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Inventor and Solidworks

61 REPLIES 61
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Message 1 of 62
waynefisher
5115 Views, 61 Replies

Inventor and Solidworks

 

My company is in the process of researching Solidworks. We have for the last six years been using strictly Inventor for all designs, renderings, animations, detail drawings etc. My question today is, how many companies have both Inventor and Solidworks? Do you use both to run your engineering departments? Inventor has been a good tool for us in the past, we build primarily metal weldments. No plastics, no surface modeling. I am not quite sure the reason for acquiring Solidworks, however I speculate there is a greater workforce available that are Solidworks users. I am looking for any thoughts or concerns in regards to having two different software packages. I know the models for each will not cross over well into the other. Is there anything else I should know, pros and cons?

 

Thanks

 

Wayne

 

61 REPLIES 61
Message 21 of 62
Hell-If-I-Know
in reply to: tlford37

tlford,

 

I just saw your post on the converting issue.

 

As you probably know, Inventor can and should directly open Acad files. From here you can do a "save as" and save the file as a .dwg, note, you can also save it as a Auotcad .dwg.

Problem is if you save it as an Acad .dwg, you will in essense break the link to the model that resides in Inventor thus any updates to the model will not be reflected in the drawing file. I don't think you want this.

 

I'm sure you are asking why does this happen, I would guess it's as simple as pointing out once the drawing file is saved as Acad it's an Acad file and thus no more 3D solid.

 

My suggestion is do a "save as" and save it as an Inventor .dwg, this keeps the link to the solid model and you can set everything to be as Acad is (layers, blocks, dims, etc.) and if I'm not mistaken you can open that Inventor .dwg in Acad, you just won't be able to modify the part (because it resides in Inventor).

 

Makes sense though.

Also, on the opposite side of that equation, you do realize SolidWorks can not open Catia files yet they are also within the same company. At least in Inventor/Acad you have a few options of working in the files.

Message 22 of 62
kstate92
in reply to: Loren_J


@Loren_J wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@waynefisher wrote:

Autodesk, you need to get Inventor into the colleges no matter what it takes. Give it away for free.


But I have see zero evidence that more than a handful of faculty in the world know how to use and teach the software.


The next time you're in China you should watch Master Chen teach Inventor on TV. You don't need more than a handful when the training is available to everyone in the country.  


I reallly couldn't tell if you were serious or not, so I Googled and came across this: Young Master Chen, so I'm still confused.  And I now have an image of an asian Bob Ross in my head, modeling cute little pine trees in 3D.

KState92
Inventor Professional 2020
AutoCAD Mechanical 2022.0.1
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit - 1903
Core i7-8700 32 GB Ram
Quadro P2000
Message 23 of 62
tlford37
in reply to: waynefisher

Well I did get an answer back from Autodesk and the answer was...We are still working on that.

 

The problem is we need to convert about 600 Inventor IDW's to AutoCAD DWG's. They must be editable and look EXACTLY like the IDW that was issued for construction.

 

When you Save Copy AS Autocad DWG in Inventor the drawing loses all of the Dimension Breaks and if there was text below the dimension line it is now on top. This wouldn't be so bad if there were only a few dimensions on the drawings but there are hundreds. I counted 78 dimension breaks on one drawing. To fix the dimension breaks we have to use the DIMBREAK command in AutoCAD for each and every dimension (one at a time). So Autodesk said to use the DIMBREAK-AUTO command....sure if it worked right, but it doesn't. When you choose AUTO and select all of your dimensions it breaks the dimension lines instead of the extension lines.

 

I took one of our drawings to see how long it would take to fix it and it took 2.15 hours. Times that by the 600 drawings we have, plus someone to go through and recheck them, and this IS NOT AN OPTION!

 

As far as (TYP) or (REF) that is now above the line instead of below. In AutoCAD you use \X to put things below the line, well Inventor converted all of these to \P and that is why they are now above the line. Again some drawings have 40 - 50 of these and would also take a lot of time.

