To Promote AutoCAD Drawing Dimensions to a Sketch

When you import AutoCAD data into a drawing, dimensions are placed on the drawing sheet as drawing dimensions. The geometry is placed on a sketch associated to a draft view. You can promote the dimensions to the sketch and use them to control the size of the geometry parametrically.

1. Click File Open.
2. Select an AutoCAD file and click Open.
3. Click Options and select Next.
4. In the Layers and Objects Import Options dialog box, select Next.
5. In the Import Destination dialog box, select Promote Dimensions to Sketch.

You can also promote the dimensions to sketch dimensions after importing an AutoCAD file.

1. Select the dimensions to promote.
2. Right-click and select Promote to Sketch from the menu.

After a dimension is promoted, it behaves the same way as any sketch dimension. You can edit it or change its format and display.

Note on opening DWG files

If you do not require AutoCAD objects translated into Inventor objects, you can directly open any AutoCAD DWG (.dwg) file in Inventor. You can then view, plot, and measure the file contents. Objects display exactly as they do in AutoCAD. In addition, all the AutoCAD data is selectable for copy and paste. You can open an AutoCAD DWG file in Inventor, and then copy and paste AutoCAD entities into any Inventor sketch.

AutoCAD dimensions enter as AutoCAD dimensions. In Inventor, they can be viewed and plotted.

Note: You can use the dimension command to measure AutoCAD objects in Inventor. AutoCAD dimensions in Inventor are not associative and any changes made to an AutoCAD dimension in Inventor are not updated in the corresponding file in AutoCAD file.