Inventor DWG export

[Anonymous]

I create my Inventor drawings in .dwg format. If I need to share the drawing information with others, I export an AutoCAD .dwg.

In the export DWG menu, the Inventor .dwg is the default export option. Why? And how can I change that to default to AutoCAD .dwg?

The file I'm exporting is allready Inventor .DWG...

Or is there an option to include modelspace info in the Inventor.dwg (in which case I don't need the export at all...

[mdavis22569]

Save copy as:

\\\

or just working in the Inventor dwg template and you won't have to save it out to AutoCAD dwg

[mcgyvr]

You can open an inventor dwg file in Autocad...

You can use the command "exportlayout" in Autocad to create a new dwg file with the paperspace stuff into the modelspace instead

But Autodesk for some reason decided that they wanted Inventor DWG the default for some reason unknown to us users.. And AFAIK.. That cannot be changed..

[mdavis22569]

you also might need to make sure they are on AutoCAD 2018.

If they are on 2017 or older, you'll need to save it down to 2013 format due to the new DWG format for 2018.

That might be the issue 

[Anonymous]

I might not have been clear. English is not my native language.

My Inventor drawings are. dwg. They can be read and printed in AutoCAD, but before anyone can work with them, they need to export the sheet to modelspace. Clear so far.

If I export the drawing in Inventor to .dwg, I need to export it to AutoCAD .dwg. Default option is Inventor .dwg. Which the file already is...

Why can I export an Inventor .dwg to an Inventor .dwg. Is that not simply a Saveas? And why is that default.

[mcgyvr]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

But Autodesk for some reason decided that they wanted Inventor DWG the default for some reason unknown to us users.. And AFAIK.. That cannot be changed..

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As I wrote above ^^ Only the person who made that decision or was involved in that can answer the why..

@ChrisMitchell01 Chris are you available to answer that question.. I have a feeling you might have an "answer" here.. 

I'd have to guess that they thought that exporting to Inventor DWG would be used more often... 

[srionde]

Hi.

2 ways to do it:

- use the export command with inventor. if you re using save as this will be in inventor dwg format.

Once you clicked to export in dwg then choose autocad drawing, then you can check the option to make sure what you need. with scales.

-An other option is to use the save as command, then open the dwg file with autocad and right click on layout tab, and choose export to layout.

see the pictures

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! It would be nice if the default can be set to AutoCAD dwg. The reality is that saving an Inventor drawing as AutoCAD dwg is an export process.

A few options to consider. Instead of saving an Inventor drawing to AutoCAD dwg one-by-one, you can use Task Scheduler to run the export task in a batch. Another thing to consider is to use VIEWBASE command in AutoCAD. VIEWBASE is capable of creating Inventor-like associative drawing views to Inventor parts and assemblies. This will avoid the need to export in the first place.

Many thanks!

[mcgyvr]

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@johnsonshiue wrote:

Hi! It would be nice if the default can be set to AutoCAD dwg. The reality is that saving an Inventor drawing as AutoCAD dwg is an export process.

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well.. really....the reality is simply that someone at Autodesk set the default option in the export to dwg file type list to be "Inventor DWG"..

Nothing more.. nothing less

They could have just as easily set "Autocad DWG" to be the default vs Inventor...

The question posted by the OP was "What was the logic behind that choice to make Inventor DWG the default and not Autocad DWG?" 

Was it simply a mistake?
Does Autodesk have data showing that its more common to save to "export" to Inventor DWG vs Autocad DWG? 

Thats whats being asked here now..

When you are in a drawing and do a File..Export.. Export to DWG then Inventor DWG is the default as shown by this image..

So as a user who is frequently exporting to Autocad DWG they find themselves changing that dropbox to "Autocad DWG" on a daily basis (luckily you keep that choice persistent between sessions so they only need to set it once a day.. or once an Inventor session or it would get really annoying)

[ChrisMitchell01 · Accepted solution]

When Inventor initially started to support the DWG format, in addition to the original IDW format, the Inventor DWG format was put at the top of the (static) list based on Alphabetical sort order. So Inventor Drawing Files (*.dwg) comes before Inventor Drawing Files (*.idw) since d comes before i in the alphabet. There is no logic checking between the currently open file format & that presented in the list. Inventor was also given a higher priority that the other formats such as AutoCAD in the Save Copy As dialog.

Back then IDW was still set as the drawing format default for creating new Inventor drawings, but since then, the default was changed to IDW to leverage the potential collaboration benefits from using dwg; the save as/export dialog was never changed.

The people who made the decisions are no longer here....agreed - it's definitely a valid idea that the export format of choice should be remembered.

-Chris

[Anonymous]

@ChrisMitchell01 Or ditching the export to Inventor.dwg option completely IF the file is already Inventor.dwg...

And yes, our suppliers mostly use AutoCAD or use compatible applications and do have problems with Inventor .dwg. I now know that there is an Exportlayout command (or rightclick option) in AutoCAD. Don't know if other CAD programs have that too. Every drawing I make, that will be used externally, is exported as an AutoCAD.dwg and stored with an _acad added to the filename.

Hopefully we'll soon implement a document management system that creates these files automatically.

Thanks. My curiosity is satisfied.

[mcgyvr]

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@ChrisMitchell01 wrote:

Inventor was also given a higher priority that the other formats such as AutoCAD in the Save Copy As dialog.

The people who made the decisions are no longer here....agreed - it's definitely a valid idea that the export format of choice should be remembered.

-Chris

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Its really seems that its just that someone gave Inventor higher priority as you said..  And thats it..

The alphabetical "theory" doesn't hold true anywhere unless those lists are sorted backwards or unless you were referring to previous software.. 

Shame on me for paying attention to what you said and checking for validity of the statements made  

[ChrisMitchell01]

This is all that I was referring to:

So, Inventor formats at the top of the list in alphabetical order, then the rest of the formats in alphabetical order. I congratulate you on validating 🙂

-Chris

[acad-caveman]

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@Anonymouswrote:

And yes, our suppliers mostly use AutoCAD or use compatible applications and do have problems with Inventor .dwg....

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Yeah well, I wish that was the only problem with drawing files from Inventor.

Hate to be a jerk, but in 9 years ( since the first time I've asked ) not one single attempt was made to fix the issue of

circles and arcs to be output as true circles/arcs rather than splines when the view is not of a flat surface.

Yes, the need to click from the default "save-copy-as" is a bit of a nuisance, thankfully it does stick for the session ( and not only the

format, but also the destination )

The spline thing however is absolutely irritating and un-fixable on the AutoCAD DWG side!