Message 24 of 62
tlford37
in reply to: Hell-If-I-Know

I need to give the client AutoCAD editable drawings. We do everything in Inventor therefore we have to convert all 600 IDW's to AutoCAD DWG's. Inventor DWG's will not work because they can not be editted in AutoCAD.

Message 25 of 62
kstate92
in reply to: tlford37

I'm sure you've tried, but just curious if you've tried saving as an AutoCAD Mechanical drawing instead?  I usually go through Mechanical first then do a Laytrans, explode groups, purge, and save as Vanilla, but yours sounds vastly more complex than our drawings.

KState92
Inventor Professional 2020
AutoCAD Mechanical 2022.0.1
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit - 1903
Core i7-8700 32 GB Ram
Quadro P2000
Message 26 of 62
Loren_J
in reply to: kstate92

There is a Master Chen, and he is an engineering professor in his 50's. I haven't seen his show, partly because I don't speak any of the Chinese dialects, and partly because I don't believe those TV stations are available in hotels. It has been a few years since i have been there, so I don't know if he is still on the air.

 

My main concern is that I have kids, and I want them and my grandchildren to have a reasonable shot at good jobs. Other countries are investing tons of money in education. I do a lot of volunteer work in schools so kids can have some basic knowledge of engineering design methods, which is useful even if they don't become engineers, but I can only reach a tiny fraction of the students in my school district. I am not trying to be political, but I am concerned about our future.

LorenJ

Inventor 2011 Pro
Win7 64 SP1
Xeon W3550 @3.07 GHz
ATI FirePro V5700, 8.773.0.0
12 GB RAM
Message 27 of 62
tlford37
in reply to: kstate92

Yes I have tried Autocad Mech. as well as Microstation DGN in hopes that I can salvage as must as I can. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Message 28 of 62
Hell-If-I-Know
in reply to: JDMather

But I have see zero evidence that more than a handful of faculty in the world know how to use and teach the software. 

 

Oh how I know about this. two yrs ago I qualified the local community college to get numerous seats of Inventor.

They sat idle for about another year and then I found out they were having a SW guy teach the class. On top of that the instructor brought in his friend who happened to be working for me, but he was an ex-SW user and had only been on Inventor a few months. Between the two of them struggling to answer questions or issues that came up in class, they di nothing more than slam Inventor and claim SW could do a much better job.

 

The fact of the matter was neither of them could use Inventor properly to save their life. So whatelse could one expect when they see the instructor having nothing but issues with one software and breeze through the work on another?

 

The "friend" that worked for me??? Let's just say he still hasn't figured out more than the basics of Inventor and still refuses to learn anything advanced, but he's the bosses brown noser and thus he's gainfully employed.

 

Message 29 of 62
tlford37
in reply to: tlford37

Please understand that I am very knowlegable in Inventor, I taught Inventor while working for a Autodesk Reseller for almost 10 years. I started on Inventor 2 and know all the in's and out's of the software. Problem is, is that Inventor 7 did a much better job at going to DWG than IV2011. Something got messed up in trying to grow a software package to fast. One is just getting use to 2011 then here comes 2012..and so on. Don't get me wrong I do like Inventor but if I had to choose Inventor or SolidWorks....it would be SolidWorks.

Message 30 of 62
Hell-If-I-Know
in reply to: tlford37

I need to give the client AutoCAD editable drawings. We do everything in Inventor therefore we have to convert all 600 IDW's to AutoCAD DWG's. Inventor DWG's will not work because they can not be editted in AutoCAD.

 

Understood. The simple question would be why not just make the modifications in Acad to begin with? Or did you not know they wanted them in Acad at the onset? If you have Inventor, you have Acad bundled with it. Acad is basic enough to pick it up pretty quick by any Inventor user. Hindsight I know.

 

But yeah, if the customer wants the files editible in Acad, there's not much that can be done. It's apples and oranges.

