Before you can create a nesting study for a model, you need to extract its appropriate CAD files (such as a series of .DXF files, or an .IAM, or .IPT file) into shapes that can be used for nesting.
This feature supported as of the 2019.2.1 Update.
In some cases, before you extract an assembly, you might want to specify that parts of it be excluded from nesting; for example, if those parts have already been purchased or manufactured. You can set this up in two ways in Inventor. You must do this before extracting the files with Nesting Utility.
Items marked as excluded will not be extracted for nesting in Nesting Utility. Sub-assemblies or parts inherit the exclude property of their major assembly.
No Items Marked as Excluded | "middle.iam" Marked as Excluded | "top.iam" Marked as Excluded |
---|---|---|
All parts of the assembly will be nested | middle.iam and the part it contains, bottom.ipt, will be excluded from the nest. | All items in the assembly will be excluded from the nest. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The Sources dialog box opens.
Autodesk recommends leaving this selected.
It is possible for a DXF file not to have had a unit value defined for it in the source application. In this case, Inventor Nesting assigns it the default unit setting of the current document. To change this setting, select a value from the drop-down box in the Unit Rule column. (This is not editable for IPT or IAM files.)
You can also do this later in the Source Nesting Properties dialog box.
A configuration file is a customizable set of instructions on how to extract files. For example, it can define that the fifth layer of a DXF file contains geometry that should be excluded from the nest. Normally you should not have to switch configuration files. You can set a default configuration file in the Extract tab of the Options dialog box.
The shapes are extracted and listed in the Inventor Nesting browser and shown in the application window. They also remain listed in the Sources dialog box whenever you reopen it.
Should you make changes to any of the referenced CAD files, you will need to reopen the Sources dialog box and extract them again. Files that need to be extracted again are indicated by an icon
in the
Inventor Nesting browser.