Unable to import a design

[dlsteg]

I am trying to import a design file.  I have successfully imported these files in the past and it worked fine, but recently I have been having issues doing this and I cannot figure out if it is a problem on my end or from the electrical engineering group that sent me the file to import.  I was hoping that someone who is running a full inventor suite could give this a try and let me know if you are able to import and convert this file to an .ipt.

The included files are a .emp file and a .emu file they were exported from Mentor Graphics PADS program.

You will need to open the .emn file and then are given the option to make a .iam or a .ipt file from this.  We always import the file and create a .ipt file.

I am still researching this issue and will update this post as I find more information. 

Any & all help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Darrin S.

[cbenner]

Did you intend to attach the files here?

[dlsteg]

Yes I did.  Thx for pointing that out.  They are now attached within a .zip file.  🙂

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi dlsteg,

The result of importing this IDF as a part is a  HUGE file due to the number (and possibly the complexity) of the components. I imported this on a windows XP 64 system with 6G of RAM and it ran for 15-20 minutes (as I ran down to the shop floor, got a cup of coffee, etc) before it came through. I discarded that import because that system was out of resources and I wouldn't have been able to save the file at that size. Then I imported the IDF again as an assembly, and it came through in under2 minutes.

I suggest you import as an assembly file and then save that file as a STEP file, and then import the STEP back into Inventor as an IPT. That should get you what you want and be much faster. Post back if that workflow won't work and let me know the version of Inventor you're using and I might be able to provide an IPT.

I hope this helps.

Best of luck with all of your Inventor pursuits,

Curtis

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/

p.s.

also, I think what is going on here is that when Inventor tries to import the IDF as an IPT it creates each component on the board as a unique "extrusion", and then sets the color of each face of the "extrusion", and then moves on to the next component. So with a design such as this that has almost 1000 components, the import takes a long time and requires a lot of memory resources.

But when you do this as an assembly, Inventor creates a part file for each component and sets the color at the part level, if that component is used multiple times, then it just reuses the newly created part over and over, and doesn't need to spend time and memory on it each time. When you export and import as a STEP file, your using a file type (STEP) that is much better at packaging the information, so the translation is much easier for Inventor to bring back in.

[dlsteg]

I will give this a shot & update you on the outcome.

Thx Curtis.

Darrin S.

The system in Question:

HP xw9400 Workstation

Dual Quad Core AMD Opteron 2.2Ghz

16GB Ram

Windows 7 64bit  SP1

Inventor 2011 Professional Suite 64bit