How to import Inventor 2019 file types into Maya 2019?

[gpt9]

Hello,

So I am trying to figure out how to import Inventor 2019 files (ipt, iam) into Maya 2019 on Windows 10 64-bit. It used to be done by activating the plugin of "openInventor.mll" inside of Maya's plug-in manager. I no longer see that in the list of plug-ins. Might there be a new workaround? Maya 2019 fails to import Inventor files by saying "unrecognized file type". Is there a median in which I can export a certain file type from Inventor so that Maya can indeed import it? Where has the Inventor_ATF file type support gone? Did they push it out of Maya?

Thank you in advance,

Griff

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

There's no longer a plugin for this but instead when you go to import there are a variety of ATF import options but I forget which one exactly works with Inventor. You can also enable the IGES plugin if you wanted to load that file type instead.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

I'm just checking in again to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion I provided yesterday work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[gpt9]

Hi @sean.heasley ,

I appreciate your answer! Sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately, me activating that plugin did not fix the issue. I don't think there is necessarily a way to import inventor files into Maya anymore 😞 I know that Inventor is capable of exporting to certain file types that might be acceptable to import into Maya... I also know that an older version of Maya (Maya 2013) had support for Inventor files, so maybe I can just install that version? I'm still pretty lost here. 

Inventor 2019 file export types:

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

Have you tried any of those file types?

OBJ is pretty commonly used and could work.

[DarrenP]

you can try .dwg

here is an Inventor model exported out to a .dwg file

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

I'm just checking in to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestions that @DarrenP  and I provided work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[gpt9]

Hello,

Nothing worked. Do you know of a way to get the Inventor_ATF plugin back to Maya? I'm not sure why it's not there.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

The plugin doest work with 2019 because the ATF support is bundled.

From that article this might help:

Inventor files

ATF cannot import Inventor files unless you manually copy the Inventor files into the ATF plug-in folder.

Note: ATF and Inventor Server are exchanged via ATFXML file format. This intermediate format is not guaranteed to be compatible between different ATF versions. The recommended way is to use the same ATF version that is included in Inventor Server.

To copy Inventor files into the ATF plug-in folder:

1. Install Inventor Server. Make sure that ATFXML is enabled.
2. Navigate to the install location, e.g. C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor Server <version> and copy all the files. Ensure that everything is copied, including Inventor Server and inventorserverclient_x64.manifest.
3. Locate the Maya ATF folder (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya<version>\plug-ins\ATF\ATF) and paste the files here

[gpt9]

Should I just download Maya 2018 then? Would that work?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

You could try 2018 yes but I believe it has the same set up as 2019.

Both have the Iges and ATF plugins.

Did you try my above steps?

[gpt9]

Yeah, my problem is that I just want to be able to import inventor files natively. The thing above from Autodesk's website with the 3 steps confuses me. I tried running through that here but it didn't add up nor make sense to me. If you could explain it that would be sweet. I uninstalled Maya 2019 and installed 2018. The difference between 2018 and 2019 is that the INVENTOR_ATF actually shows up in the list this time whereas in 2019 it didn't However, it still fails to import in 2018. See my newest post here. I think I might just uninstall 2018 and go to 2017 etc just to keep testing. It's bound to work eventually. I'm not sure why it doesn't though.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @gpt9 

Could it be an issue with the actual Inventor scene?

For example if you make a new Inventor scene with a really basic cube etc does that import?

[mspeer]

Hi!

An Inventor 2019 file may not be compatible with Maya 2018 (or it's a bug, i can't test this).

Inventor_ATF is not included with Maya 2019, but is still listed as feature, so either this is a bug in Maya 2019 or the documentation is wrong.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2019/ENU/?guid=GUID-69BC066D-D4D8-4B12-900C-CF42E798A5D6

Please report these problem(s) / bug(s) to Autodesk.
In Maya main menu:
Help -> Speak Back -> Report a Problem