 

We are almost in the same boat, but our customer just wants to be able to call the file up in Acad, no mods. We do all those in Inventor and then save our Inventor drawings as .dwg.

 

If you need help doing the conversions, let me know, I can offer up a few people. I'm also sure there are plenty of Acd people out of work these days that would be more than willing to help out too.

Message 31 of 62
tlford37
in reply to: Hell-If-I-Know

Yea...They asked for AutoCAD dwgs after the fact. But again had we known that they wanted AutoCAD dwgs we would have just done everything in AutoCAD. (Then why do we have Inventor at all???) Most clients ask for Autocad and if we are just going to use AutoCAD from the get go then why do we even have Inventor. The whole idea is to save time and money. You can produce a drawing in Inventor much easier than in AutoCAD, and changes are very streamlined saving tons of time than if we had to do everything in 2D AutoCAD. So again what's the point of having Inventor.

 

This is what Autodesk claims and sells when selling Inventor. I know because I have sold Inventor to thousands of companies.

Message 32 of 62
Dennis_Jeffrey
in reply to: tlford37

OK, now I have to get into this fray.... tried to avoid it, but...

 

You say you need AutoCAD deliverables... OK Have you done this?

 

1. In AutoCAD, created a new template complete with all dimension, text styles, etc. Include all layers needed by the end client?

2. Use this AutoCAD template when converting the IDW or Inventor DWG to a standard AutoCAD DWG.

3. Create a Style that Maps the layers properly

  • Select Options when doing a Save Copy As "AutoCAD Drawing"
  • Save the Configuration

000157.JPG

I have many customers who use this process daily to provide clean AutoCAD drawings to Ford and other specifications. I'm just not understanding what the problem is here, so please enlighten me with more details.

 

I believe that once once the configuration is properly saved, you can use task manager to convert all IDW files in a folder at once.

 

Question, does Solidworks now produce an associative AutoCAD DWG from a Solidworks 2D drawing? Last time I checked, they were non-associative just like Inventor.

 

Selling and supporting software are two distinctly different things.

 


 


 

This is what Autodesk claims and sells when selling Inventor. I know because I have sold Inventor to thousands of companies.


 

Please mark this response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
____________________________________________________________
Dennis Jeffrey, Author and Manufacturing Trainer, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified Expert
Autodesk Silver Manufacturing Partner

Subscribe to the free digital "The Creative Inventor Magazine" now available at: http://teknigroup....

XP64 SP2, GeForce 9800GT-1GB, Driver: 6.14.12.7061, 8GB Ram, AMD Athlon II 3.2 Ghz
Laptop: Win7-64 Pro, 4GB, ATI Graphics on board, 2012 Ultimate, IV2011 or 2010 Pro, all SP's
Message 33 of 62

Thanks Dennis,

 

I attempted to duplicate what tlford had stated and I wasn't able to see any text change places as far as above or below the dimensions. I created a new file in Inventor and created an Inventor.idw, then did a save copy as to Acad.dwg. Again, everything came over nice and clean. The only issue was if I changed the model, those changes were not reflected in the converted Acad drawing, which I think is the way it is because the model resides in Inventor.

I don't know of any way of correcting this disconnect and I think that's part of tlford's problems other than the dimension issues he's seeing.

 

tlford, can you possibly give more detail on your process and settings?

Message 34 of 62

try this...  on an inventor idw, write some text.  save as autocad dwg.  print both from autocad and inventor to same scale.  turn on a light box and put the drawings over the top of one another...

 

then tell me they are the same

Stephen Gibson



View stephen gibson's profile on LinkedIn


Message 35 of 62

????

 

OK, you lost me there.

 

As long as you have your Acad settings done right, the Inventor.idw will convert to an Acad.dwg without issues. It'll look and smell just like an Acad drawing. You can now edit it all you want in Acad.

 

Or you could go a different route and remove all the annotation prior to the conversion and then add it all while in Acad. Either way, you'll get the same results.

