Editing imported STEP models for a complete newb

[jordanyte]

Hi All,

I just acquired Alibre Expert last night. It's been given a good wrap by a lot of my own customers in the electronics industry (in the interests of full-disclosure, I am employed by Altium but I purchased Alibre for personal use).

Most of the work I do is electronics design (including PCB design) and for that I use a lot of STEP models to do mechanical constraint checking for the electronics assemblies. But I also want as close as possible to photorealistic renders of the PCBs before I get them fabricated and assembled (a picture is worth a thousand words).

So.... my first newb question is, how do I add color/material information to a model I've imported from STEP? STEP AP214 models I use/download usually include colors but not always. For component models I will create myself it won't matter because they'll first be native Alibre models - then exported to STEP for the PCB layout.

I know a lot of my own customers are probably in here (Altium users) - help me out guys!

Regards to all,
Ben Jordan.

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Ben,

Spend the $$$ to print out the user's guide (it cost me about $40 a couple of months back to do so printed double-sided and punched for a 3-ring notebook). The index is reasonably good and you can find most things pretty quickly. My main "issue" with it (and with "modern" CAD) is the misuse of terms -- "lofting" being applied to "directrix-controlled extrusion" operations, calling everything "parametric" even when it is not, and the like. But then I am an old phart -- my first microcomputer was a 4-bit, discrete component, RTL processor running at a screaming 16 kHz.

 

[Hop]

You may have to wait for V2011 to color those STEP models. So, make sure you have purchased at least a year of maintenance to qualify for the "free" upgrade. Max has posted a link at this topic http://www.alibre.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11609 to a glossy brochure that describes the new features in V2011.

You can purchase for about $50 a printed (looks like perfect-bound) copy of the User's Guide from Alibre here http://www.alibre.com/store/c-3-training.aspx. You can also download a free PDF copy from Alibre and have a job-printing shop print it for you, hopefully in color at a reasonable cost. That way you can 3-ring hole punch it, spiral-bound punch it, or massively staple all the pages together however you prefer. Or set up a second monitor next to your working monitor and display pages from the PDF file on that.

I would have liked to duplex color print my copy of the User's Guide and place the pages in glassine envelopes for 3-ring binder storage. Unfortunately, that takes up a lot of bookshelf space, requires more than one binder, and lots of glassine envelopes. So, I just spiral-punched the copy that I had duplex color printed. It makes a book almost an inch thick, but at least I can hold it in my lap while sitting in front of my C. Plus it features almost instant "random access" to content and accepts Post-It notes and margin annotations.

It must be nice to have access to Altium. If I want to do a PCB design, I have to use some lame software purchased from a company that went out of business five or six years ago. Where the heck is all the open-source free software for this kind of thing? Anybody at SourceForge listening?

Hop

 

[jordanyte]

Hi Lew/Hop,

Thanks for the tips. Hop - I'm confused. The sale deal I responded to was emailed to me by Michael Dalrymple:

Alibre Design Personal Edition 12.1
FREE video training (13 hours)
$99

OR

Alibre Design Expert 12.1
$400 off list price
FREE upgrade to Alibre Design 2011
FREE video training (13 hours)
$1199 - $400 = $799

I don't see anything about maintenance anywhere. I expect to get A.D. 2011, and if that's the version that will support color export of STEP (implying the current one doesn't) then I need that version when it comes, so if there's maintenance required I'll have to discuss this further with Michael. Could someone from Alibre clarify this for me? Otherwise I might ask for my money back and wait until 2011 comes out and purchase it then... though I was hoping to get up the learning curve earlier than that.

I work normally with two or three monitors anyway so I guess I'll just roll with the PDF manual. That way it's always the latest version anyway.

Thanks all,
Ben.

 

[MikeHenry]

Ben,

According to the offer from Michael that you copied in your reply, the copy of AD Expert 12.1 will be upgraded to AD Expert 2011 at no cost. It looks to me like you should be good to as soon as AD 2011 is released and assuming that it has the features you want, but that are missing from AD Expert 12.1. If so, there's really no point in returning AD 12.1 for a refund. The type of deal you got is often offered on occasion and there's no guarantee that you would be able to get the $400 discount when AD 2011 is released.

