I expect to be moving all my design work to Solidworks in the near future. However, I suspect on of the hassles will be a large library of AutoCAD 3D objects I which are not modeled as solids. Rather they are mesh objects, and in some cases individual 3d Faces. I would also like to utilize 3d objects which were originally created for animation packages like 3D Studio or Lightwave.
I've searched the newsgroups and read recommendations to convert the file to IGES or SAT files, but have some questions;
-Does 2004 have any new features regarding this?
-Is one prefered over the other? I.e. I have no idea about the data structure in these files. Does one make larger files than the other?
-I have tried to convert some of my meshes to ACIS solids using the proces of IGES export from AutoCAD, then Stitching the surfaces in Mechanical Desktop, but it does not seem to work reliably.
I also have a need to export my work to another application, which has very limited import abilities, and really can only accept meshes and 3d faces. The application is used to design lighting for theater, and is certainly going to be sensitive to the quantity of triangles, so it would be great to be able to control the mesh density of what I export from Solidworks.
-What can I expect to get out of Solidworks as far as 3d faces? -Any other 3rd party application you would recommend for doing this?
Joe Dunfee