AUTODESK CAD MODEL VIEWING

[andrew_faix]

Hi Inventor land,

The Inventor team recognizes the need for a functional and predictable solution for sharing and communicating your CAD data with your extended team. We’restarting a research project on this topic this year to gather formal data to ascertain your specific needs and help determine where to invest in the short term.

Please reply to this thread and let us know your general concerns and challenges with the viewing solutions we currently provide. E.g:

- How reliant is your process on publishing DWF files from Inventor and using Autodesk Design Review as a viewing solution? What part is Vault playing in this process? 

- Is PDF publishing (2D and or 3D) part of your current or future practice?

- Do any of you use Inventor View to view Inventor native file formats without publishing? What limitations are you experiencing?

- How do your needs vary when sharing designs with internal partners than external?

- Are the viewing tools themselves meeting your needs?

- How do you feel about a cloud-centric viewing solution?

- How do you archive legacy designs? Is a published format (dwf, pdf) part of that archival process?

Thanks in advance for your feedback. We really appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

[Anonymous]

1) They need to either drop the DWF altogether or get the Job processor to be more reliable in publishing 

2) design review Can be used but needs to have a vault addin to store the Markup copy . 

3) design review needs to be able to read and markup Autocad and Inventor Dwg, or DWF or PDF 

4) PDF 3D or 2D need to have a View-able Thumbnail preview with in vault .

5) no problem with cloud solution just don't make me have a separate account to access it , tie it to AD or the corporate account similar to how the Vault web Client works for access.

[Anonymous]

.

We need a “one size fits all” viewer, one that can open Inv files (ipt, iam, idw, ipn etc.), DWF, DWG and possibly PDF and MAX.

Any viewer MUST be capable of accurate measurement and placing accurate dimensions. I’ve found that production departments sometimes want additional dimensions.

Red-line mark-up would be ideal. I believe ADR had the facility to put the mark-up on another layer this could be imported into the IDW for modifications.

This facility should also be available with AutoCAD and Revit etc.

Files sizes MUST be minimal, compatible with web browsers and E-mail clients, etc.

Cloud and IoT aren’t considered trustworthy and reliable.

Most archiving I’ve seen is PDF based. How companies are supposed to convert a PDF back to an IDW and link it to the originating ipt/iam is beyond me.

Inv/Vault needs to consider archiving.

Users/CAD managers should have options (file type) about Vault’s mirror output.

[Anonymous]

.

Forgot to mention, viewer should be able to open "dumb solid" files, IGES, STP, SAT and do everything mentioned in previous post.

[kajobus]

Hi

I use the DWF for 3D , and PDF for 2d , my clients like it a lot !

Regards

[Anonymous]

After with U.
I use PDF for share my work, check on line, tablet or even phone.
Viewer software and viewer files not.
Cloud nice.
Tks.,
Esteban

[jeffsteiger6735]

- How reliant is your process on publishing DWF files from Inventor and using Autodesk Design Review as a viewing solution? What part is Vault playing in this process? 

I have used DWF probably about....once....in my 22 year career with 3 different engineering firms. I have only just started using Vault with my current job so no real comment yet (used Adept in the past)

- Is PDF publishing (2D and or 3D) part of your current or future practice?

PDF is the industry standard from my experience, no one wants or cares to download and run another program as everyone is comfortable with PDF. With Inventor finally accepting 3D PDF in these newest releases, it will become much easier to discuss projects with clients.

- Do any of you use Inventor View to view Inventor native file formats without publishing? What limitations are you experiencing?

Used it a handful of times, not enough use to comment.

- How do your needs vary when sharing designs with internal partners than external?

PDF's and screenshots are the most common use for sharing design information

- Are the viewing tools themselves meeting your needs?

Rarely used, again no comment.

- How do you feel about a cloud-centric viewing solution?

Not allowed to use it due to security concerns with current and past jobs.

- How do you archive legacy designs? Is a published format (dwf, pdf) part of that archival process?

PDF and of course Vault, or Adept.

[malcolm_smith]

We have rarely used DWF. The issue is that it's very difficult to get 'non standard' software installed on our network. The system is locked down for security reasons. Furthermore, DWF does not appear to be widely used by our external contractors and clients, so It's not much use as a document transmission format either.

