Complex step file assembly has been importing for over 5 hours

[Anonymous]

I am trying to figure out what Inventor is doing. If it is writing files, where is it putting them. If it is still putting everything into RAM, some clue about how much longer the process will run -or if I can interrupt it, but save the progress so I don't start from scratch all over again. Maybe some way to peek into the 3.2GB step file which contains thousands of pieces, and somehow extract it by groups of pieces at a time.

My goal is to open the complex assembly provided by my customer so I can use Inventor to calculate the mass moment of inertia. My problem is that after 5 hours, the file import or conversion bar is only at 95%, and has been at 95% for 4 hours. The CPU is still running at 25%, RAM use is up to 54GB out of 128GB. Inventor and task manager are the only programs I have opened. 

My machine has a Xeon E5 processor with 8 cores rated at 3.6GHz, and 128 GB of RAM.

The 3.2 GB step file is on the local hard drive.

This machine runs Autodesk Inventor 2016, OS is Windows 7

Last night, I had the same experience with my Windows 10 "workstation Laptop" with it's middling i7 processor and only 16GB RAM. After three hours Windows warned insufficient RAM was left, so I did File:Save and made an unholy exit from Inventor. I found 2,713 component files totaling 3.5 GB on my hard drive. All nuts and bolts and tubing, no assembly file.

I began importing the file on the Xeon workstation today at 9:59 AM, by 10:20 AM the screen came up asking if I want to convert the file. Prior to that, the Inventor screen communicated nothing other than a little blue spinning wheel. No image was shown, no indication a file had been imported. I selected convert and CPU usage jumped from 25% with only four cores running (one was doing most of the work) to 100% usage of all 8 cores. By 10:54 AM the progress bar was at 95%. 

Since that time RAM usage has been increasing slowly. It was about 40 GB and now is at 53 GB, but CPU usage dropped to 25% and not all cores running after hitting the 95% mark. Back when it first hit 95% on the progress bar, I checked my resource monitor and saw the hard drive appeared to be very active ranging from 1 MB/sec to 10 MB/sec if I recall correctly. Drive activity now is down to 100 kB/sec.

The biggest files indicated on Windows resource monitor are in my user/appdata/temp directory and called MMF99DF.tmp and MMF99DE.tmp. They get up to as much as 700MB, then drop down to a smaller size such as less than 40MB and begin growing again. I don't know how to stop resource monitor from constantly shuffling the file order so it's hard to watch these change when they keep zipping off the screen. I'm guessing these tmp files are created and saved as something else, then start another file.

Sorry for the long post and probably lots of irrelevant info, but I am not a CAD expert, I am an engineer. Yesterday I had the good fortune of getting the moment of inertia data from a simpler assembly in just a matter of a few clicks. This more complex assembly is kicking the butt of my computer.

Again -any way I can get Inventor to stop at this point, write what's it's got out to the drive in iam or whatever extensions, and then maybe I can restart to just finish the rest? Annoying that it is stuck at 95% with no error message and still filing RAM and writing files somewhere, but not to the directory I chose.

[salariua]

what version of Inventor?

Results are better if you open as a reference with AnyCAD you might then try to break the link and have it create files on disk.

If you are tying on 2016 or newer you might want to give 2015 a try where you had the option to import and "save the files on disk" this would automatically create files as they are read from step rather than keeping them in memory and save them all at once when finished.

How about importing it in AutoCAD or other software first and then exporting multiple parts rather than one big file?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I have to say this is a very interesting case. The STEP file is certainly big but Inventor 2016 on your hardware should be able to handle it. I would not be surprised it takes a long time though. Like Adrian suggested, you may want to consider using Task Scheduler to import the file. It is because TS runs Inventor without graphics window and it would reduce the memory load to display graphics.

Regarding Convert vs Reference, which option did you choose? Could you share the STEP file with us for testing purpose?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I will try running it as a scheduled task.

Unfortunately, I cannot share the file. It is a very detailed file of a large subassembly from our customer, who is in a very competitive industry.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the screen shot. I have a friend with a more powerful workstation, and more 3D experience attempting the file now. I'll share this with him.

I don't understand "open as a reference" or "AnyCAD" but once we bring up the screen you show in your post, we will probably see it in context. Thank you especially for the arrows.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to mention Inventor 2016 on workstation, Inventor 2017 on laptop. Both stopped at 95% converting the file.

[jtylerbc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Forgot to mention Inventor 2016 on workstation, Inventor 2017 on laptop. Both stopped at 95% converting the file.

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The "open as reference" option that has been referred to didn't exist for STEP files on the 2016 version, so that's at least part of the reason for your unfamiliarity with it.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Problem solved by working harder, not smarter. Borrowed our CFD workstation, (which also had Inventor) put 20 fast cores to work and untold amount of RAM. A few hours later reached 100% complete with 3655 files (*.iam) generated from the single step file.

I was able to open the main assembly that pulls in all the pieces, and get the Ixx that I was looking for. The mass of the assmebly was close to waht the customer approximated after I multiplied the defualt density (water) by 8.05 to get density of steel. For some reason Inventor provides Ixx in units of lbmass*mm² -on my machine where I set no defualts, and on this workstation.

I still can't see the assembly. When Inventor opens it, all that is displayed is a discrete, square shaped, vertical plane. No error message, no indication anything is running in the background. The assembly is a truck frame with bits of transmission, axles, wheels, and misc underbody parts and fasteners -so I know it doesn't look like a vertical plane. If my graphics card were overwhelmed, I would expect some sort of error message.

Now that the Ixx is calculated, I'm looking to simplify so I can just see the outer surface of the assembly -to verify I have what I think I have.