Linking Autocad Drawing

[bd9607]

Is there a way to link an AutoCAD drawing into Inventor such as xref works in AutoCAD? I know you can import a drawing into a sketch but I was hoping for something more like an overlay that updates along when the AutoCAD updates.

We do lots of work with customers who use AutoCAD. So we hash out the layout using AutoCAD and once approved model in inventor. Having that drawing linked into inventor that I can turn on and off would be nice as a sanity check seeing my model matches the latest layout.

Maybe a work around?

 

[cbell1007]

Have you imported custom blocks as symbols created in AutoCAD into Inventor before? The reason I ask is because I have but only small W blocks with attributes that I can change on insertion. And it works well. But is nothing like a xref you use in cad for existing information to create proposed info from. In other words, yes you can bring in an AutoCAD Sketch into an .idw as a symbol and right click it in your browser tree to turn on and off, or select individual lines on the sheet and hide their visibility. But I am not sure if this is what your looking for.

 

[bd9607]

I was hoping to bring in a drawing from AutoCAD into Inventor that updates as the drawing gets changed. If I remember right, when I was working in Revit Structural, it had that option of either insert AutoCAD drawings as back ground or Link it. Linking it means every time you opened that model it reloaded that AutoCAD drawing. I was just hoping that Inventor had a similar feature.

 

[bd9607]

Well for those interested there is a way....sort of. I read this somewhere else so I am not taking credit.

We use .dwg in inventor not .idw, therefore the .dwg is constantly updating as you update the drawing. So I opened the inventor generated .dwg and inserted the block for plan view in model space. Save and got out. Then I went into my drawing I wanted to verify and xref'd the inventor generated drawing. Lined up the geometry. Now I have a quick easy way to verify my 2D layout drawing is current and up to date with my model and fabrication drawing.

Hope that helps anyone who is interested.