Its not a secret trick, nor is it a bug, and also not version dependent. There is a license setting which controls this option. I cannot explain why LouisD has it set. I would still like to hear more about why there is a need to export a CAD model which was previously imported.
"I've needed (IGES Part CAD output) because my organization doesn't have effective configuration management for our customer's cad data."
Similar to what ArkansasBeeper said. We don't have the original CAD as our engineering department is organized by customer/client and each group has their own methods of madness for controlling the CAD files. Current products haven't been changed in 15+ years. Add employee turnover. Voila, we don't have the native cad. But there it is, clear as day, in our locked-down production-validated routines.
I apologize, I was not trying to be sarcastic. I was just trying to clarify some perceived misconceptions and I failed at that. It is somewhere between "secret" and "marketed and publicized". It is a feature which was not intended for widespread usage, so maybe that falls closer to secret than I was trying to indicate.
I just tested with 2023.1 on my own system and it is present there as well. And when it is enabled, it is not tied to an IGES reference in the license.
As for the help file, you can see the Part Model export section, the one we are discussing here, does not include IGES. The PointCloud section includes an IGES option, but that is altogether different.
I honestly don't recall. I just remember that about 20+ years ago when it was removed, I was one of the ones that complained. This is not the only instance where a function was piggybacked onto another (entirely unrelated) license option. The reason is that for little used capabilities, it is not worth the exercise of going through and adding more license options. Someone would have to reverse engineer the options to figure out which this is tied to.
I honestly don't recall. I just remember that about 20+ years ago when it was removed, I was one of the ones that complained. This is not the only instance where a function was piggybacked onto another (entirely unrelated) license option. The reason is that for little used capabilities, it is not worth the exercise of going through and adding more license options. Someone would have to reverse engineer the options to figure out which this is tied to.
