Reorienting the Inventor UCS to facilitate creating content (ADSK, et. al.) for ACAD, Revit & other AEC applications

How to reorient Inventor's UCS to optimize the Inventor work environment for content creation (ADSK, et. al.),for consumption by ACAD, Revit, Civil 3D and other AEC applications

You know when you open Inventor, intending to create content for AutoCAD or Revit, you find that what is “up” in Inventor, is not the same “up” (normal to the xy plane) direction that is in Revit or ACAD, and thus you find content from Inventor comes in on its side or end. And even though you can reset the UCS the AEC Content Exchange Environment when exporting to ADSK format , why repeat that process file after file when you can just fix the asymmetric UCS problem once and for all in Inventor - saving that fix as a permanent, appropriately named template file? Here’s how you get from the image on the left, to the image on the right:

Starting UCS                   Reoriented UCS (optimized for ACAD & Revit content)

1.       Start a new ipt file in Inventor.

2.       Finish/close out of the sketch.

3.       Use the View Cube to rotate to the Bottom view (click on the Bottom arrow as shown).

4.       The cube should now appear so that the word “Bottom” appears upside down on the face of the cube.

5.       Without making any further adjustments, right click on the View Cube and select “Set Current View as Front”

6.       Now the Z axis is set correctly to create content that will come into Revit or ACAD environments correctly.

7.       To reassign your home view, spin the View Cube so that the Top side is oriented as you desire.       

I like mine so that Y points to the upper left, X points to the upper right, and Z is straight up.

8.       Then right click on the Home icon next to the View Cube and select “Set Current View as Home” and the “Fit to View” flyout.

9.       Now you can save this file as a template file using whatever name you want to remember it by. I used “Standard Revit or ACAD Content UCS.ipt” or you can name it “ADSK.ipt.”

10.   Finally, open Sketch1 in the Project Browser and verify that the sketch plane now is oriented/coplanar with the xy plane as needed to create content that will import as expected into ACAD or Revit environments.

I have attached a completed template file "AEC Content Creation.ipt", if you would rather just download it to your template file folder location.