommended that we use STEP files but in my experience that doesnt exactly work well with large assemblies like this.

Does anyone have any recommendations?  Know of a translator software, put out by Autodesk or any 3rd party, that could rememdy our issue?

Thanks,

Kyle

[karthur1]

Inventor is supposed to be able to read solidw*rks files directly.  I am just not sure if Inv 2013 can read SW 2013.  Inv 2013 might only be able to read SW 2012.

Can you send them one small assembly (.sldasm) and just see if they can open it?  Send them a part file (.sldprt) also and let them open that too just for a test.

Can you save back to SW 2012?  We cant save back like that in Inventor, just curious if you can in SW.

If you want to post a 2013 SW file here, I can see ifI can open it in Inv 2013.

[JDMather]

SolidWorks 2013 came out after Inventor 2013, so the original release of Inventor 2013 will not read SolidWorks 2013 files.

I don't know if this had been addressed in a later Service Pack for Inventor 2013.

As suggested - attach one of your Swx 2013 files here to see if Inventor 2013 with latest SP will open.

In any case, all assembly constraints will be lost.  STEP should produce the same results (assuming the Inventor user knows how to open large STEP files).  You might also send as Parasolid.

[kiraly]

Hey fellas,

I attached a STEP and parasolid of the same assembly...two basic parts assembled together with dowel pins (cut-off blade and the head).

Note:  I imagine that the assembly constraints are the most important things that we would want to keep because of the large die assembly.  If those are lost, I assume, that my customer would have to assemble my part files all over again.  Which would be a huge headache considering we designed the die and have been maintaining the files for them for some time now.

Please let me know what you think based on these files or if you would like me to attach something larger.

Thanks again!

...So upon typing this, it wont let me attach the STEP or parasolid types.  Says "file type doesnt match the type of its contents"? not sure what I did wrong, but I did manage to attach the SW assembly file.

[kiraly]

Or apparently none of the attachments are going through...doesnt match supported file type??

[karthur1]

I know, thats a pain.

Add your files to a zip and post that.

[JDMather]

You will have to zip, but why aren't you using the SWx example? 

We already know Inventor will open the STEP or Parasolid.

The assembly constraints will be lost, but the parts will stil be in position, so with careful effort the user can re-establish assembly constraints.

[kiraly]

Ok sorry about that confusion.

I attached a zip file containing a simple SW assembly...cut-off blade, cut-off blade head, and 2 dowel pins.

Again, this is from SW 2013.  As mentioned above we aren't too sure if Inventor 2013 supports 2013 yet.

Thank you for all the help!

[karthur1 · Accepted solution]

Tried to open both assy and parts in 2013.  Nothing comes in.

The files open fine in Inv 2014 (update2).  Just as a sidenote,  When the parts some in, there is no information there (Title, Description, part number....blah, blah blah).  Theyare initially in the correct postion, but like JD said, they can be moved around.  The quick fix is to just ground everything.