Inventor to Plant 3D

[barevalo]

Hello fellow autodesk community,

Here is a thorough breakdown of the problem I have.

You may skip Background to go straight to the Issue.

Background: 

I have a part from 'Pro-E Wildfire'  that I imported into 'Autodesk Inventor Professional 2014'.

I noticed that the part was imported as a solid shape (not allowing you to access or edit features of the part).

I solved this by using  the Autodesk's "Feature Recognition EXCHANGE APP" for inventor.
After correctly identifying all the part features I was able to edit the part the way I wanted to.

Now that I have the part I wanted, I want to import it into 'AutoCAD Plant 3D 2014' for it to become part of a large assembly. 
(I am well aware that an assembly can be made in inventor and transfered into Plant 3D, but preferably I would like to simply import this part and continue working on the assembly/pipe-connections within Plant 3D.)

After some research I found that this could be accomplished using BIM Exchange.
The process seemed simple and it is outlined here.

Issue

When I try to export a file from Inventor such that I can access it through Plant 3D I get an error. 

When I click on 'Export Building Components' within the 'BIM Exchange' tab and save the file as an 'Autodesk Exchange File' (*.adsk) I get the following message:

" The operation failed to complete succesfully. Detailed information on specific failures is contained within the translation report...."

When I open the translation report it shows the 'Generated Contents' (3D Model, 2D front view, 2D back view, etc.) and their corresponding 'Status' which all say "Failed"

No other tourbleshooting options or description of issue is shown in the report.

I NEED SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN HOW TO "CORRECTLY" TRANSLATE A PART FROM INVENTOR ONTO AUTOCAD PLANT 3D OR TO GIVE REASONS AS TO WHY MY ATTEMPT FAILED FOLLOWED BY ITS SOLUTION.

Keep in mind that I am new to all of these softwares.

Thank you all for your time!

[cbenner]

Hello,

Not sure if you have resolved this or not.  You caught us during the holidays.  Can you post the file here for us to look at?  It may be that since it was translated form Pro E to Inventor, something may be hanging it up.  I've never done this type of translation, but if you post the file I may be able to get someone who has to look at it.

[ampster401]

sorry I'm not able to assist completely with your questions/problems, I just wanted to clarify something for you.

When you bring in parts from Pro/E/Wildfire/Creo/<any solid modeling file types>, you will be able to edit the solid body that comes in - unlike your statement that you said you couldn't.

You just will not see any of the feature history that made up those solids, but you can jump right in and edit the solid body.  The "work-around" you believe you found which you thought enabled this ability - all that does is attempt to translate any features from one solid modeling software to another.

Good luck

[barevalo]

Hello,

To this comment I have attached an example model of a 90 degree elbow that was imported from Pro-E to Inventor.
This part gives me the same error.

Thanks,

Bryan A. 

[cbenner]

Hello again,

I looked at your part and was able to export it just fine.... once I migrated my template files manually to the latest release.

If you are using custom part and drawing templates in your system, chances are you have not explicitly migrated the Inventor standard templates.  These are the templates that the BIM exchange wants to use.  Try opening the standard Inventor templates and saving them in order to migrate them to your latest release, and then try the BIM exchange again.  not saying this is the problem, but it's a place to start.

[barevalo]

Hello cbenner,

I am not using any custom templates. I am using the ones that came with the installation of Inventor, which are the standard templates. And since they came with the installation, I am sure those are up to date in terms of the release. 

Do you think it might be a feature that I do not have or have not enabled? Maybe some kind of setting?

You said it worked perfectly for you. What steps did you follow so that I can compare them to what I did.

Just for reference, I have the Autodesk Inventor Professional 2014. 

Thanks,

Bryan A.

[barevalo]

"I noticed that the part was imported as a solid shape (not allowing you to access or edit features of the part)."

This sounds pretty clear to me. I was aware that you can modify it without the add-on. My statement says that I could not access the features of the part (I was referring to the features created on ProE). In other words it seemed as I would have to recreate the part instead of simply editing the features from ProE. The Add-on I mentioned allowed me to do just that. It sped up the entire process and made it simple, just how I wanted.

[barevalo]

Hello cbenner,

I sent the same file I shared in a previous post to a colleague who followed the exact same steps I did and was able to export the file to autodesk share format without any problems. 

Between my collegue and I there are very few differences in terms of our computer. He runs windows 7 and I run Windows 8.1, He does not have the Add-on for feature recognition and I do, he is running service pack 2 and I am running service pack 1.

So I have narrowed it down to a couple of possible reasons:

1) I am running inventor on windows 8.1. I read on Autodesk Help center that inventor 2014 should work on a windows 8 OS when using Service Pack 1. When I look at the version I am running on my laptop I get that it is running autodesk inventor professional 2014 SP1. So this might not necessarily be the issue. However I have recently noted that my computer icones disapear for a couple of seconds than everything re-appears. This would result from be because of a wrong installation on my computer? (Not necessarily that of inventor). I will continue to investigate this.

Is there any simple troubleshoot I can perform to check if there is a problem with the instalation? 

2) It can also be because of some possible interference with the Add-On I mentioned in my original post... The only way to check if its not that is if someone else tries it and attests to it. 

3) maybe it has something to do with service pack 1?

4) maybe it is a feature that I do not have installed or activated.

I would really appreciate any help.

Thanks.

[ampster401]

When ever you encounter errors or something doesn't work quite the way you think it should, always start with getting your software up to date with the latest Service Packs.

Install SP2 at a minimum but I'd suggest going ahead and getting Update 3 for SP2.

The flashing icons you mentioned may have something to do with your graphics card or window refresh rate, etc.  I'd look into whether or not you are using the latest graphics driver.

[barevalo]

Ampster,

I've updated Inventor to SP2 up to the latest update (update 3).

After instalation, I tried to export the file once more and it failed again, giving me the same output as it did before.

Also, I uninstalled the feature recognition app to check if the issue was related to that. After I uninstalled it I tried to export the file again and it failed as well.

[barevalo · Accepted solution]

Hello everyone,

After contacting technical support it became clear that the issue was that the add in translators were not loading properly. This issue was rooted to the fact that I am using Windows 8 OS. 

I noticed that I could also not export a DWG file.

This entire issue was fixed after performing the following steps:

1) Press [Windows] key to open the Windows' start page

2) Type "cmd" to find "Command Prompt" > right mouse click on it

  > select "Run as administrator"

3) On "Administrator: Command Proompt" window, type

  cd "c:\program files\autodesk\Inventor 2014\bin"

then

   inventor /install

4) Wait for 1 min (inventor will be executed background then exit silently)

 
(these steps were posted by Sami Harada and came from the post: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/inventor-2014-fails-to-export-to-dwg-on-wi...

Thank you all for your attempts to help me,

I hope this post becomes useful for other people who encounter the same issue.