For mechanical modeling, the plane/view nomenclature is arbitrary IMO; however, using standard names is useful when laying out drawing views, for example.

There isn't much direction on this issue from the drawing specifications that I can find; only that according to ISO 128-30:2001, Section 4 (Technical Drawings – General Principles of Presentation – Part 30: Basic Conventions for Views) and ASME Y14.3-2003, Section 2 (Multiview and Sectional View Drawings), the front or principal view is defined as the most informative view of an object (it is mandated in ISO 128-30).

But I will also point out that although not specifically defined, all drawing view examples in both the ISO and ASME specs listed above show the projected named views (i.e., Front, Top, Right) with respect to the isometric view in the same manner as SolidWorks defaults to…

With all that being said, however, I see a couple of solutions to this you could use to get around the issue you have (the first is what I would personally use as a workaround):

1. You could insert your part/assembly into another file and orient it the way that your CAM software expects it.

2. You could rename the planes to suit your needs and then redefine all the standard views so that they make sense based on your renamed planes (this should be done in your templates…). Someone could potentially hit the reset standard views button and hose it up on a part or assembly, but shouldn't cause too big of an issue.

Thanks for your reply!
I'm working as a teacher with both SW and Inventor in an high school in Sweden. We also have FeatureCAM and CNC-machines. My problem is that I'm trying to make my students see the logic in how the model is located in the coordinate system from CAD via CAM to the machine. The surface of the table in an mill machine is allways the XY plane and therefore the same in all CAM system (to my knowledge). So when you design a part in SW or in IV with XZ as the top plane the part will be imported to the CAM system flipped 90º.
You can allways flip it back but the problem is how I should explain it to my students?

I'm unsure as to the nomenclature.

However, in the design world I have grown up and work in, the XZ plane has always been the top plane. But I know others work differently. If you're concerned with guidance or navigation, for example, the XY plane is top.