topic Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file in Inventor Forum

Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:33:40 GMT

I have received a model in Solidworks .sldasm format. The model has many parts, but when I import it to Inventor I only get a few pieces.

I've tried importing it into a part and assembly and the results are the same.

Does anyone have an idea what the issue might be?

Thanks.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

emanuel.c — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:37:21 GMT

Do the parts show in the model tree (when opening as assembly, since it's .sldasm) but you just don't see any part features? In other words some corrupted features during the import?

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

Gabriel_Watson — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:41:54 GMT

At the import dialogue, make sure you select all possible objects, as some of the parts may be surfaces or meshes in some cases (example below shows the dialogue for a STP import, but it should be similar for Solidworks files):

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:22:32 GMT

No I can see all the parts in the parts tree, but the model is incomplete.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:24:14 GMT

I imported it the same way as you have shown here but the model is not complete. I am getting 4 out of 122 models.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

emanuel.c — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:25:56 GMT

Would you be able to post a screenshot of the model tree?

I'm guessing some parts have not imported correctly. You can see what Galaxybane suggested, but I expect you already selected all the features (solids, wireframe) to be imported if some do actually import as solids.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

emanuel.c — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:28:58 GMT

On a second note, are you sure the .sldasm is complete? Do you have all the .sldprt parts which are included in the assembly? If you do, I would suggest importing one of the parts that cause issues individually to see if there are any issues there?

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

Gabriel_Watson — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 17:35:34 GMT

Sometimes (lots of times, actually) our customers may send exports of their product data without caring much about checking if all the data/geometry is there included. Often some of the parts come empty because they were sort of like layers for points and other measurement/construction data, which becomes blank after importing in Inventor.
You can try opening the Solidworks file in Navisworks Manage (if you have a PDMC license for Inventor you should be able to have it), Navisworks Freedom (free version you can download from the Autodesk page as well), or upload it to Autodesk Viewer (if the dataset is not too large). It might also be worth downloading eDrawings as a native free viewer of Solidworks files to verify everything is there, and if eDrawings cannot see all the parts either, then your customer or whoever exported the data simply sent empty parts with it.
https://www.edrawingsviewer.com/download-edrawings

I am assuming what you have is proprietary information and you could not attach an example here, but you could probably forward this as a ticket to Autodesk and maybe e-mail @sundars or @johnsonshiue (he's my go-to guy) to ask, if indeed geometry is being lost in translation (check the translation reports from the import, as it may show failures).
90% chance, I believe, that your export did not get saved from Solidworks the proper way though, so try the viewer idea above first.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:42:11 GMT

I am able to import the parts that don't show up from their .sldprt files individually, just not the whole group assembled from the .sldasm file.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:44:20 GMT

Here is the model tree and also a screenshot of what the complete model should look like.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:52:47 GMT

Thanks, I'll check out eDrawings viewer of Solidworks files.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

sundars — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 17:29:59 GMT

Hi @karl.trolenbergV2BMK

In your model browser tree you should be able to see a browser entry called 3rdParty - if you expand that, there should be an HTM file which is a log of your translation. Can you inspect that and see whether there are any errors. Without looking at the original dataset it would be hard to figure out whats going on - but like @Gabriel_Watson says it could be that some of the entities in there are bad or not translated correctly.

If you want you can email me the whole dataset or a subset of it showing the problem, and I can try to figure out what's going on. You can reach me at - sundarsATautodeskDOTcom.

Alternately, if you havent tried this already - here's another thing you could try:

1. Export the solid works model from SWx as a Step file (assume u have access to swx)

2. Import the same Step file back into SWx and Inventor

3. If you have any import errors in Solidworks, you know that the input data is not right

Thanks

-shiva

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

JDMather — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 17:32:15 GMT

Zip and Attach the folder here and end all doubt.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 18:47:32 GMT

I can't share the model unfortunately.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 18:49:25 GMT

I downloaded edrawings and was able to to see the model with no problems. So I think the file isn't corrupt, I must be doing something wrong.

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

emanuel.c — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 18:49:46 GMT

Could you share the main .sldasm and just a few parts at least that cause issues? That still may be better than not seeing anything?

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

sundars — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:08:49 GMT

Hi @karl.trolenbergV2BMK

If you believe the translation went through without any errors according to the translation report (htm file in your browser) then you can try checking the following:

1. transforms or bounding boxes of those missing parts are incorrect or wrong

- maybe those missing parts have empty bounds or bad transforms resulting in non-display

- this would be indicative of a bad translation (either export or import)

- you can try exporting as STEP from swx and re-importing into inventor and see if you have issues

2. Bad bodies in your file

- After opening the assembly in Inventor - hit F7

- Inventor should do a sanity check of all bodies and provide a report

- if there are errors, it will be displayed, please copy/paste that and post here

- you would have to heal the errors to get the bodies to be displayed again

3. Display Parts are obscuring your hidden parts

- this is an unlikely case, but in the event the parts displayed on screen are too big and the hidden parts are too

small and maybe they are being obscured?

4. After opening the file in Inventor, can you export the Inventor Assy to a STEP file and attach that to avoid confidentiality issues?

Thanks

-shiva

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

karl.trolenbergV2BMK — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:25:07 GMT

I think I found the problem. The files are being looked for on a path from the computer that created the original .sldasm file, and there is no way to direct them to my computer as far as I can tell.
Is there a way to change where inventor looks for those files?

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

emanuel.c — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:32:00 GMT

Well, in that case you could right click on the parts with issues and replace them and point them to the right path on your computer or something. Though it is strange behavior if you have all the files in one folder and it reads some but not all. (I didn't see that you would have had these issues from the model tree snapshot though, for example the red question mark here shows missing files or broken links)

Re: Problem importing Solidworks .sldasm file

Gabriel_Watson — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:38:37 GMT

This happened in our department so often too...
Basically, your customer/partner who sent the assembly forgot to attach all the necessary files. If you placed all the files together in the same folder and the export still did not have some parts, or references/projections, then your export received is missing data.