From Inventor to Revit - Workflow analysis

Our Team recently watched this excellent video by Rob Cohee, Industry Solution Evangelist for Autodesk's Manufacturing Group, which shows a workflow from Revit to Inventor and back to Revit.




Of course, we had to try it out for ourselves...

As we took a part from Inventor to Revit, we made the following discoveries....


We exported the file from Inventor using the AEC exchange and made sure that the parameters we had chosen to export were coming through.


1. The 1st Problem: Getting a message when attempting to load the .adsk file in Revit
The Solution: Install this hotfix for Inventor - http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13105818&linkID=9242019

2. The Good News: before exporting from Inventor, the user has great control over selecting individual parameters that can export to Revit

The Bad News: After loading the .adsk file in Revit all of the parameters are dumped in the same category and they are completely disconnected from the geometry. Some of the parameters kept their unit type (Volume, Density) and others didn’t (Length). The parameters that didn’t keep their units became text parameters. Looks like Autodesk will need to sync the unit types between Inventor and Revit before being able to make the part to remain parametric.

3. The Good News: After exporting to .adsk file all connectors will come across to Revit MEP and the users can use them to connect pipes and ducts
The Bad News: You can export parameters such as Voltage, Load, Pipe Diameter. They will be in the properties and the users may start manipulating them, but they don’t really affect the geometry and the connector data.

4. The Bad News: You can explode these “bad” guys.

The Good News: You can only explode them in Family Editor environment

5. The Good News: You can scale .adsk files from properties just like you can DWG files
The Bad News: When you do that it only scales the geometry. The connectors are left behind. Look at the image bellow. Notice that the connector is hosted on a separate geometry (box). You can scale that but the connector still doesn’t follow.

1. The Problem: The family that worked for Revit after installing the fix didn’t work for ACAD MEP. This is the message that you get when importing it.

The Solution: We don’t have one!


No matter what you choose, you get the following:

I hope this is helpful to all.

- Paul Hristov and Sachlene Singh, Ideate Inc