obj or 3ds conversion to solidworks files

You could use File -> Open... command in SW 2007.

-h-

Very amusing I use 2006 , is 2007 available? If so why is my reseller not letting me know?

Heikki Leivo wrote:

Mo,

You will need to have SolidWorks Office Premium to open the 3dstudio file in SolidWorks 2007. It is part of a new add-in called ScanTo3D that is only available to those with license of Solidworks Office Premium.

SW2007 is in Pre-Release currently and is available for download to all subscription service customers. I would look for FCS (First Customer Ship, which is SP0.0) towards the fall sometime. I haven't heard any exact dates yet.

Best Regards,

Ricky Jordan Dynetics, Inc. Huntsville, AL

Check out my blog at:

mo wrote:

You are all making it more complicated than it has to be. Just save it as a netural format

ie IGES, ACIS, STEP, Parasolid.

I would NOT recommend using STL or VRML because they are not as good at translating back into SW. The information that you are using these for is different than what you need it for in SW. The reason why you couldn't do anything once you imported these formats was because you had them coming in as "graphics bodies" adjust the options and you can bring it in as surface or solids. but onces again I would NOT use these to work with.

I have never used 3dstudio, but according to everything I have heard about the files, they are mesh or polygon based files. In order to bring them in to SolidWorks as "workable" solids or surfaces thru neutral format, they will need to be converted to an actual "polysurface" format as opposed to a mesh.

Per O Hoel explains this a whole lot better than I do in this thread:

I was making the assumption that mesh data was the only option available to Mo based on what was posted. You are definitely right in that if there is a way he can get the data in true neutral format, that is the best route.

With previous versions of SolidWorks, yes, STL or VRML files were a pain to work with. You couldn't snap to any vertexes or edges of the data unless you swapped the graphics body option for solids or surfaces. Then you get thousands of little face triangles which make the file PAINFULLY slow! The nice thing about ScanTo3D is that the mesh data is pretty lightweight AND you can actually snap sketch entities to the mesh vertexes.

For my purposes, ScanTo3D has helped on projects where I am trying to match surface data of a design to an existing object. I will try to post a review on ScanTo3D on my blog in the coming weeks. For a "first release" I am very impressed thus far with it's features. It has already saved me some significant time on a project I worked on a few weeks back.

Best Regards,

Ricky Jordan CSWP Dynetics, Inc.

Check out my blog at:

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

You are all making it more complicated than it has to be. Just save it as a netural format

ie IGES, ACIS, STEP, Parasolid.

I would NOT recommend using STL or VRML because they are not as good at translating back into SW. The information that you are using these for is different than what you need it for in SW. The reason why you couldn't do anything once you imported these formats was because you had them coming in as "graphics bodies" adjust the options and you can bring it in as surface or solids. but onces again I would NOT use these to work with.

Well *YOU* are making it simpler than it *IS* ;-)

3DS cannot save to ACIS, STEP or Parasolid. It does have an IGES export, but it is not at all compatible with the SW IGES import. Anything with more than a few polygons will break.

There is a reason for this: 3DS is a polygonal based subdivision modeller. From a technical standpoint this is a totally different approach than SW. 3DS has no concept of bodies or solids, nor of bounding surfaces etc. All it knows is polygonal meshes (well you can define a nurbs surface, but it gets triangulated when exported anyway...)

So, with STEP, ACIS or Parasolid not available, and IGES badly broken, there is only STL left.

Try to keep the polygon count down, and have the polys define closed volumes. If you get the STL import to form solids in SW you can use the part as a prop, but not as something to modify further.

Graphic bodies are not very useful, totally uneditable (cant even scale!) and they suck performance wise. Maybe they have improved this for 2007 to be able to bring in scanned parts...

/C

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com skrev:

Actually Chebaba, if *YOU* knew it all then there would be no reason for any of us to do anything else but listen to you, but since you don't Lets start with this shall we....

There is a way to get from 3DS to the above mentioned formats that would make the transition that easy. I have done it for quite sometime now. Check the link below and see for yourself. Then come back to me and tell me what is and isn't possible. If only just to get the ACIS format.

http://www.ok> Well *YOU* are making it simpler than it *IS* ;-)