Saving Fusion 360 Files Directly to Inventor

As Autodesk Fusion 360 becomes a more popular design platform the ability to transfer files directly from Fusion 360 to Autodesk Inventor will be necessary.  Currently inside the Fusion 360 application you can only export files to a CAD neutral format.

These, of course, can be used in most any version of Inventor.  There is a way to export both Fusion 360 assemblies and parts directly in to Inventor.  This is done from your Autodesk A360 project where your Fusion 360 files are stored.  Select the file you are going to export and select the export icon.  From the dropdown select Inventor 2014.  If you are currently using an earlier version of Inventor, you should stop here and use one of the CAD neutral formats.

 

Once selected you will receive a message regarding the creation and delivery of the file(s).  If the file selected is a Fusion 360 assembly, you will received a zip file in the email containing the assembly IAM file and all the related IPT parts.  If the file is a single part, it will be emailed as an IPT.

 

After receiving the email and downloading the attached files you will have to unzip them if it was an assembly or save the part to your Inventor project workspace.  Once open in Inventor, the assembly had many of the characteristics of a CAD neutral format.  The assembly parts are not constrained and they are dumb solids if they are edited.  If you are using Inventor 2016 or 2017 you do have a vast array of commands to edit solids so it is not that bad to make simple edits.

 

 

 

Just another way to interface between the two applications.