Export File: Recommended Techniques

[ericle]

Export File: Recommended Techniques

I need to share files, be they parts or complete models, with mutliple vendors all of which seem to use varying CAD platforms. So the simple questions is: For those that are doing the same, what formats do you use for sending parts & assemblies over to:

1) SolidWorks
2) ProE
3) AutoCad

What prompts this question is that I sent an assembly to a customer that uses SolidWorks and it sounds as if on importing the assembly, the constraints were not applied correctly or were lost.

As a side note, the reverse of this also holds true. I get SolidWorks models that will open with anything EXCEPT Alibre. Any comments on how to instruct a SW person to save a model before sending it to me would also be grealty appreciated.

 

[MilesH]

Hi Eric,

There aren't any neutral formats that support constraints (apart from, maybe, Alibre Step which no-one else supports, yet). You don't say which format you used to export to Solidworks, but if it was Step, the separate Parts of an Assembly should be in their correct (at export) positions and individually selectable after import. I believe there are some discrepancies between the Step Tools implementation of Step, that Alibre uses, and the PTC Granite One Step module....

 

[jreynolds]

Hi Folks,
When you export an assembly from Alibre as a step file, not Alibre stp, Solidworks will open the assembly but it will not look anything like it did in Alibre. If you have duplicate parts, only one of them will show up and the position they are in dependend upon their construction geometries. In other words, it is a mess. Normally everything will be concentrated around the intersection of the X, Y and Z axis. You can reassemble the assembly, if you know what it is supposed to look like, in Solidworks using its constraint system which does work better than Alibre.
We have three seats of Alibre and two seats of Solidworks and I generally work in both everyday.
Jim Reynolds
Reynolds Design

 

[MilesH]

Thanks for the clarification, Jim.

When I export a STEP (AP 203) file of an Assembly from A.D. and open it in Rhino, the Parts are positioned as they were in the Assembly, at the time of the Export. This is so whether the Parts were created 'in context', or not.

This is such a basic problem. Perhaps there's a lack of will to fix it :wink:

Which STEP import module does SolidWorks use?

Anyway, I understand Eric's question better now....

 

[ericle]

Jim,

Thanks for the confirmation of what my customers are seeing.

Do you know of a technique/approach that allows an assembly to be created as essentially one solid object. This would allow it to be used in layout drawings.

Solid works has their eDrawing format, which can be imported into drawings for relevant work. Is there a way to do the same with an Alibre assembly?

 

[MilesH]

Eric,

Why don't you try: Exporting your STEP from A.D. ; open and re-save as STEP in Rhino* ; open in SolidWorks. It might work - at least it will be another clue.

*You can use the evaluation version of Rhino for 25 saves.

Also, you could try exporting as a SAT file to freeze the positions (re-import to check).

 

[dave2962]

I have had this same problem. I have sent customers an exported .step file and all the parts are there but they are all moved to the origin. You can save an ACIS file (sat) and send it to a Solidworks user and it imports with everything in the proper place. But you still don't have any constraints and the parts are all renamed to importedpart1, importedpart2 etc. and all the parts color is gray. Very aggravating.

Dave Grady

 

[MilesH]

Interesting......

http://www.ijcc.org/on-line2(pdf)/on_2_2.htm

 

[indesign]

OK....that was an interesting view! I wonder if they have reviewed the new step format from Alibre? But then again according their results even that would not work due to basic defining techniques and more.

 

[gregmilliken]

Tracing down the STEP to SolidWorks issues

Hey Folks,

Sorry for the inconvenience and aggravation this is causing.

Can those of you who are experiencing problems with STEP assemblies importing into SolidWorks correctly send us some screenshots of the before and after? Please also let us know what version of SolidWorks you are using. Email this to support@alibre.com and note in the email that I requested it.

This could be on our side but if STEP are coming into Rhino accurately it indicates that it is potentially on SolidWorks side. Either way, if Rhino can import ours correctly and then export a STEP file that SolidWorks can read correctly then it may be on both our sides. In other words, the STEP format has enough room for variation that we are both correct we're just not in sync with each other.

In some preliminary testing however we have seen that even STEP from Rhino come into SolidWorks really screwed up. Not all of them but many. We also found that our STEP files come in fine in Solid Edge as well, so this tells me SolidWorks either has a weak STEP import, or did something that affected it. That's not much consolation since we want it to work.

We will work to get this fixed even if we need to tweak a valid STEP file to ensure that SolidWorks can read it, since I doubt SolidWorks will put much effort into ensuring they can read our files correctly.

