[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by MikLast

What Autodesk had at the PNW champs was just a field and 1983's robot that could drive, and they were looking for people to help with the project over the summer. I was not able to get any info, but i bet someone that went to the champs may have something.

Autodesk also had a .stl to .fbx converter, but because of bugs they said it would beta next year i think.

Sounds like maybe it's going to be a project for this year's group of high school summer interns.

Creating a STL importer isn't terribly hard - STL files already store data in polygonal format, so it's directly usable in game engines. When I've played around with CAD import in the past, the two challenges have been 1) simplifying the models enough to be usable for real time graphics and especially in physics simulations and 2) annotating the CAD model with the appropriate joints and actuating forces. Having better access to the internal data inside Inventor could possibly help with both. I've tried using the Inventor API in the past, but it's a bit clunky.