Inventor Plugin (official thread)

[thopiekar 46]

Just reserving here this thread for questions between users, who are using the plugin.

Additionally, feel free to add ideas for improvements, which are important for you as issues to the project page.

Looking forward to stimulating and inspiring ideas!

Thanks!

 

• Website: https://thopiekar.eu/cura/cad/inventor/

--------------------------------------

Special thanks go to:

• @dxp for testing the plugin in its early stages!

---------------------------------------

 

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by thopiekar
Edit urls

[dxp 23]

Hi @thopiekar

 

well, it was impossible to load a (2017) Inventor file (named 170816P1-Demonstrator Innensechskant.ipt)

"CuraInventorPlugin.CadIntegrationUtils.CommonReader.readOnSingleAppLayer [193]: Temporary file not found after export! (next file format..)"

Tried 2 different files. The Preview worked, but importing failed. Log is attached.

 

cura.log.um-forum.log

[thopiekar 46]

Ah, damn. I need to update the plugin because of some changes I made in the SolidWorks plugin.

I added some features to a common application module and it looks like the Inventor plugin does not get these changes.

[dxp 23]

Oh, I'm your most patient (beta)-user...

[thopiekar 46]

Yes, you are and looks like you are already a good one 

[thopiekar 46]

After uninstalling and reinstalling Inventor, as suggested by Autodesk during their beta program, something got broken.

Can't test my own changes, but, in theory, the new package under the same URL should work now. 

 

PS: Btw, this is what I get here:

Quote

pywintypes.com_error: (-2147352567, 'Ausnahmefehler aufgetreten.', (0, None, None, None, 0, -2147024809), None)

 

 

Edited February 12, 2018 by thopiekar

[dxp 23]

Quite an elaborate error message!

So, I deleted the PlugInFolder under MyName\AppData\Roaming\cura\3.2\plugins and installed your Plugin again. No import - file not found. Same error.

 

Hopefully your installation will be working soon!

 

Cheers.

[thopiekar 46]

Got it! Works now on my side. The issue was that I copied months before some articles from Autodesk websites, which are describing their API.

What you can see on Windows as a quotation mark (which is fine for Python programming), can be also a "0x93" byte, which made the plugin crash.

 

Good that I had Ubuntu installed on Windows, so I was able to look for the file, which contains the byte:

 

Updated the plugin file again, but now it should work.

 

PS: At least it opens part, assemblies and drawings using Inventor 2019 Beta2 now.

Edited February 12, 2018 by thopiekar

[thopiekar 46]

@dxp Any success?

[dxp 23]

Nope. Still failing. Maybe wrong version?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by dxp
images doubled

[thopiekar 46]

Nope, should be fine. Just redownload from the first post and install.

 

Could you maybe send me your cura.log? The log could be very long, so it would be nice if you could remove it and then reproduce the bug.

After that, the log should only include the relevant info.

 

Additionally, is it possible to share this .ipt-file? Sending via e-mail is just fine

On the other hand you can try these files, which I use to test the plugin:

https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraInventorPlugin/tree/master/tests/Inventor Professional 2018

Just try to open them normally with Inventor before opening them in Cura, to make sure Inventor is able to open them at all.

Oh, and which Inventor version are you using?

 

Regards!

Edited February 13, 2018 by thopiekar

[thopiekar 46]

On 12.2.2018 at 2:09 PM, thopiekar said:

Just reserving here this thread for questions between users, who are using the plugin.

Additionally, feel free to add ideas for improvements, which are important for you as issues to the project page.

Looking forward to stimulating and inspiring ideas!

Thanks!

 

• Website: https://thopiekar.eu/cad-integration/inventor-plugin/
• Testing version: https://thopiekar.eu/download/CuraInventorPlugin-0.1.4.curaplugin
• Installation guide for the .curaplugin files: https://thopiekar.eu/cad-integration/solidworks-plugin/installation/#manual-install

 

There was a common issue with the SolidWorks plugin. 0.1.4 is out!

PS: Technical explanation: 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by thopiekar

[dxp 23]

Hello,

 

the plugin is working now, i can import *.ipt-files directly. Yippie!

 

Cheers

dxp

[thopiekar 46]

15 minutes ago, dxp said:

the plugin is working now, i can import *.ipt-files directly. Yippie!

 

Awesome! 

[thopiekar 46]

Hey @dxp,

 

are you experienced with custom exporting parameters in SolidWorks and Inventor?