Thanks,
Greg

 

[moyesboy]

I posted info under another topic. I am working with a customer that uses SW so need robust exchange of data.

http://www.alibre.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2741
Some of this I posted before an it was the subject of an incident report or at least an exchange of messages with the alibre assistant when I was trialing v8.
It appears the problem is in SW, and perhaps only recent version of SW. The SW steps import OK to alibre but neither 203 or 214 carry the part colour info (one of them should). I suggest that alibre has an option to randomly allocate different colours to the parts on import.

The 203/214 steps from alibre open correctly in SE2005 version, inventor 2005 version, pro/E wildfire 2005 version, proDesktop v8, and idastep (A free step viewer). This I have established in correspondence with my contacts in various companies (an advantage of once working for a big company that closed and spread its design engineers far and wide).

With a step or sat assembly import you will not get any constraints. The parts will either be fixed, or just hang there in the right place. The constraint methods, like the creation history, are unique to each design package.
STEP supports the sub assembly structure, SAT only supports one assembly level (assy and parts).

When SW opens a step from alibre it gets the right number of parts and the sub assembly structure but many (but not all) parts are placed at the coordinate origin with a default orientation. There will be multiple coincident copies of repeated parts (looks like there is only one!).
Oddly an alibre step seems to perform a little better (Alibre step from assy file, not including the 2D drawing - SW won't read one including the drawing). However parts are still misplaced when it gets more complex - but that might be a help in finding the problem.

So why don't you think SW will put importing a step from Alibre at the top of their priority list Greg?
:lol:

 

[gregmilliken]

Great feedback Gordon. Thanks very much.

I suspected as much given that we have seen other systems import our STEP with no problems. I saw a Rhino model of the microscope on our web site that had been imported from our STEP and looked fine in Rhino turn into a bunch of randomly placed tori and other blobs grouped around one part that looked correct at the origin.

Strange that SolidWorks would have broken STEP so badly. Either this was intentional to make other systems look bad in comparison -- which I doubt -- or it indicates they need to review their QA process for this sort of thing.

We'll be looking into whether we can spoon feed them something they like.

-Greg

 

[rbrian]

Files in translation - Version #'s

Hi all. I think - there may also be some missing info here in this thread - no Version numbers for SW mentioned. So - is it SW 2004 (or older), SW 2005, or SW 2006? And - which AD version are you in - V8.2, V9.0?
(In AD - Home Window - go to help - About - and there is the actual AD Build info - Product Version - numbers)

Same thing for Pro/E would be useful info.
Robert

 

[amclimber]

I have had the same problem exporting a stp file assembly to Pro-E. The assembly gets rearranged and parts are missing.

 

[moyesboy]

http://www.ida-step.net/
This is a free viewer of step files so you can test the integrity of your step 203/214 from alibre before you send to folks using other software.
Then you can maybe get a few more SW users to file incident reports that SW is screwing a perfectly good step assembly file.
Hopefully Alibre can find how SW manages to ignor the part positioning data in the file when most other software finds it OK, and somehow make SW read it correclty without messing up the way inventor, solidedge etc read it.
Maybe SW just looks for the text "alibre" in the file and then randomly rearranges it.
Maybe I'm getting too cynical :lol:
I just tested step 213/214 from Alibre
Alibre Design™ Expert 9.0 SP1
Alibre Design Version:[ PRODUCTVERSION 9,0,0,9242 ]

in SW 2006 sp4.0 and all parts were placed at the origin and facing the wrong way :evil:

 

[flyboydave]

in SW 2006 sp4.0 and all parts were placed at the origin and facing the wrong way.

Yep. SolidWorks sucks at step import. SolidEdge is about the best. SolidWorks will take a step203 or step214 file from Alibre and cram all the parts in at the origin at seemingly random orientations, if you can even see the geometry at all. Sometimes I get imported geometry, but you can only view it when the mouse rolls over it. It's completely invisible.

But they do this with step files from other apps as well, not just Alibre. SolidEdge OTOH imports them just about perfectly.

Whats odd is that sometimes one app will import a particular file better than one of the others. From time to time, I've had to translate through more than one app to get a good import, usually through solid edge since theirs seems to be so compatible with everyone else.

I've had the best luck with exporting sat files from Alibre, they have a higher probability of yielding a usable imported assembly. It does make sense as it is an ACIS based modeler.

But like others have said, don't even try to get constraints to transfer because step doesn't support them. The best you can hope for is that the parts are all visible and in the correct position.

One thing nice about SE and SW - they both have feature recognizers. They will convert much of the features of your parts into native geometry so you can edit them parametrically. Now if they would only import assembly constraints...