Do any issues arise after converting Inventor files to Solidworks?
Currently we have 2012 Inventor and there are files that were created in a newer version of Inventor. I am unable to view or edit these drawings in 2012 Inventor. I don't believe it is possible to have all of the files saved to an earlier version because that would take a lot of work from the guy who drew everything. Now we could buy a newer version of Inventor but, It looks like we are going to get Solidworks in the near future. I have read you can change the Inventor files to .stp and they should open in SW. So I have two questions:
#1 Can I simply go into the folder where the .ipt and .iam are located and manually change those to .stp?
#2 Are there issues that I would I run into when opening them in SW?
2 Answers
#1 Can I simply go into the folder where the .ipt and .iam are located and manually change those to .stp?
No. You'd need to save/convert IPT and IAM files to the Step format. There are also likely automatic tools to do this if the volume of files is large.
#2 Are there issues that I would I run into when opening them in SW?
Yes. Converting to Step files results in a "dumb model". You'll lose the features and dimensions that made the part in Inventor. You'd be able to "edit" an imported Step file in SOLIDWORKS, but it won't be as easy as simple as changing the native part in Inventor.
If you have both Inventor and SW on the same machine you might get a better result from importing the native Inventor files. I've never tried it, but hopefully someone else will have more information.
Thank you all
