Community
Inventor Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Inventor Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular Inventor topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Adding Downloaded content to a family and placing in the content center

4 REPLIES 4
SOLVED
Reply
Message 1 of 5
bswan52
316 Views, 4 Replies

Adding Downloaded content to a family and placing in the content center

I appreciate the help in advance.

 

I recently downloaded a series of CAD models from a third party and I would like to organize them into a family and add them to the content center. Any suggestions?

 

I've had no problem with table driven families in the past, but could not get it to work with imported models.

 

My first attempt was to create an iassembly and my table for that would include/exclude based on selection so that toggling from part to part would suppress all parts except for the relevant one. It appeared that this was going to work, but it seemed there was no way to publish an iassembly.

 

I'm convinced there is an easier way. 

 

Thanks again,

 

Brendan

 

 

4 REPLIES 4
Message 2 of 5
cbenner
in reply to: bswan52


@bswan52 wrote:

I appreciate the help in advance.

 

I recently downloaded a series of CAD models from a third party and I would like to organize them into a family and add them to the content center. Any suggestions?

 

I've had no problem with table driven families in the past, but could not get it to work with imported models.

 

My first attempt was to create an iassembly and my table for that would include/exclude based on selection so that toggling from part to part would suppress all parts except for the relevant one. It appeared that this was going to work, but it seemed there was no way to publish an iassembly.

 

I'm convinced there is an easier way. 

 

Thanks again,

 

Brendan

 

 


What exactly are these models?  Are they parts or assemblies?  Generally in the past I have had to publish imported parts as stand alones in the CC, so rather than a family I placed them in a custom sub-category.  

 

Assemblies & iassemblies cannot be published to the CC, they need to be part files.

Message 3 of 5
bswan52
in reply to: cbenner

Thanks for the quick response!

 

These are part files. I thought about importing them individually, but I figured that a table driven interface would be much better for the selection process, such as what you see with fasteners, washers, etc.

 

How does batch publish work then? Would it treat the files within the batch as a group/family? I had trouble with that feature as well. It seemed that it only wanted to select files individually.

 

-Brendan 

Message 4 of 5
cbenner
in reply to: bswan52

Unfortunately since these were downloaded as individual part files from (I'm guessing) a step file or some similar format, there is really no way to tabulate them without recreating a new model and then making it an ipart using dimensions you pull from the models you downloaded.  This would be a time consuming nightmare IMHO.  I've had this scenario a lot lately with new pipe fittings and valves that we just started using.  So, what I did was (as an example) under the Elbow folder in my Content Center (in Tube & Pipe), I created a subfolder called PVDF Socket Weld Elbows, then published each one as a standalone part there.  Not as elegent as a single tabulated part, but the sub folder does make it easier to find than if I buried them in with all of the other elbows.  Then I did the same for the other types of fittings.

 

I've never used batch publish, but it makes sense it would see these as individual files, because that's what they are.  CC isn't smart enough to be able to build a table around a group of individual parts.

Message 5 of 5
bswan52
in reply to: cbenner

Thanks again Chris,

 

That's too funny! I am coincidentally doing this exercise for pipe fittings. And I was reaching the same conclusion that you mentioned about dropping them into a sub-folder one at a time. The problem that I experienced with that is that CC became very slow and unresponsive when attempting to access those files.

 

Right now I'm attemting to add them into a multi-body .ipt file using the derive feature to drop in each individual file. My hope is that I'll be able to turn this into an ipart and tabulate them from this here and then publish it as a family. Do you think that will work?

 

-Brendan

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report