Urgent help needed - I need to view Pro/E 3d model

[johnd]

I really hope someone here can help me with this. I have a potential customer with a model drawing in Pro/E. He needs us to quote the project but we are having a heck of a time coming up with a format I can view and be able to get dimension information from. I had him convert to an IGES (.igs) file but I had to download a trial version plugin for AutoCAD to view this and it was only lines and arcs in 3D space. It had the appearance of a wireframe model but every piece of geometry was separate and it was like looking at a rat's nest :?. Can someone please help me? I am on AutoCAD 2009 and the customer has Pro/E Wildfire 2, 3 and 4.

[JD Mather]

Have the Pro/E user Save a Copy ACIS (*.sat) version 7. Autodesk products will only read up to version 7. Use the acisin command in AutoCAD.

If the Pro/E file is only a part and not an assembly you can open directly with the free Autodesk Inventor LT http://labs.autodesk.com

Otherwise you could get a free trial of the full version of Inventor and open Pro/E assemblies directly.

Final option is to post the Pro/E file in the Inventor forum and ask someone to convert it to dwg for you.

[johnd]

Thanks JD. That was the conclusion we came to (*.sat) and it worked.

We have a sister company in Kansas (we are in Tennessee) that just hired a new CAD designer fresh out of college and he is trying to talk them into buying Pro/E for him (about $6,000 or so). I'm not too sure it would be a great idea but I'm studying it further. The remainder of CAD design is done on AutoCAD 2009. He does not have any AutoCAD experience which I believe is driving his request more than anything else.