Convert 3D models to 2D faces, while maintaining depency.

[Anonymous]

I have an assembly with all parts modeled in 3d. Many of these will need to be laser cut, and the vendor who does our laser cutting needs 2D drawing files of the face to be cut.

One option is to export face to .dwg. This is fine, except out customer might want to make changes, so i would have to update the model, and then make the .dwg is updated to the revised model.

If possible I would like to have some 2d format of the face that is dependent on the 3d model. This way I always know that if the model is good, the 2d format will be good as well, and I can confidently send it to my vendor.

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...If possible I would like to have some 2d format of the face that is dependent on the 3d model. This way I always know that if the model is good, the 2d format will be good as well, and I can confidently send it to my vendor.

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New>Drawing...

Or maybe not.  I thought there was a way to save 2D drawing to dxf, but now I can't find it...

ah, I found it...

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! This is a very interesting request. But, I have to say there isn't a straight forward way to do that. The problem is that exporting to DXF is non-associative. I can think of a workflow but I am not 100% sure it will work. You might be able to use DWG Underlay to establish the associativity between 2D and 3D. Here is the workflow.

1) Export the faces to dwg, not dxf. You can still export to dxf but make sure also export to dwg. You can automate it.

2) In the Inventor part file, go to Import -> select the dwg file you just export -> select the planar face and a vertex -> the 2D geometry will be attached to the face as a transparency.

This link is live. If you export another dwg file next time in the same name, Inventor will be notified and the 2D geometry will be updated accordingly.

Many thanks!