Importing Autodesk Inventor files
Autodesk Inventor assemblies often have complex relationships with other Autodesk Inventor subassemblies and parts. Importing these relationships correctly requires special attention. Following are recommended guidelines for importing Autodesk Inventor files.
- Before you import Autodesk Inventor assemblies, resolve all subassemblies and part references first. There should not be any explicit references to local drive folders.
- There are two methods for importing Autodesk Inventor assemblies into Meridian: drag and drop, and the Assembly Import Wizard described in Importing assemblies.
- When migrating Autodesk Inventor files between versions (for example, Autodesk Inventor 2008 to Autodesk Inventor 2009), the same fundamental principle applies: you must ensure the integrity of the assembly references first. Following are the options:
- Manually open the assemblies in the new version of Autodesk Inventor and save them. This is fine for small quantities of assemblies and parts, but be aware that Autodesk Inventor can display warnings about property data not being stored due to related assemblies or parts not being migrated first. If you doubt that the data was saved, use the Synchronize Properties to File command to ensure that data stored in Meridian is synchronized to the Autodesk Inventor drawing.
- Use the Autodesk Inventor Migration tool. This can present a problem because it does not use standard Windows file dialogs and therefore cannot access Meridian vaults. We recommend you ask a system administrator to create a mapped drive to a share that represents the vault, as described in BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise Administrator’s Guide, so that your vault is exposed to Windows as a drive that can be used by the Autodesk Inventor Migration tool.