The FIF file standard was created by Eaton Leonard and is used by the Eaton Leonard Vector measuring center and CNC tube bending machines.

Because of the widespread use of Eaton Leonard equipment over the last 40 years, the FIF format is available for use by a high number of fabricators in the industry.

FIF is a file standard created by Eaton Leonard to allow transfer of data into and out of Eaton Leonard bender and measuring center controls. A few well-known CAD programs can also create FIF files for data transfer to measuring centers and other bending machines. For example, Pro/ENGINEER and CATIA are well-known programs that can create these files from your tube shapes defined in these packages.

How Are FIF Files Used?

• They are designed specifically for containing information about tube shapes. For example, the file contains centerline XYZ coordinates, bend radii, bend data, part name, tube diameter, bender speeds, tooling setups, and more.
  
  
• FIF files provide a way to transfer data from your Eaton Leonard equipment to non-Eaton Leonard equipment - and back. For example, you can transfer data from an Eaton Leonard measuring center to ROMER measuring centers and back.
  
  
• Each FIF file can hold multiple parts: hundreds or even thousands. FIF Translator takes advantage of this multiple-part capability. For example, you can select 100 Supravision files for transfer into a single FIF file. So FIF files are used to transfer whole groups or systems of data in large files.
  
  
• FIF files are most commonly used in the aerospace industry to transfer data between internal bending cells and to share data with external suppliers.
  
  
• Many tube fabricators use FIF files as the master files on a network server at some other location than the tube measuring center. The data is created by Pro/ENGINEER or CATIA. When the new part is ordered for fabrication, operators often load FIF files from this server directly into a computer on the shop floor.
  
  
• Operators often use the FIF data as setup data for their bending machines. The data is sent through cable connections to the bender using Benderlink software. This provides initial setup information without key-entry.