Saving Files

[minibabe]

I was wondering if anyone knows how you save an .iam file to be an .ipt file. I have seen this before and was wondering how it is done. I did go though the help files in inventor and I could not find anything.

 

This is good if you need to send files to anyone and you do not want them to modify assemblies. I believe that when you open up the .ipt file it refers to everything as "base"

 

Thank you,

 

Amanda

[shift1313]

I havent heard of this before Amanda. the .ipt file is a part file and the .iam is an assembly file. If you manage to get your assembly file into a part file it would loose any data associated with it as far as i know. Do you have to send a file to someone? You can save your assembly file as an iges or other filetypes which will loose the data as well. you can create a presentation file and send that. Ive never needed to restrict access to my files but im sure there is a way.

[minibabe]

I understand the differences in the files, but what some vendors have done for me is create an .ipt from an .iam.

 

and in the "browser bar" instead of having a list of all the .ipt files that make up the .iam file it just states the word "base" and there is a blue cube next to the word "base"

 

It does not allow you to modify the part.

 

anyone else have any info?

 

thanks

 

ps: shift1313 is that you on the bike?

[Aardvark]

Either save out the assembly as a .SAT or .STEP file or derive component and break link with the parent files.

[JD Mather]

Simply start a new ipt file and exit sketch mode.

Derive Component and select the Assembly file.

After deriving to a single part you can suppress or break the link (right mouse button on the derived node in the browser).

If you want to send them a nuetral format file you can then save as STP, IGES orACIS.

 

Also you might want to investigate ShrinkWrap (http://labs.autodesk.com) if you want to remove additional information to protect intellectual property.

[JD Mather]

It does not allow you to modify the part.

 

Well, actually if you download Feature Recognition from http://labs.autodesk.com .....

 

If you really want to protect your data dwf might be a better way to go.

[minibabe]

JD Mather

 

you had helped me out with something else pretty recently and I the solution was actually the samething. I never thought to do it that way.

 

Thank you again for your help.

 

-Amanda

[minibabe]

Well, actually if you download Feature Recognition from http://labs.autodesk.com .....

 

If you really want to protect your data dwf might be a better way to go.

 

 

I had no idea about this.....good piece of information.

 

thanks for sharing

[shift1313]

yup thats me:) and glad you got it worked out. JD correct me if im wrong, but when the component is listed as "base" that means its a dumb solid in Inventor right? Meaning its a 3d model but doesnt list any of the operations used to create it in the design tree. It will still let you modify and extract anything needed from the part so it doesnt "protect" it.

[JD Mather]

yup thats me:) and glad you got it worked out. JD correct me if im wrong, but when the component is listed as "base" that means its a dumb solid in Inventor right? Meaning its a 3d model but doesnt list any of the operations used to create it in the design tree. It will still let you modify and extract anything needed from the part so it doesnt "protect" it.

 

You got it.

[minibabe]

Ok, I just tried to create the 'derived component' and it keeps crashing inventor.

 

Is there a limit on the size of the file that can be derived?

[JD Mather]

The more parts you have and the more complex the parts the more likely you are to get an ASM (Autodesk Shape Manager) error where it can't figure out how to combine and discard faces. Often this is an indication that there is actually something wrong with one of the files. But sometimes it is an indication that it is just too complex.

...or it could just be your hardware/graphics/OS

 

I would try shrinkwrap for some simplification. Certainly if there are internal parts that you don't need to combine you can manually remove those yourself.

 

With DWF this wouldn't be a concern (assuming DWF would work for the client needs).