User Manual

learnIng the FIle tyPes In Inventor

wo r K i n g w i t h Dwgs

You can use DWG ﬁles in a number of ways in Inventor. Although Inventor does not support the

creation of AutoCAD entities, you can utilize AutoCAD geometry in Inventor sketches, Inventor

drawings, title blocks, and symbols.

When creating a new part ﬁle in Inventor, you can copy geometry directly from an AutoCAD

DWG and paste it into an Inventor sketch. AutoCAD dimensions will even be converted into

fully parametric Inventor dimensions. However, only minimal sketch constraints will be cre-

ated. Using the Auto Dimension tool within the Inventor sketch environment, you can apply

sketch constraints to the copied AutoCAD data quickly. It is important to remember that many

AutoCAD drawings contain fundamental issues such as exploded or “fudged” dimensions and

lines with endpoints that do not meet. Copying such drawings into an Inventor sketch will of

course bring all of those issues along and will typically provide poor results.

Another way to use AutoCAD data in Inventor is in an Inventor DWG ﬁle. Often you’ll have

symbols in AutoCAD in the form of blocks that you want to use on a drawing in Inventor,

such as a directional ﬂow arrow or a standard note block. Although you could re-create these

symbols in Inventor, you can also simply copy the block from AutoCAD and paste it into the

Inventor DWG, or use the Import AutoCAD block option to import blocks without the need to

open AutoCAD. This functionality exists only within an Inventor DWG and is not supported in

an Inventor IDW. In fact, it is one of the few differences you’ll notice between an Inventor DWG

and an Inventor IDW from within Inventor.

You can open an Inventor DWG ﬁle in AutoCAD and edit it, but with some limitation. The pri-

mary limitation is that the Inventor objects are protected from modiﬁcation. AutoCAD dimensions

and other entities can be added and will remain intact when the ﬁle is opened again in Inventor,

but as a rule, objects must be edited in the application from which they were created.

cr e a t i n g Dwg Fi l e s F r o m in v e n t o r Dr a w i n g s

Users of Inventor may often ﬁnd that they are called upon to create native AutoCAD DWG ﬁles

from Inventor IDW ﬁles for use by customers or other people within the company. A user may

create a DWG ﬁle by simply performing a Save Copy As and saving it as an AutoCAD DWG ﬁle.

The newly created DWG ﬁle will not be associative to the Inventor part or assembly or IDW ﬁle

and will not reﬂect any changes made to the part, assembly, or Inventor drawing ﬁle. It is com-

mon to use Save Copy As on an Inventor drawing and save it to an AutoCAD DWG just before

making revision changes, thereby preserving a copy of the drawing in a static state at that

revision level. Once the static copy is saved, revision edits can begin, and the original Inventor

drawing will update automatically.

DWG File Size

Although the beneﬁts of using an Inventor DWG instead of an IDW may be favorable, you should

be aware that the extra abilities of the DWG ﬁle do come at the expense of ﬁle size. Inventor DWGs

are typically two to three times larger than identical IDW ﬁles. If you create large assemblies, it is

advisable to use the IDW template as opposed to the DWG to keep ﬁles manageable. The extent to

which the DWG in Inventor is employed will largely be determined by the amount of collaboration

required between Inventor and AutoCAD users.

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