Sketchup to Autodesk Inventor

SketchUp
1

I am exporting parts created in Sketchup to Autodesk Inventor. The smoothest process I’ve come up with thus far is to export a DXF file, import into Inventor and employ the Inventor Stich tool to clean it up.

For the most part it works quite well except for extra hidden geometry I get on some surfaces (In the photo below I have highlighted an example, the blue wedge in the middle)

hidden geometry
hidden geometry1563×1104 102 KB

It doesn’t show up as hidden geometry in Sketchup so I don’t know what it represents. In terms of the model it doesn’t effect much, but when I choose tool-paths in CAM software (CNC manufacturing processes) it throws things off and creates false tool-paths.

If anybody has any experience with .skp to .ipt files I’d love to hear any tips you may have.

Thanks
David

2

can yo add that skp file, and I see if I remember the steps I used in the past…

john

3

mid top.skp (134.7 KB)

4

I was grouping more like this, but no longer have access to test/confirm…

mid top_jcb.skp (157.3 KB)
john

5

About the same result it seems. Photo of the model below

mid top jcp
mid top jcp1616×1133 98.8 KB

So is the thinking to create a division between the geometric “zones” for lack of a better term?

6

for some items I use to fully triangulate, manually and/or with an extension, so both softwares had the same geometry…

7

OK interesting. I’ll look at some extensions.

Thanks John appreciate it

8

Thom Thom has extensions that take care of hidden geometries and all kinds of other good tweaks.

9

I understand that Inventor triangulates all imported DWG polyface meshes so basically nothing you can do inside SketchUp is of any help. What could be tried is importing into an application like Rhino that can convert meshes to NURBS surfaces and exporting from there in a format that Inventor can read.