We use PDF as the main document viewing method and we are increasingly using 3D PDF as an adjunct to 2D drawings, particularly at concept stage. PDF is used for both internal and external customers. PDF may not be perfect, but the thing about PDF is that everybody who is remotely proficient with a computer knows it and understands it, and it's almost always already installed on their computer or device. There is no learning curve. Even 3D PDF has proved to be reasonably intuitive for most people.

All of our legacy drawings are, or are being converted to PDF.

Inventor view would be handy (for draftsmen or engineers), but I have found that it doesn't handle level of detail representations, which we tend to use a lot when developing concepts. For that reason, Inventor view has proved to be pretty useless (2016).

Our company is currently cloud averse, so a cloud based viewing system might not fly here.

[ChrisMitchell01]

The Autodesk Customer Research team are now collecting feedback on your experiences with the current viewing solutions for Inventor users.

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey so that we can decide on future directions and enhancements.

Many Thanks in anticipation,
Chris

[dthoffman225]

Has this topic been resolved?  I was using A360, now it says I have to use Fusion Team. All with a cost. It's time to let us share data with our users of the data for free and easily. We are in the age of real time data, drawing views and documents have their place but when you are in the field installing a system you should be able to see the whole picture. Inventor is expensive enough, stop nickel and diming us please. 

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@andrew_faix wrote:

Hi Inventor land,

The Inventor team recognizes the need for a functional and predictable solution for sharing and communicating your CAD data with your extended team. We’restarting a research project on this topic this year to gather formal data to ascertain your specific needs and help determine where to invest in the short term.

Please reply to this thread and let us know your general concerns and challenges with the viewing solutions we currently provide. E.g:

- How reliant is your process on publishing DWF files from Inventor and using Autodesk Design Review as a viewing solution? What part is Vault playing in this process? 

- Is PDF publishing (2D and or 3D) part of your current or future practice?

- Do any of you use Inventor View to view Inventor native file formats without publishing? What limitations are you experiencing?

- How do your needs vary when sharing designs with internal partners than external?

- Are the viewing tools themselves meeting your needs?

- How do you feel about a cloud-centric viewing solution?

- How do you archive legacy designs? Is a published format (dwf, pdf) part of that archival process?

Thanks in advance for your feedback. We really appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

---

---

@andrew_faix wrote:

Hi Inventor land,

The Inventor team recognizes the need for a functional and predictable solution for sharing and communicating your CAD data with your extended team. We’restarting a research project on this topic this year to gather formal data to ascertain your specific needs and help determine where to invest in the short term.

Please reply to this thread and let us know your general concerns and challenges with the viewing solutions we currently provide. E.g:

- How reliant is your process on publishing DWF files from Inventor and using Autodesk Design Review as a viewing solution? What part is Vault playing in this process? 

- Is PDF publishing (2D and or 3D) part of your current or future practice?

- Do any of you use Inventor View to view Inventor native file formats without publishing? What limitations are you experiencing?

- How do your needs vary when sharing designs with internal partners than external?

- Are the viewing tools themselves meeting your needs?

- How do you feel about a cloud-centric viewing solution?

- How do you archive legacy designs? Is a published format (dwf, pdf) part of that archival process?

Thanks in advance for your feedback. We really appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

---

[kajobus]

Good day



I use the "Share View" option

But it also has the same limitations that I experience with "Autodesk Design Review"
As far as I know , it is free when you purchase the full Inventor


Regards



Jacobus Smith

+27 72 506 9950

+27 44 873 2412

[email protected]

www. J Smith Tekendienste<>

[NigelHay]

- How reliant is your process on publishing DWF files from Inventor and using Autodesk Design

We never publish to DWF.

Review as a viewing solution? What part is Vault playing in this process? 

We do not use Vault

- Is PDF publishing (2D and or 3D) part of your current or future practice?

We commonly use 2D PDFs to share with our customers & also with our production staff. We have used 3D PDFs but find the generation with Inventor |& bit hit and miss.

- Do any of you use Inventor View to view Inventor native file formats without publishing? What limitations are you experiencing?

We do not use Inventor View.

- How do your needs vary when sharing designs with internal partners than external?

We frequently share 3D data internally & externally. Internally, we can share full data, externally, we might want to strip out some proprietary features & just share the outer envelope.

- Are the viewing tools themselves meeting your needs?

No

- How do you feel about a cloud-centric viewing solution?

Not keen, it may not suit all customers. For internal use, it may be OK as back-up.

- How do you archive legacy designs? Is a published format (dwf, pdf) part of that archival process?

We archive PDF drawings. We frequently produce custom versions of products which are given unique part numbers.