Converting Inventor® Data Interactively

You can import Inventor® data interactively and convert them to tessellated or exact data.

Before you begin:

Converter for Inventor

  • Is available only on Windows OS.
  • Supports Inventor® versions from 6 to 2022.
  • Does not support
    • Translating attributes such as layers.
    • Specific entities resulting from advanced Inventor® operations (for example lofting).
    • Pure wireframe data.
    • Materials and textures.
    • Texts and annotations.
    • Weld symbols from Inventor® files.
    • Sketches from Inventor® files.
    • Electrical harness data like piping or cables in any form (B-rep or visualization).
    • Flexible assemblies.
    • Sheet metal bodies and work plane.
    • User Define Attributes.
    • Assembly level features. For example, since Converter for Inventor does not support the filtering of hidden bodies, nor the reading of suppressed instances, suppressed instances and hidden bodies are converted.

  1. Select the required import option in Preferences. In particular, activate the Convert construction surfaces option to import Sheetbodies (They are not imported by default).

    See External Native 3D Formats for more information.

  2. Import the Inventor® file as explained in Import.

    Available extensions are:

    • *.ipt to convert Inventor® part files to a 3D Part or a CGR representation.
      • In Tessellated mode, the data open in a root product that contains a 3D Shape representation.
      • In Exact mode, the data open in a 3D Part.
    • *.iam to convert Inventor® assembly files. They are converted into Products.
      • The assembly hierarchy is kept with the proper positions.
      • Assembly attributes other than hierarchy and positions of the geometry are not supported.
      • In Tessellated mode, the data open in a product containing sub-products, containing 3D Shape representations.
      • In Exact mode, the data open in a product containing 3D parts.

  3. Optional: Select the Run in Separate Process check box.
    The conversion is performed in the background.

  • The data are converted, then saved in the database.
  • If the save operation fails, a failure message is displayed and the import stops.
  • The quality of imported data is checked, and a geometry quality enhancement is performed according to the corresponding option.
  • Click Cancel to interrupt the transfer at any time. The conversion is then interrupted (after the processing of the current independent entity) and the partial conversion already performed is displayed in the session.