Inventor to Unreal Studio - Complex Assemblies

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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1

Hi all. My day job is a draftsman, and I am wondering if anyone has any method for importing an Inventor assembly file that has nested sub-assemblies in it? I have had great success importing a single assembly file made up of just parts, but trying to import anything with an additional subassembly imports with no geometry data. (only a datasmith import file is created)

I can change my drafting method to keep everything in a single assembly, but if there is a way to avoid it either now or in the near future, I would obviously rather keep my current method for cleanliness.

Thanks for any insight.

2

I think that is a bug. Report Unreal Studio bugs here: https://unrealstudiohelp.epicgames.com/s/article/How-do-I-report-a-bug

3

Thanks very much for the reply. I’ll submit a bug report asap.

4

Alright, I posted the bug report. I didn’t attach anything as our models are fairly sensitive but I can get around that if the need arises.

Just a word of note though, my license is for 2016. I’m not able to upgrade at this time due to it being an old standalone one from a long time ago. If this functionality only works on more current versions of Inventor then I can make the adjustments. If anyone is able to try with the current version of Inventor that would be great.

Steps:

  1. Create an Inventor assembly file made up of multiple assemblies.
  2. Pack and Go everything to a single location.
  3. Import the main assembly file with Datasmith to Unreal Studio.
  4. Only a Datasmith file is created in Studio, no geometry data is imported.

I haven’t found any issues importing a single assembly file seemingly regardless of part count.

5

No, this is an issue with all versions I think. Our Inventor importer is a Version 1.0, so we expect some issues as people spin up to speed on it. I thought we caught this in our Datasmith beta, but it looks like it slipped through.

6

No worries! If there is anything I can do to help, don’t hesitate. Having a bridge from Inventor to anything other than AutoCAD is fantastic to say the least. Quite excited to see where it goes.

7

Going to bump this thread instead of making a new one since it deals with Inventor.

Inventor has ways to add metadata in each part to control the part itself as well as store information relevant to each part. Easy example would be adding a part number to a specific part for production purposes. Does Datasmith have access to that information currently or maybe in the future?

Would a Python script be able to handle this type of information? I image I could do this now with some smaller products by way of a data table, or maybe actor tags, but the amount of data would make this most likely not worth it. Currently, each one of my individual parts usually has between 5-15 different types of information stored, and each assembly contains usually 50-100 unique parts, so automation would be key.

Thanks!

8

I think there are two things we’re talking about here:

  1. Part/assembly info that is stored in the hierarchy - This is often used to store part names and various info, we support this across all CAD formats we load
  2. Metadata on parts - This is something that is specific to each part and is variable in the amount and type of information provided, supporting metadata is harder than #1, so we are working our way through the importers. With the upcoming 4.20 release, you’ll have metadata support for:
  • SketchUp
  • 3ds Max
  • Rhino (possibly, working on it)
  • Solidworks (bug is blocking us, hopefully we’ll fix)
  • Inventor
  • Catia
  • NX
  • Creo

Watch for Unreal Engine 4.20 previews in June timeframe. The code should be in there and you can report your findings.

9

Thanks kenpimentel. Its definitely #2 that I have been working with recently. I’ll look forward to the next release! Thank you very much for your responses.