Viewing program for *.iam, *.ipt, and *.dwg files

[chadkendall]

Hi, what do you guys use for your workshop to view files?

Inventor Viewer is limited as you can't hide parts or measure anything (nor rotate a view with a spacemouse) and design review needs every part or assembly to be saved as a dwf, which means the workshop has to ring up and ask for it to be converted, or every file needs to be converted every time there is an update creating many unnecessary files. There must be a simple viewer somewhere that someone can look at an iam, ipt or idw file and do measurements, hide/unhide without being able to modify the file. This would contribute to a paperless workshop.

Thanks

Inventor 2011

Vault Pro 2011

[mflayler2]

Well I see you are using Vault Pro.  Any reason why you are not turning on the DWF file creation during check in?  That would allow any user of Vault Pro to see the most current file in the viewer just fine without need to modify the file at all.  These users would just be in the Vault Consumers role.

[chadkendall]

We did try that but our manufacturing site can only view files in the released state. We couldn't release the dwf's due to rules set for released items, the dwf's didn't meet the criteria, and it would require all dwf's to be manually released/revised with every release/revision, so I don't think it would have been practical anyway given the way we were using it.

Also, our manufacturing site has requested to be able to hide certain parts in an assembly to be able to see things better and I don't beleive the vault viewer allows this.

We worked with our software provider on this and unfortunately were unable to obtain the desired results.

[kstate92]

Well, Autodesk is out, as they refuse to offer a single viewer for all of their own major file types.  Rather pathetic when you think about it. And the two 'viewers' they do offer (Drawing Review and DWG TrueView) are about as lightweight and nimble as supertankers - and I just remembered neither work with native Inventor files.  Autodesks' solution to this need for a universal viewer? CREATE ANOTHER FILE FOR EVERY FILE (DWF) - along with a file system and database to try to keep them in sync with the source file. Hmm.

The purchase of AutoVue by Oracle was a shame, as it would open darn near everything (including spreadsheets!) and had a measuring function.  But now as dictated by Larry 'Horrible Person' Ellison, Oracle demands a kings ransom for the program - unless of course you're buying one of their 'solutions'.

But I'm not bitter.

[chadkendall]

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@kstate92 wrote:

But I'm not bitter.

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I can tell;)

One viewer would be nice. It would make things a lot simpler. I'm assuming this doesn't exist.

[cnewmanVIK]

We use fastlook from Kamel Software here.  It does everything we need it to do.  It's not perfect, but it works.  We only use it for .idw and .dwg files.  It says on the website it opens models as well, but I can't confirm that.  I don't have it on my computer and everyone that does is gone home for the day.  (We are using Inv 2012).  We've been using fastlook for about 5 years.

http://www.kamelsoftware.com/products.php