Sharing Inventor Files – Part 2 – Exporting Us

Today’s post will comprise of Part 2, in my 3-part series on using Inventor to export your models and drawings to visualization files.  In part 1 I illustrated the steps necessary to produce image files such as pdf and jpg files from Inventor using the Save Copy As, and Export commands.  Part 2 will address those users who are using Autodesk Vault with Inventor, and will illustrate how to configure Vault to successfully export your image files.

By default, the Vault is configured to automatically create visualization files in the form of .dwf. This enables users to be able to preview files in the vault before opening or editing them.  These files are automatically created when files are added to the Vault, or when modifications are made and the files are checked back into the Vault.  If you want to be able to share visualization files to team members outside of the Vault, there is a method to accomplish this.

Before you can publish visualization files outside of the Vault, you need to turn this option on, but first, you must log in to the Vault as the Administrator.  Once logged in, go to Tools>Administration>Vault Settings.

Click on the Visualization tab.  In this tab, we can Define the visualization options.

In the Visualization File Attachment Options, ensure that the Enable Visualization File Attachment Options is checked, then select either Flat List or Duplicate Vault Folder Structure and specify either a local or network directory. Click OK.

You will now be automatically publishing dwf files to the directory you specified, and they are viewable to anyone who has access to that folder.