Mike

 

[Hop]

Ben,

Michael Dalrymple is (IMHO) one of Alibre's best sales represensatives. It is he who has always sold to me Alibre licenses and upgrades, training, maintenance, etc. I think Alibre provides a considerable amount of leeway in what Michael can offer you. It sounds to me like you got a pretty nice deal from him. If he says the upgrade to V2011 Expert is included in your license for V12.1 Expert, Alibre will stand behind him on that and any other "goodies" he has thrown into the deal, like the "free" video training and the $400 discount. So, welcome to the Alibre community and this Forum.

I envy your multiple monitor capability. I need to upgrade my NVIDIA card to take advantage of today's el-cheapo prices for wide-screen, high-resolution, LCD monitors. Two or more monitors is definitely the way to go. I think there are active links in the Alibre User Guide PDF which will make it easier to navigate the manual on-screen. As for "That way it's always the latest version..." well, take that with a grain of salt. Alibre can sometimes be slow in getting the latest version posted for download. The on-line help that comes with the Alibre install is pretty good, and (probably) up to date with whatever version you have installed.

I don't know whether V12.1 supports the coloring you want to do on STEP imports/exports, but the glossy brochure says that V2011 does support this, implying that this is a new, or at least improved, feature. I am sure someone here in this Forum can clarify this issue for you, if you can't find it in the User's Guide, which may be why Lew_Merrick suggested you print out the User's Guide.

Hop

 

[jordanyte]

Thanks everyone for the welcome and your replies.

I do feel pretty good about the deal I got. Alibre is already outstanding value as it is anyway.

I am working through the tutorials and already feel like I could do a lot of useful model building.

I am running on a Core I7 920, 12GB Ram, ATI Radeon 4890 1GB GDDR3 at home, and a Dell T3500 (quad Xeon, 12GB, dual nVidia GeForce GTS 250 cards with SLI) at work - this is a pleasure to drive. Alibre doesn't require this much grunt, but Altium Designer can really use it as well (with 3D PCB stuff, FPGA stuff - it's all nicer with good hardware under it).

I also use a 3DConnexion Space Navigator. If you don't have one of those, they are worth the $99 investment - it's like getting your first car - once you've had it you never want to walk again.

 

[Max]

If your only concern is rendering you can ignore coloring in Alibre Design.

Make sure you have KeyShot 2 installed (the rendering app).

Open the STEP file in AD, go to File > Export > *.BIP (the last one on the list). Open the BIP file in KeyShot. Here is where you can apply rendering materials.
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The easiest way to color an entire part in AD is to simply right click on it and go to Color Properties -> pick the color you want.

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If you have a single part that needs to have multiple colors, there is no way to do this for imported files. Our coloring allows you to color an entire part, or a feature. If you are using imported items, you will be limited to coloring the entire part at a time. AD 2011 will not change this (but you will be able to import models that already have multi-color data and export them back out as a STEP that retains the color data.) The only solution is to manually remake particular areas of the part that needs a separate color with native AD features and then color those features. 2011 STEP export will support Alibre feature colors.

Alibre Design cannot currently export face colors in STEP (but can export part-wide colors), but will be able to when 2011 ships. However, the version of KeyShot you have does not import STEP files. It only reads BIP formats. As of AD 2011, the BIP exporter will not support feature colors. It is planned for 2011r1 which will be out most likely before years end.


Max

 

[v8dave]

Hi Ben, Altium user here and using Alibre based on posts on the Altium forum too.

Max has the best idea for you. It will take a bit of work to create the model in Keyshot but the end results will be worth it.

In my own opinion, Keyshot needs a better way to to select the parts to allow adding texture and colour. The current method is a bit hit and miss and you need to keep changing the camera angle to get in close to select parts of the model.

As Altium outputs each part on the PCB as an Alibre part you should be able to change their colour in Keyhot but be aware that things like connectors, which are generally step models you imported into Altium will be all one part, the application of colour will apply to the complete part, pins included. Only where Altium parts are made up of different CAD parts as an assembly will you be able to make different colours apply in Keyshot. For instance, I had a USB connector exported from Altium and applying colour to it made the complete USB connector that one colour. The pins, the plastic part etc.

This will also happen with IC's. You generally won't be able to make colour changes to the body and the IC legs etc unless they are seperate parts. Hope this makes sense?

Good luck though as the end results look pretty good. Good enough for me to present the idea to the client.

Dave...
PS.. Alibre alone for CAD has been superb with Altium for me. I can design enclosures and then import into AD and create the PCB. Now my one off or small run projects fit and work first time without making modifications to cutouts etc.