Inventor view not updating, could cost us money

[howardlee306]

We have 3 seats of Inventor, and a few CAD users. The people not using inventor, but need to view and print drawings we use Inventor View. Inventor View does not make changes to drawings however updating  to the current model is a change as far as Inventor is concerned so it is not always showing the most up to date data. This means when I go into the assembly model and change a pipe from SCH 40 to SCH 80 and do not open it's associated drawing and update all pages and save, inventor view will still show SCH 40. Is there a better viewer than Inventor view? or a way to tell it it's okay to update to the current model? If someone prints a drawing that I have not had a chance to update and tries to weld pipe or steel by it thinkning all is well (because the revision block updates just fine) then we now have to cut it apart at our expense. I'm willing to except this being a setting on our end if I can make this problem go away. The only other solution is to remove Inventor View from everyone's computer, but then only 3 of us can print (in multiple buildings). These people are not making any changes to the drawings, just opening and printing so It does not make sence to me to buy more seats.

[jtylerbc]

Inventor View can't update a file, as that would be considered editing the file.  When they open the drawing in Inventor View, it is showing the last saved version of the drawing, and can't make any changes to that.  This is intentional - Otherwise, it wouldn't be a viewer, and probably wouldn't be free to download.

By making changes to the assembly without updating the corresponding drawing, you're simply not done with your revision yet.  You need to complete the revision to the drawing before they are allowed to use it.  That's really the only correct way to deal with the situation.

This, of course, brings up the question of "how do they know if they can use it or not?"  That's where your company's document control practices will have to take over to tell the other users whether or not the drawing is released for their use.  In our case, we have a PRELIIMINARY stamp (in the form of an Inventor symbol) on the drawing until it is released the first time.  After that, lines are added to the revision table, and the CHECKED BY field is left blank until it is ready to use.  The shop guys know not to use a drawing with either of those conditions unless they have special approval to do so (which is typically used in the case of prototypes).  Or perhaps different storage folders for Draft versions and Approved versions.  Basically, some means of telling them that Drawing 1 is okay to use, and Drawing 2 isn't yet.

[howardlee306]

That's just the problem. The revision table (since not part of the model itself) still says it was updated per the latest revision (more a problem on multiple sheets). The problem occurs more when I'm working on multiple projects at the same time which happens daily. We are always opening and closing, to design, answer shop questions, get on conference calls, so sometimes I get the model done, have to get on a call, and before I get to the drawing someone is accessing it through Inventor View. What I can't understand is why is simply updating per the model concidered an edit. If the data (length, part numbers, etc) in the model has changed, where is Inventor View even pulling the old data from? Why not just open the actual model or drawing in a non-editable interface? I'm not sure if there is way to trust this thing is opening the current version or not.

[Anonymous]

Spoiler

yep, updating drawings is a very annoying problem. In most cases I am forced to open assembly to get update on changes in each view of the drawing.

[CAD-One]

On a side note you should consider Trying vault with lifecyle

[mcgyvr]

Your procedures are flawed..Not Inventor.

The viewer pulls the last saved version of the idw file.

Inventor cannot be asked to track when you go to the bathroom/answer the phone,etc...

You should look at implementing vault or other procedures to ensure that ONLY the released drawing makes it to the floor

We don't use the viewer at all. When a drawing is released a PDF is created with the part number and revision as the file name. Anyone that wants access to drawings has a pdf viewer. What I like about that is I always have all revisions of a drawing that I can go back to. (We don't have Vault implemented yet)

[howardlee306]

But who can verify the most up to date pdf is what your looking at? I know inventor cannpt track me and I think Inventor is great. It is the viewer that manages to pull deleted and changed informationn from the depths of a hard drive that amazes me. I think the way to go is to remove the viewer.

The main concern in this thread was to see why Inventor View cannot update to the current model state. That was all. Thank you all for your thoughts.

[ampster402]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The main concern in this thread was to see why Inventor View cannot update to the current model state. That was all. Thank you all for your thoughts

---

sounds like you don't understand this yet...

Inventor View cannot show you something that hasn't been done yet.

You *have* to first open up the idw's (drawings) in Inventor and let Inventor update the file.  Save it then close it.

Now Inventor View will show you what you expect.

As stated and you indicated you knew, Inventor View cannot modify files.  Thus, it cannot reference a solid model - then update the drawing and show you the current state.

[howardlee306]

Thanks ampster, Yes I did know that, I was hoping for a setting change or something that would allow it to update. What I was trying to do is remove the human error of forgetting or getting sidetracjed etc, out of the inventor viewer / pdf. The pdf idea is good and a while ago I had impimented an ilogic function that would create a pdf on close. It worked but our average model is 2500 parts, and takes 5 minutes to make a pdf of the main drawings (4-6 sheets) on our new Dell Precision workstations. That was a long time to wait if you are just opening it to answer a question and then create the pdf on close everytime. Maybe I'll revisit this ilogic and see if I can modify it to ask if you want to create the new pdf instead of just doing it everytime.

I would never in a million years switch to solidworks nor would I encourage anyone else to, but, I did have to download their viewer to view a customers drawings and it had a lot more functions like measure, view part numbers, markups etc. and it was free like Inventor view. I remember back in IV 2008 there was a viewer (sorry I don't remeber the name but it was on the install discs) that did this also but then in 2009 or 2010 it went away and all we have now is Inventor View.Bringing back some of this functionality would be great. It's not to make changes, just allow customers, etc to make better more acurate markups.

Like I said I just wanted to see if there was more functionality to Inventor View than what I could find and I appologize if I did not explain my question well enough. We thought we could use it one way and turns out it was designed for a different purpose.

EDIT: It may have been called Design Review?

Edit 2: I guess I should also apologize for title, when I wrote that there was a lot of frustration while being aggressivly asked why the shops drawings showed different information than our inspectors (luckily the shops where correct and it was just a simple reprint to fix the inspectors)

[Anonymous]

http://usa.autodesk.com/design-review/