Is it possible to create a 3D PDF from Inventor 2012? Or is there a third party software that is needed to do this?
Possible..yes with Adobe Acrobat.
Easy.. No not really. Its a pain in the arse. Tons of posts/information about this.
We use Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended to take a IV model, export it to ".stp" file, then create the 3D PDF using Acrobat. This sucks for more reasons than just the extra export step in the process. The version of Acrobat Pro Extended we use is 9.4.2. We received an email from Adobe when version X was released that simply stated the 3D PDF creation functionality has been removed from all versions of Adobe Acrobat from version X on (we haven't verified this). The email stated that there are several programs out there that do this and they aren't going to worry about it anymore. They even pointed us to a location where we could get a discounted version of one of them. So, we haven't upgraded our Acrobat because we need the 3D PDF creation and we don't have the desire to purchase another application.
Hope this helps.
Wow. Between their Grand Canyon-sized secruity holes and their cavalier attitude towards their customers, Adobe is like an unstoppable zombie built out of suck.
You might look at Inventor Viewer, which is free and DWF which is easly exported out of Inventor.
Adobe & Autodesk, don't play well together or like each other.
yep ^^ I'm still using my Adobe Acrobat 3d Version 8. It was actually really cool for about 3 months when you could open an iam/ipt file directly in Acrobat. The process was super easy. Then the new version of Inventor came out and Adobe wouldn't have a patch for 9 months.. So for 9 months it was a pain. Then Adobe finally released the Inventor patch and for 3 months it worked again... Then the new version of Inventor was out..and on..and on. Then Adobe had an OpenGL capture that worked really nice... Then Inventor ditched OpenGL in favor of directx.. And down we go..
We said screw it.. And just moved to nice rendered images. Now ray traced images which really saves time as I don't need to wait for Studio to chug along.
@mcgyvr wrote:
We said screw it.. And just moved to nice rendered images.
I saw one of your images in post a while ago and was completely in awe of how fantastic it looked. We should be upgrading to 2012 here soon (always wait until the next release is announced) and I hope I can make images that look as good as yours easily.
I wish we could get our clients to use DWF's instead. I attempted to get one of my contacts to learn it and he said the measuring tools were so frustrating in Design Review that he gave up on it. Same old reasons, same old argument (IT, ease of use, another application, more training, blah, blah, blah).
Tetra 4D's 3D PDF Converter + Acrobat Pro X will enable you to convert your Autodesk Inventor parts and assemblies to 3D PDF so anyone with the free Adobe Reader can view and interact with your models.
As noted in your post, Adobe no longer directly supports 3D Conversion of CAD data directly in an Acrobat product like they did with Acrobat 3D (v7 and v8) and Acrobat Pro Extended v9. Instead they decided to spin the group responsible for that technology out and Tetra 4D was formed by Adobe employees who were working on 3D PDF at the time. Tetra 4D provides a plug-in for Acrobat X Pro that is essentially the same technology built by the same group that worked on the 3D technology for Acrobat Pro Extend and Acrobat 3D. Since spinning out of Adobe, much work has been done to update the various CAD importers and as of now, they are all current, e.g., the product supports Inventor 2012.
The product also supports export to several neutral formats including STEP, IGES, Parasolid, STL and PRC so you can use it as a translator as well for publishing to 3D PDF.
I have tried Tetra 4D. Pros:
• Opens Inventor 2012 ipt/iam files.
• Material styles correctly read in (including transparent materials).
Cons:
• Expensive
• Does not recognize LoDs so all parts in assemblies are rendered.
• Did not generate 3D models for all parts in the assembly even though these parts would render if placed in a new assembly. I worked with our VAR to find solution but they gave up without finding one.
I also tried Share3D from QuadriSpace. Pros:
• Opens Inventor 2012 ipt/iam files.
• Material styles correctly read in (including transparent materials).
• Less Expensive
Cons:
• Does not recognize LoDs so all parts in assemblies are rendered.
After trying out both products we ended up going with Share3D. You should be able to get a trial software (~30 day period) for either.
- Jonathan
Tetra 4D's product installs a plug-in for Acrobat X Pro, so yes you do need Acrobat X Pro. Share3D from Quadrispace runs without Acrobat.
