Import Model Based definition or Product and Manufacturing Information

[Anonymous]

As a warning to all.  I recently had imported several NX models and thought that I had all the information I needed to manufacture the parts.  I came to find out that I was missing the MBD or PMI details when viewing the models.  Is there a way to import the entire model?  Not having the MBD or PMI details lead you up a dangerous road.  There should at least be a warning when importing a cad file that it may contain other information that doesn't import with it.  I wound up importing the file, but not all of it which is bad news indeed.  I know that Inventor is working on their own MBD but what about importing files with this information?  Is there a "fix" in the works?  Odd thing is that the MBD appears in the preview but not on the model once opened up.  With the MBD info becoming more and more popular this can become a big problem.

[hartogj]

Yes, import and convert capabilities are currently focused on the 3D geometry itself. Part/assembly hierarchy, assembly features, weldments, multi-solids, surfaces, points, and color and visibility settings are converted. PMI is not converted but we are looking at it.

What are you aiming to do with the PMI inside Inventor? Visual reference, use in drawings, CAM...? If you are looking to keep the PMI for use in other applications, the import "reference" option keeps the data available in the original format so, although the PMI is not visible inside Inventor, it still resides in the file.

Jon

[Anonymous]

Hi Jon,

     In this instance our customer provided us with their NX files that I imported into inventor to give to our machine shop.  As it turned out the models had holes in the parts that were designated as threads in the PMI associated with the NX model.  We didn't know because it only the minor diameter hole was shown in the imported model.  We received the machined details as shown per the imported model less the threaded features.  Needless to say we suffered the embarrassment of giving reject parts to the customer and missed our delivery date.  It also cost us money to ship to the machine shop and have the additional operations performed. 

     The import function failed in that it didn't show the PMI info.  There were also tolerances shown that although we complied, it was only by accident, not by seeing the PMI info in the imported model. 

     As I said we learned our lesson that we need at least a screen shot of the Model showing the PMI data so we have the entire model and info not most of the model lacking the PMI data until we get this solved.

     I'm not sure what you mean or how to use the import "reference" option you talk about above.  Would that solve the problem of the missing PMI data?  Can you elaborate?

Thanks,

Ron

[hartogj]

Thanks Ron, this really helps. Regret the trouble you had on this job. We see a lot of customers working with this kind of data sharing both the geometry plus a 3D PDF with the PMI so they have something they can refer to for tolerances, thread info, notes, etc.

Regarding import, some folks are looking for imported PMI to just be human-readable whereas others are looking for it to be semantic. Technically speaking making these features fully semantic is much more challenging.

Inventor imports offer "convert" and "reference" options. When you "convert" a model it runs a translation and essentially converts all the information possible into Inventor format. When you "reference" a model it brings the model into an Inventor assembly and allows you to review properties, position it, etc but it does not save it in Inventor format. It remains in the original format (ie NX native in your case) and whenever that NX file is updated the Inventor assembly can be updated to stay in sync. It is an associative connection.

This might have been useful if you were bringing the data into Inventor to include it in an assembly and then passing the unmodified file downstream to another CAM application. In that case, the NX file with the PMI would have remained in the original format. Based on your description it doesn't sound like this would have helped. But in case you are interested, you can read more on this here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016...

Let's see how many others express an interest.

Jon

[Anonymous]

Hi Jon,

     I can appreciate the difficulties of importing the features themselves in the model.  But even if you get to that point it still wouldn't show specific tolerances or dimension ranges for specific features that the author put in their model.  Speaking for myself if we could have "human readable" data that would work just fine.  It would be apparent to the reader what the author had in mind.  That certainly would have worked in this case.  I wish I could share with you the actual files but I can't.  At least the examples shown above get the point across.  Thanks for your interest!

Ron