Just wondering if anyone knows a simple solution to this problem:
I have created an assembly in Inventor 2012 - and created colours in the styles library that map to the AutoCAD colour index (ACI). So - for example, a part with colour style "1" appears red.
Save the assembly as an AutoCAD DWG - open it in AutoCAD 2012 - and not only are all the parts white (Layer 0, colour by layer), but the visualisation material is always "Generic". I realise this visualisation style comes from the "realistic" material style shared by all Autodesk products and can't be edited in 2012... But all I want is to be able to colour parts in an assembly - and have those colours appear in the AutoCAD model.
There are very good reasons why the colour has to flow in this way (Inventor >>> AutoCAD) - but they are not really relevant here.
Anyone got any suggestions? I thought it would be easy - and I'm hoping to be proved right 😉
@pcrawley wrote:
There are very good reasons why the colour has to flow in this way (Inventor >>> AutoCAD) - but they are not really relevant here.
Oh - go on, tell us! I really can't think why this should be necessary 🙂
Ok. There is a way, but it's a real cludge and isn't quite what I want - but it'll have to do. It may work for others.
In Inventors part template I created a bunch of colour styles. Each style was named 1, 2, 3, 4 etc - to represent the AutoCAD Colour Index (ACI). I changed the diffused and ambient colours to match the ACI (now it looks right!). Now the important bit - remove the tick from the "Realistic" material colour. If you don't remove this, the realistic colour style goes with the part to AutoCAD. (Anyone want a tool for calculating the RGB colours from an ACI? I now have one to share if you want it!)
Next I created the corresponding Materials (the physical materials) - also numbered according to the ACI. For their colour style, I picked the corresponding colour style created above. As a final step, I saved all these material and colour styles
Now I can place lots of parts in an assembly - use the View rep to "remove colour overrides" (not sure why this step is necessary, but it is!) - export to AutoCAD - shade the view and bingo!!
Conclusion: There HAS to be an easier way.
(And the reason: All downstream consumers of this data are AutoCAD users, so it has to "look" right since AutoCAD doesn't retain iProperties or support BOM's.)
Sounds like you need to convince a few users to switch to Inventor ... lol
If it's any consolation, I don't think this process will be any easier in 2013 either. In fact, 2013 may be a little more difficult, so hang onto that program of yours for a while ... lol
I agree Peter, what are you playing at? get them on to Inventor 🙂 They prob aren't part of the basic PDS suite either are they?
Wouldn't it be easier to export as a SAT file from Inventor then import into AutoCAD? from 2013 onwards the colours are maintained... assuming the Inventor users will migrate to 2013 this should be a better alternative?
Scott Moyse
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Design & Manufacturing Technical Services Manager at Cadpro New Zealand
Co-founder of the Grumpy Sloth full aluminium billet mechanical keyboard project