Inventor idw to Acad dwg export - parts to blocks

[karthur1]

Looking for a way to do something, but as far as I know, Inventor can't do this, but I will ask anyway.

Say you have an idw of an assembly, is there a way to export this idw to Acad dwg format, then when the drawing is opened in ACAD, the parts in the assembly are converted to ACAD blocks in each view?

So if you have a model of say, a car in inventor.  You have parts named like Hood, Motor, Right door....etc. in the assembly and you put all this on an idw with three view (top, front, right side) and export this to ACAD dwg format.  Now, when you open the model in ACAD, there are blocks in each view.  So in the right view, there would be Hood_Right side, Motor_Right side, Right door_Right side...etc.

Right now, when you save the idw to dwg format, it is just lines and circles.

Thanks,

Kirk A.

Windows 7 x64 -12 GB Ram
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[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi  karthur1,

I'm not sure it's exactly what you're after, but you xan save your IDW as an Inventor DWG using the Save As option (not Save Copy As).

Then the views are saved in the DWG file as blocks. So if you as an Inventor DWG with a top, front and side view of a part named Hood.ipt, then you would end up with those three blocks in the DWG. You could then use Design Center in AutoCAD to insert the blocks, or just use the Insert command.

As for an assembly, it would be the same. If you had 3 views of an assembly, you'd get three blocks of those views. But it would not break the assemblies views out into part blocks.

A related link:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-General/Inserting-Views-into-Model-Space/m-p/3441077#M433480

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[4donwan4 · Accepted solution]

Not sure if what Curtis outlied will work for you or not, but it would be the only option at this time. If it doesn't work for you then consider adding what you are looking for in the Ideas forum for it to be considered for a future release of Inventor.

Regards,

Don

[karthur1]

Curtis,

I have used that workflow before.  I am wanting the parts in each view to be converted to there own individual acad blocks.  Inventor already knows the part that each line/circle belongs to, so I dont see why it could not be done.  If there are three views on the sheet, you would end up with a "Part A_Front", "Part A_side" and "Part A_Top".  Same thing for "Part B", "Part C"....etc.

Thanks,

Kirk

[Anonymous]

Try to create one unique folder in the browser, move all components to it. 

After this export to a AutoCAD DWG file . 

This process wil create many groups.

Maybe this works for you too.

[Sfusinski]

I know this is an extremely old post, but did you ever figure this out? It would be such a better way to have drawings come out versus line for line.

[karthur1]

The best I could get it was to save the idw to an Inventor DWG format.  This will create a ACAD block of each view.  It does not create sub blocks for the components inside each view.  We will probably never get this, even though it does seem possible to do.

Kirk

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Folks,

I am not sure if you are aware of a way to export an Inventor drawing to AutoCAD Mechanical dwg. This gives you the options to export components as blocks in layer groups.

Many thanks!

[karthur1]

Johnson,

I don't see that in my idw export options.  I only have ACAD  and not ACAD Mech installed, maybe that is why I don't see it.

Thanks,

Kirk

Edit: 

I just installed Inventor 2024 and ACADM 2024.  When I export my idw and select the Mechanical 2024 as the file version, I do not get the options you are showing.  Is there something else I have to do?  I have both ACADM and Inventor running.  

Kirk

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Kirk,

You may want to restart the machine. There is no need to have ACADM running. But I do believe it has to be installed in order to see those options.

Many thanks!

[karthur1]

Just now restarted machine and problem persists.  Here is what I just now tried:

1. Ran ACADM 2024 as administrator. Open and closed a dwg file. Closed ACADM 2024.

2. Ran Inventor 2024 as administrator. Open idw. File > Export to Dwg. Selected "Autocad Mech 2024" as file version.

This is the first dialog I get.

And then this one.

And then this one to select the file export name:

It is like it's not taking my selection for the file version because if I select the "Options" in the third dialog, it doesn't have "Autocad Mech 2024" selected.  It is back on Autocad 2018.

I am using Inventor 2024.3 and ACADM 2024.0.1 (28.0.70.0)

Not sure what to try next.

Thanks, Kirk

[karthur1 · Accepted solution]

I figured out what was causing this to not work correctly.  ACADM 2024 was not associated with DWG file type.  Once I changed the dwg filetype to be associated with ACADM 2024, I then get the export option.  The first thing I noticed  is that now on the first dialog, it already has AutoCAD Mech 2024 selected as the file version.

Then the next dialog is the Export Options.

Thanks,

Kirk