Is it possible to export the actual mesh used to display the model in the viewport? Yes, I know you can export it as an STL and it's options but you don't know how it's going to triangulate the model until you've imported the STL into another program and viewed it there. Is there a way to just say "make it just like the viewport" so you can get it to the way you'd like it (lowest res without it turning to crap for example) and export as is?
Come to think of it you even have the option to "Save tessellation with part document". So how do I access that tessellation?
You can do everything you want with macros. Check here for one that exports tesselation in "OBJ" format :
As far as I know, the STL export will simply dump the triangulated model to file "just like the viewport". You can actually show the tessellated model in SW viewport by using the following macro:
Sub main() Dim swApp As SldWorks.SldWorks Set swApp = Application.SldWorks Dim m As SldWorks.ModelDoc2 Set m = swApp.ActiveDoc If m Is Nothing Then Exit Sub m.ViewDisplayFaceted End Sub
It does not, however, seem to work in SW 2008, what a pity!
-h-
Sorry, Philippe, I did not realize someone could ask money for a such macro ;o)
-h-
Hah, hah. That's cute. Figuring out the quirks of Solidworks' STL exporter isn't rocket science but it is tedious. BTW if you're charging for what amounts to a tip I don't think you'll get many takers.
That seems to be the case (still importing the 700,000 poly mesh so we'll see). Although it wasn't what I was looking for thank you very much for the effort of providing the macro. I guess the part I'm most frustrated with is the STL exporter in general. It seems to roll the dice a lot if you know what I mean. You can have two identical features and they'll come out triagulated differently- on the same part. The only way to minimize this is to export the highest detail possible but then you get a zillion needle-thin polys that renderers HATE because as soon as you start playing with ratios and angles it's gap city. And then there's the triangulation of the mesh in the display itself. If you go to the lower resolutions it becomes most noticable but it's as if every surface (not surface body but the surface "faces" making up the solid bodies) is completely unaware of it's adjacent faces. For instance the trangulation of the chamfer on a cylinder might be clocked differently than the cylindrical surface and end caps so you end up with gaps. WTF? Why isn't the thing smart enough to know that if you split the cylinder into 24 segments you DON'T split the chamfer into 27? Or that "hey, it might be a - now I know this is radical- but it might be a good idea if the points line up". End of rant.
The API does allow for a little more control over tesselations, it even provides a TesselationQuality parameter(!)... but unfortunately getting what you want probably is the sort of thing you're going to have to pay for - it's definitely NOT a one-line macro. If you want the sort of tesselations useful for FEA or what-have-you, you'd most likely have to take control of ratios etc, and generate your own. The problem is SW's tesselation algorithms are purely geared towards display, as far as I can tell, and are speedy, but that's about it - hence different touching features/faces tesselate differently.
oops (blush), I wasn't aware of ViewDisplayFaceted ... was thinking about doing the same by drawing the mesh either in OpenGL or in a 3d sketch... Sorry. Will find a better way to make some money, one day ;-)
BTW, it does work on SW2008.
:-D That came into my mind, too. Btw, have you been able to draw OpenGL into SW viewport? I've been playing with OpenGL some years ago, I even wrote a SolidWorks screen saver which put your SW models flying on the screen. It would be nice to see a sample project - I have an interesting idea I could share.
How did you do it? I did not succeed, I thought it was RealView issue or something.
-h-
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