topic Re: Export Visible to STEP in Inventor Forum

Export Visible to STEP

Slava_S — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 21:04:55 GMT

Hello,

I use Inventor since 2015, and still missing a functionality of exporting 'clean' assemblies to STEP files to customers - all hidden parts should not be shown.

The main GA assembly has many sub assemblies with different view representations. We toggle between main assembly views and save them to STEP, however all hidden parts are still visible.

In old Inventors we noticed that regardless the current view, STEP was exported to last saved state of each subassembly. In 2023 everything is shown and it is a mess.

"Copy to model state" and "Shrinkwrap"/"derive" did not work well for us.

Please share your ideas or iLogic codes.

Thank you all

Re: Export Visible to STEP

johnsonshiue — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:11:40 GMT

Hi Slava,

I am sorry I am confused. STEP Export does skip invisible components or suppressed components. The exported STEP should be wysywyg. Please share an example that illustrates the opposite behavior. I would like to understand the behavior better.

Many thanks!

Johnson

Re: Export Visible to STEP

sjxyz — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 13:43:40 GMT

Hi Johnson,

I have an assembly [3659SingleMast-22422.iam] that I've exported to an stp file, also in the zip file.(6Mb)

It won't upload to the site for some reason: can you let me know how to send it to you?

You will see that the skeleton file that drives all this (patterns etc and some constraints) is a reference and not visible in the default View Rep, but is visible (several times over) in the stp.

I look forward to your comments,

Thanks,
Simon

Re: Export Visible to STEP

johnsonshiue — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 23:52:04 GMT

Hi Simon,

Many thanks for sharing the files here! Which iam file should I open and export to STEP?

Thanks again!

Re: Export Visible to STEP

sjxyz — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 08:10:55 GMT

Hi Johnson, and Happy New Year

The assembly to export is
3659\Workspaces\Workspace\3659SingleMast-22422.iam. My attempt is
3659\3659SingleMast-22422.stp. It looks like this, where the stuff I've
ringed _shouldn't_ be included:

You can download the dataset here
<>

Many thanks,

Simon

Re: Export Visible to STEP

johnsonshiue — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 21:01:23 GMT

Hi Simon,

Somehow the link and the file you were trying to attach here are gone. I tried a simple roundtrip STEP translation (export to STEP and import it back). I am not seeing the issue. Could you zip up the STEP file and share it here.

Many thanks!

Re: Export Visible to STEP

sjxyz — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:17:27 GMT

Thanks Johnson,

Yes: I see what you mean. The offending items are only showing in a free
stp viewer: they appear there in a position that makes sense if one has
knowledge of the underlying structure, but don't appear in any other
program I have access to. I only opened it there as a courtesy to check
before sending on, so for now I am happy to mark this as resolved!

Best regards