Message 36 of 62

The point I wanted to make are that Inventor WILL produce a good AutoCAD DWG that is not associative, just as SW can produce a non-associative DWG.

 

It's all in how you set up your templates and save options. There's no instant "Easy" button listed anywhere in the Autodesk or Solidworks, NX, Pro softwares. Again, lack of experience and study jumps up to bite the users that do not take the time for setup. Autodesk gets the blame again because Inventor is not AutoCAD, THANK GOODNESS!

 

Funny, no one jumped up to answer my question about SW delivering associated DWG files.

 

'Nuff said.

Please mark this response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
____________________________________________________________
Dennis Jeffrey, Author and Manufacturing Trainer, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified Expert
Autodesk Silver Manufacturing Partner

Subscribe to the free digital "The Creative Inventor Magazine" now available at: http://teknigroup....

XP64 SP2, GeForce 9800GT-1GB, Driver: 6.14.12.7061, 8GB Ram, AMD Athlon II 3.2 Ghz
Laptop: Win7-64 Pro, 4GB, ATI Graphics on board, 2012 Ultimate, IV2011 or 2010 Pro, all SP's
Message 37 of 62
nmunro
in reply to: Dennis_Jeffrey

There is new functionality in AutoCAD 2012 that lets you create basic associative drawing views from an Inventor part or assembly in a layout. The lack of any view type other than projected views (from the base view) makes it very limited for real work. Since there is no corresponding MS object in the drawing you can't use other AutoCAD techniquies to generate other views. The old half-baked rule seems to still be in voque. Would seem to be the holy grail for some.

 

        


https://c3mcad.com

Message 38 of 62
acad-caveman
in reply to: tlford37

Ok. Since I have a small horse in this race ( the ability to create a true 2D drawing of a model just as if it was created in AutoCAD ), lemme jump in here for a minute.

From what I gather, the OP wants to be able to take his drawings created by Inventor and with a simple click of a button save them as a true AutoCAD DWG.

The reason he wants this is to be able to send the DWG to his customer, who is using Autocad.

 

Now, I would guess that he needs no associative DWG-s. ( Customer is on ACAD and off site, no Inventor )

What he wants is not to spend a single minute touching up anything on a 2D drawing that he already has spent considerable amount of time detailing.

What he also wants is a DWG that is fully usable and editable by his customer to suit his/her needs.

He also states that the plot from AutoCAD is different than a plot from Inventor ( IDW or DWG )

 

Assuming that my assumptions are correct, here is my take.

I do not know if there is any change in how AutoCAD uses and displays dimensions, text or whatnot.

I do know that saving an Inventor drawing as an inventor DWG is useless and garbage for a purely AutoCAD user who wants to edit it. It is in paper space and that is where it stays.

I know that a 2D drawing created by Inventor ( Inventor DWG or save-as AutoCAD DWG ) is NOT! at all how'd you draw something in a pure AutoCAD environment.( outlines are broken up by every miserable feature, true arcs as splines etc )

 

Flame me all you want, one would expect a whole lot better from Autodesk to have Inventor and AutoCAD work together.

 

 

There, I've said it.

 

For the record, Solidworks also creates individual entities broken by feature intersections, but at least it creates a true arc when the feature is in fact an arc.  ( Insert dead horse icon here ...)

 

 

 

 

Message 39 of 62
kstate92
in reply to: acad-caveman

I recall reading about this arc / spline thing before.  Nor can I recall seeing a straight-up comparision of an identical native model in both SW and IV with exported Acad drawings where SW = arc and IV = spline.  I don't have SW so I can't try.  I also have no idea what specific feature / point of view is needed to generate said splarc.

KState92
Inventor Professional 2020
AutoCAD Mechanical 2022.0.1
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit - 1903
Core i7-8700 32 GB Ram
Quadro P2000
Message 40 of 62
acad-caveman
in reply to: tlford37

Here is a link to the latest topic about the arc-spline issue:

 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/This-is-retarded-Why-is-this-a-spline-in-IDW/m-p/289...

 

 

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