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Convert of MDT Drawings in SW2010 64 Bit

Question asked by James Imes on Apr 19, 2012
Latest reply on Jun 29, 2012 by Elton Smith

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Used to open MDT drawings in SolidWorks as long as MDT install was on board so SW could use the MDT Engine.

It was SolidWorks 07 / 08 with MDT6 / 7 installs running on 32 bit XP machine & you'd open file in SolidWorks &

it would prompt for convert & allow you to select model or drawing & then using the MDT engine, SolidWorks

would go feature x feature & bring in a smart, feature based model. That was then

This is now, SolidWorks 2010 running on Win 7 64 Bit & MDT9 64 Bit compliant AutoDesk product. You open file,

set file type to DWG & it "sees" the DeskTop based legacy DWG file. You select model & say finish & it starts in

but never gets past the first feature & hangs.

If anyone out there has figured out what setting or trick that may be used or changed to get it to finish the convert

process, it would be greatly appreciated if you might share your knowledge.

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Elton Smith Jun 26, 2012 2:58 PM
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Hi James,
Wondering if you ever found an answer to this. I've recently ran into a prospective customer looking to do this very thing. Unfortunately I do not have access to MDT so I can't run any tests.
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- James Imes @ Elton Smith on Jun 26, 2012 4:16 PM
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  Hi Elton, never found reasons for MDT9 snagging up as both SW & AutoDesk seemd to point in the oppopsite directions, but did find that Inventor seems to make a fair bridge. Open MDT files in Inventor, save as Inventor format, then open in SolidWorks set for IPT file. We have that working from Inventor 2012 Suite to SolidWorks 2010 sp 3 (I believe). We had to buy the suite to get MDT9
  
  Works at high level of accuaracy for parts & small assemblies & yields smart, feature based models that are eidtable in SolidWorks. Have seen a couple failures & the weakness seems to be if the MDT part had a "combined" toolbody where a merge of 2 solids yielded a single part in MDT. That occurance has been infrequent as we don't seem to have many of those that had that MDT process used.
  
  Good luck & if you need to test some small files to verify, w/ be glad to accomodate.
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  - Elton Smith @ James Imes on Jun 27, 2012 11:07 AM
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    Thanks James, I appreciate the feedback and offer. My question is in regards to a sales opportunity to replace MDT with SolidWorks. The real catch here is need vs. want of feature history. It sounds like, in your environment this is not an option. From what I can see import 3D DWG as parts and assemblies without MDT (dumb solids) seems to work reliably. I just got off the phone with one of our product definition specialist internally at SolidWorks regarding this matter. I'll let you know what information I get.
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    - James Imes @ Elton Smith on Jun 27, 2012 11:46 AM
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      We are just after a full feature based, smart model so it is easily editable in SolidWorks post conversion. We havn't fretted to much over the feature's history back up the rev chain so if this is concern, I'm not sure how you'd do that as the conversions can only capture the present state of the features.
      
      Good luck to you Elton & post if there's anything further I can help you with.
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      - Elton Smith @ James Imes on Jun 28, 2012 3:08 PM
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        I've been able to get ExchangeWorks to run on Win 7 X86 using MDT 2009 and SolidWorks 2012 (this is in a virutal environment). However it seems to get caught up when dealing with DWG files that have all the parts and sub-assemblies stored inside one master DWG (not extenral). If translating one part at a time with features, it seems to be ok. Both MDT & SolidWorks will crash on a regular basis. Not sure if this is due to VM environment exclusively but I have a feeling this has an impact. Also, MDT keeps barking about CUI files not being found and recently keeps asking me to either hide or show ALL toolbars. What a mess...
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        James Imes @ Elton Smith on Jun 28, 2012 3:53 PM
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        Thanks Elton for update !! Appreciate your sharing the trials of another approach. I thought it best to try & run on physical machine w/ all the interaction between the programs vs VM world.
        
        When we originally thought we could do as in the past, open in SolidWorks & it would fetch the MDT engine for the convert, we were dismayed when it snagged up early in the convert process. Some though it was prob's in DLL's & others seem to think that it was Win7 was a control hungry op sys that was culprit.
        
        When we started playing w/ Inventor instead (ver '12) & saving legacy MDT out as Inventor format, no one thought SolidWorks 2010 would open them as there's 2 years disparity between the 2 programs. Luckily, maybe, Dev Eng's & programmers seem concerned mostly w/ reverse compatability of thier own product & maybe that left the window open, as I can't believe it was intentional capability someone wrote into the sftwr.
        
        Do appreciate you sharing trials of other approaches !!
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        Elton Smith @ James Imes on Jun 29, 2012 10:42 AM
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        I think the VM environenment is one main cause of the software instabilities (no support for OpenGL). Hopefuly I'll get a chance to test this in a supported environment.
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Convert of MDT Drawings in SW2010 64 Bit

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