3DS defines two values:

• "Resolution - Deviation  Tolerance"
• "Resolution - Angle Tolerance"

--> http://help.solidworks.com/2013/english/api/swconst/FileSaveAsSTLOptions.htm

 

Whereas Autodesk defines four of them:

• SurfaceDeviation ( 0 to 100 for a percentage between values computed based on the size of the model )

• NormalDeviation ( 0 to 40 to indicate values 1 to 41 )

• MaxEdgeLength ( 0 to 100 for a percentage between values computed based on the size of the model )

• AspectRatio ( 0 to 40 for values between 1.5 to 21.5 in 0.5 increments )

--> https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-customization/ilogic-stl-translator-specific-parameters-info/td-p/4418665

--> http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-25D24E28-7517-4903-8AEE-123F8C71A89E

 

Do you have an idea how to translate the two values from Solidworks into these four? Or backwards from these four to the two of SolidWorks?

 

Thanks!

 

PS: Asked the same question in the Autodesk forums: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-customization/bd-p/120

Edited February 14, 2018 by thopiekar

[dxp 23]

Hi @thopiekar,

 

i'm using these settings:

oOptions.Value("ExportUnits") = 5 'Millimeter
oOptions.Value("Resolution") = 0 'High - muss hier stehen, sonst grottige Qualität

Never tried "Resolution"=3. With "2" even the real prints had triangles where cylindric surfaces should be.  

So "0" was a good setting between file-size and quality.

 

Autodesk has some more information about SurfaceDeviation and such stuff here:

STL File Save As Options reference

 

As for the translation - phew, that's to much of a guessing game for me. I would say

• "Resolution - Deviation  Tolerance"  = SurfaceDeviation  and
• "Resolution - Angle Tolerance"  =  NormalDeviation 

but there is no time for further research as i have to do my engineering work

 

Ciao!

 

[thopiekar 46]

Alright! Still, thanks for taking a look at it 

 

The plugin is using Resolution = 0 already:

https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraInventorPlugin/blob/dcf51da34571bea5ed21db06063c906a6aa3a1ec/InventorReader.py#L178

https://github.com/thopiekar/CuraInventorPlugin/blob/dcf51da34571bea5ed21db06063c906a6aa3a1ec/InventorConstants.py#L12

 

However, I should care about resetting the changes I made, like in the SolidWorks plugin, because people could get angered, who are using settings, like export in inch.

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by thopiekar

[StS 0]

Hi

We are using Cura 3.3 and is not able to run Autodesk Inventor 2017 R4.3 with 0.1.5 plugin. Cura prgram crash while opening ipt -file.

 

Br

Steinar Sørem

cura.log

Edited April 25, 2018 by StS

[tetrahedron 1]

@thopiekar,

Seems to be working again with Cura 3.3.1 and plugin 0.15. Using Inventor 2017 R4.3

[thopiekar 46]

Great! I'm in talks currently to get this plugin into the plugin browser, too.

https://thopiekar.eu/download/CuraInventorPlugin-0.2.2.curaplugin

 

There are no big differences regarding features, but some stability fixes inside.

 

@StS Do you (still) face the issue with 3.3.1? When doing my own tests here with the package above (v0.2.2) I didn't noticed any issues using 3.2.1 and 3.3.1. Or do @tetrahedron and you belong together and the issue has been solved?

 

Regards and thank you for giving feedback here!

[tetrahedron 1]

@thopiekar, you are a lifesaver!

@Sts and I are working together. The issue can be considered as solved.

 

 

[thopiekar 46]

Haha, thanks @tetrahedron  

 

Just let me know if something does not work. If I don't get any feedback from someone, I can still overlook something.

The better the documentation of the symptoms of the bug and the stronger the argumentation why fixing it counts (for all people), the earlier I'll take some time on it.

 

Again, thank you for your efforts, because it seems you only registered for the forums here to join this thread! ?

[eried 0]

 

3.5 broke my favorite plugin ? 

 

I will have to get back to 3.4

[MichielJacobi 2]

@eried I am having the same issues after installing 3.5. @thopiekar can you help us with this? Thanks in advance!

[thopiekar 46]

Sure, I can. Because of my job, I'm in Canada and doing recently many overhours.

By next week I'm back home in Germany where I will have a bit more than a week of leave because of the overhours of the whole trip.

 

Please keep in mind that this plugin is community supported and free software.

 

Thanks!

Edited October 5, 2018 by thopiekar