You will need Acrobat Pro to 'Save As > Reader Extended PDF' to enable commenting and markup tools in the free Reader. Else your 3D PDF will only be viewable in the Reader, i.e., no collaboration, interrogation or markup tools will be accessible. And if you build PDF forms that include 3D data, your Reader users will not be able to save their form field data.
Some of the reasons for the cost differences are:
1) Tetra 4D 3D PDF Converter requires Acrobat Pro
2) Tetra 4D 3D PDF Converter includes support for all the major CAD formats like CATIA, ProE, Ungiraphics and neutral formats like JT. If you add Share3D's Granite license to add the ability to import these formats, the costs are comparable but then you don't have Acrobat Pro.
Also it looks like Share3D is publishing to PDF using the U3D format internally which has some serious limitations compared to PRC. Tetra 4D's 3D PDF Converter can publish to either U3D or PRC. By using the PRC format for internal format storage, 3D PDF Converter can generate PDFs with exact B-Rep geometry. It also supports writing to neutral formats and if you have B-Rep data on the way in, you can generate B-Rep data on the way out.
Acrobat Pro gives you a lot of 2d document support and collaboration tools and supports high fidelity 2D DWG to PDF conversion.
@jeanchile wrote:I wish we could get our clients to use DWF's instead. I attempted to get one of my contacts to learn it and he said the measuring tools were so frustrating in Design Review that he gave up on it. Same old reasons, same old argument (IT, ease of use, another application, more training, blah, blah, blah).
Design review is too complex for my in house sales people, nevermind my customers.
I'm not going to ask my customers to alter their IT policies for Autodesk sake.
I just have to add my 2 cents here... Design Review is a poor product compared to eDrawings, in my opinion, for one reason: The measuring tools; absolutely horrendous. If Autodesk can fix that...
BTW, a much better PDF reader than Adobe is SumatraPDF (it launches quicker, renders better, can update/refresh a PDF if it changes in the background, is smaller [4 MB vs 36 MB] and it even reads DWFx, XPS and DejaVu files too). See image below of an DWFx opened with SumatraPDF. Unfortunately, SumatraPDF only reads 2D, but I normally just create a bunch of 3D views and 95% of clients are happy with that.
So how is everyone converting 3d dwg's to 3d pdf's? There is no dwg file option in Tetra4d. We convert the models to 3ds first. We lose all of the property data of the models doing it this way. The ability to open 3d dwg models in Acrobat and create 3d pdf's would be great
@Anonymous wrote:So how is everyone converting 3d dwg's to 3d pdf's?
You don't.. People want to convert ipt or iam files to 3d pdf's (ultimately that you could then embed in a idw or dwg file then PDF the whole thing to have a typical 2d drawing with an embedded 3d model off to the side that you could zoom/rotate,etc...)
To convert a dwg or idw file to PDF (not 3Dpdf) you simply export to PDF or use a pdf type printer. (Comes with full acrobat) or the free cutepdf or others like that.
True, most Inventor users are not doing this. But, it would be great if we could produce 3d PDF's directly from Inventor. Just about every computer on the planet can read a pdf. It would be so helpful for me to be able to send a 3d PDF file to my customers and say ... "here, take a look at this".
It reminds me of the video tape wars of yore. Yes, dwf might be technically superior (betamax), but the market has already decided (pdf / vhs).
Nothing wrong with PDFs "IF" you use Adobe Acrobat X Pro to create them with and have it set up to maximize the quality. I found that these other PDF creators are a bit iffy when it comes to quality of end file and have less or sometimes no options to change quality of the image, one by Scan Soft actaually cut the output image to a quter of the original page, only part of the actuall sheet was produced.
Often third party converters are a version or more behind the current Adobe PDF version.
Printed output is also different on my two printers a cheap Epson D92 and A Cannon Pixma IX4000 give totally diferent results, quite passable for the classromm off the D92 but the IX4000 is best for customer etc.
As for screen display I have my settings up at 300DPI set this In the Edit - Preferances - Page Display set the custom DPI to about 300 or above.
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