Inventor IDW to AutoCAD DWG withou exploding all lines

[william.pick]

Hi everyone,

When I create an assembly in Inventor then generate a drawing, I can select components according to their solid bodies, as the componets inside the assembly were draw. When I export the IDW to DWG all lines get exploded and I cannot select componets.

Is it possible to export IDW to DWG without loosing this link and keep all parts inside my DWG coneected as one instead of separated lines?

[James_Willo]

Hi I don't believe this is possible as the lines are not polylines in Inventor, in fact they are not even all on the same plane in Inventor so they are not attached in the first place. 

You would need to export each one separately and use the Pedit command in AutoCAD to turn them into polylines. 

[william.pick]

It's not to turn them into polilines, but at least keep them in a block.

Example: Whe use Factory Design Utilities in Inventor, so we model 3D workplants, then we export to ACAD and the customer may need some adjustments, in which we do in ACAD to latter adjust 3D modeling.

Sometimes we enven model everithing in 2D ACAD to give the customer a quick propose.

I'll attach two examples:

"What we get from Inventor.dwg" - exploded lines.

"What we want from Inventor.dwg" - lines grouped according to solids in modeling.

Image of what we get from Inventor:

Image of what we want from Inventor:

Note: in file "What we want from Inventor.dwg", I've grouped every line into blocks manually, but In inventor they are part of the same solid body.

[mikegreslick6607]

I don't quite know much about Inventor DWG files, but have you tried using that as an intermediate step?  Save the Inventor IDW as an Inventor DWG and open that in AutoCAD. Then save that file as a regular AutoCAD DWG.  This seems to have given me what you've requested, at least from a drawing of a single part.  I'm curious as to what the behavior will be with assemblies though.  I suspect that each view will be its own block, but I'm not sure.

[James_Willo]

As far as I know this is not possible, please add it to the Inventor Ideastation. 

The only way to get blocks is to 'insert into model space' before saving as an Inventor DWG, and this is only allowed on a single view so won't do what you want. It also makes the entire view a single block. 

[william.pick]

I've posted in Inventor Ideas Forum, hope you guys help me with some votes! Thanks!

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/inventor-idw-to-autocad-without-exploding-lines/idi-p/...

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! Two workflows to try. If you have AutoCAD Mechanical installed on the same machine, you may be able to select AutoCAD Mechanical as the format when exporting the drawing to dwg. There are options allowing you to create layer group for each component.

Another workflow to try is to open the Inventor dwg file in AutoCAD and use EXPORTLAYOUT command to export the drawing.

Depending your requirements, I suspect one of the above workflows might yield a desirable result.

Many thanks!