Last week I brought you the AutoCAD releases and how to tell which version a file is for the program. This week we will look at Inventor files and the same information. Typically a majority of users create an email string of questions asking which version the program is. This is because like an extremely large majority of 3D modelers, the files are not intelligently backwards compatible and require native export and import to work in an older version of the software.
Here is a current list of the Inventor release versions. Inventor has a history that predates this back to 1995-ish, but these are the official releases.
- Inventor R1 "Mustang" 9/20/99
- Inventor R2 "Thunderbird" 3/1/00
- Inventor R3 "Camaro" 8/1/00
- Inventor R4 "Corvette" 12/1/00
- Inventor R5 "Durango" 9/17/01
- Inventor R5.3 "Prowler" 1/30/02
- Inventor R6 "Viper" 10/15/02
- Inventor R7 "Wrangler" 4/18/03
- Inventor R8 "Cherokee" 10/15/03
- Inventor R9 "Crossfire" 7/15/04
- Inventor R10 "Freestyle" 4/6/05
- Inventor R11 "Faraday" 4/6/06
- Inventor 2008 (R12) "Goddard" 4/11/07
- Inventor 2009 (R13) "Tesla" 4/16/08
If an older version such as 2008 tries to open a 2009 file, the software will throw an error "database scheme is newer than expected". New users of Inventor sometimes balk at this and scratch their heads since AutoCAD has been able to do this without problem. The difference becomes the great power of the 3D modeling commands and their parametric nature inside Inventor. Imagine a new command called "widget generator" is included in the new version of the software. A lot of programming went into this command that does not exist in the older version.
Q: So how can we possibly open it?
A: The user of the newer release must save it as an IGES, STEP (preferred), SAT, or other native export. The user of the older release can then open it and get a base solid without a feature tree but can see and use the part in assemblies. Feature Recognition from the Autodesk Labs website can actually allow the base solid to have recognizable features such as extrusions, fillets, revolves, etc.
Q: How do we check before trying to open it?
A: In Windows Explorer, right mouse button on the Inventor file and select iProperties. On the Details tab of this window, you will see a section that includes Version history through saves, creation build release, and last saved by release if it was migrated up and if it currently needs a manual migration.
Until next time, may your mouse zoom in the right direction.
