In the construction environment, you analyze the quality of imported data and repair surfaces or solids for use in part modeling.
You can import data from other CAD systems in Inventor. Usually the files can open as solid bodies in the part environment. When surfaces and wireframe are imported, they are either automatically stitched into quilts or placed in the construction environment.
After data is repaired, you can use the Copy Object command to move the data to the part environment, where it behaves like native Inventor data.
When data is imported into the construction environment, a Construction folder is created where wireframe and surfaces are placed. These surfaces may not have come from a single body in the sending system. In the construction environment, you can stitch surfaces into a single body, making it easier to manage large numbers of surfaces. Errors that can occur during translation include:
These errors can be detected and repaired using specialized tools found in the construction environment. Quality Check checks for errors in topology, geometry, and modeling. The damaged data is highlighted and, where possible, a repair is suggested. Use the Refit option to select and repair problem faces by attempting to refit them, and by selecting or entering a maximum allowable tolerance between faces.
You can stitch and unstitch surfaces, reverse the normal direction, extend a face, and break or trim intersecting faces, all non-parametrically, while in the construction environment. Use Stitch and Copy Object to move selected surfaces or solid bodies to the part environment.
Base features in the part environment can also be copied to the construction environment and stitched. A feature copied to the construction environment has the same group name as the base feature name in the part environment.
Data in the Construction folder can be placed in a default group or sorted into many different groups. The system automatically generates subfolders for the data types in a group, such as solids, surfaces, and wireframe. If IGES or STEP data does not have a layer or group attribute, the data is placed in the default group.
Construction environment bodies, such as solids, surfaces, and quilts, can have appearances. It is common for faces to have colors in the original source file. The same colors are applied to the faces in Inventor, and remain after translation. If all the faces are in a single collection, feature or group, then the feature has the color, and the face appearance overrides are removed.
Use multiple groups to segregate data for repairs and management. For example, you can require good quality surfaces to generate numeric control paths for producing molds, but you may not need wireframe or solid data. You can analyze the data in the surfaces group, and repair only the necessary surfaces, and then delete the wires subgroup to remove wire data.
You can promote the segregated data to the part environment. Surfaces are listed individually or as a quilt in the Part browser.
When you import data, you can specify a group name for the data, or you can add a prefix to a group name. For example, if an IGES file has levels, you can change the prefix to the file name. Each layer name is appended to the file name in the browser. If the prefix in the dialog box is set to Change-A, and the file includes two levels Layer1 and Layer2, the result is two groups, named Change-A Layer1 and Change-A Layer2. This technique is useful when you import an IGES or STEP file into a part with only minor changes.
To avoid clutter when a large file is translated, you can click the filter icon on the browser bar and hide subgroups by data type. Or, you can show subgroups that revealed diagnostics data after a quality check.
In the browser, a group’s status is identified by an icon: