Sending inventor file to client question

[gtitan21]

My company has an inventor file that we need to send to a client. We do not wish to send them an inventor file because it can be edited and could possibly obtain all the information surrounding the design. The client is wanting a PDMS file, with this being said, if we convert the model to a PDMS file can they "steal" the design if they wanted to? are there any other ways that i can manipulate the Inventor model to be a "view only" and besically turn the model into a block? Thank you in advance for any help.

[howardlee306]

You can perform a shrinkwrap and remove any internal chambers, etc. Our vendors do that or us all the time so we can put the part in the model but not have all the feature overhead in the model.

[dgorsman]

Better check the contract to see what the deliverables are.  If they specify the design model for ongoing work (we're seeing more of that for process facilities) and you send them a dumb model there could be a non-conformance report in your future.  I wouldn't worry too much about them changing things - this is where your issue/revision/document control systems come into play.  If they change something after the fact and it causes problems, the records should show what was agreed to, approved, and transferred.

Ultimately it could be irrelevant, as I don't think PDMS will read Inventor files natively, so you may end up sending the model in a generic 3D format.