First off I have used Alibre and now GM 2014 for years. The export of STP and IGES has almost always worked well when importing into my cadcam software for our shop before. However now I am having serious issues with missing surfaces or corrupt geometry. I even export and import back into GM and having issues as well.
It appears the more fillets there are the more likely there is to be problems. Also some fillets appear to corrupt so they are no longer a fillet on importing back in but a cylinder surface that extends out of the part. I will send some files to support but for obvious reasons the files I am working with can not be loaded on public forums.
Are there some tricks to share here that can help?
My first observation is that IGES is now working better than STEP files when working with fillets on complex forms in molds. Second I have found that exporting the same part multiple times can result in varying degrees of getting a working part on import (odd they would be different when not changing anything). Also if fillets are left off the export works better or has no problem at all. Whats also weird is that these molds are multiple pockets of the same form and that the export will create a good pocket and a bad pocket even though the same form was used to extrude cut each pocket.
I have tried several programs for fixing these files but currently using BOBCAD as the CAM software. The parts almost always are coming in as a bad solid and BOBCAD un-stitches the solid to surfaces to import them. On the occasion when the form is too screwed up to stitch back together (make water tight) the program will crash if I attempt this. With it's CAD tools I can usually erase a bad pocket form and copy a good one then stitch the surfaces back together or recreate a missing surface if needed.
BTW: Bobcad is not parametric so I will not just make the solid models there as I am usually having to make changes often to the models.
It appears the more fillets there are the more likely there is to be problems. Also some fillets appear to corrupt so they are no longer a fillet on importing back in but a cylinder surface that extends out of the part. I will send some files to support but for obvious reasons the files I am working with can not be loaded on public forums.
Are there some tricks to share here that can help?
My first observation is that IGES is now working better than STEP files when working with fillets on complex forms in molds. Second I have found that exporting the same part multiple times can result in varying degrees of getting a working part on import (odd they would be different when not changing anything). Also if fillets are left off the export works better or has no problem at all. Whats also weird is that these molds are multiple pockets of the same form and that the export will create a good pocket and a bad pocket even though the same form was used to extrude cut each pocket.
I have tried several programs for fixing these files but currently using BOBCAD as the CAM software. The parts almost always are coming in as a bad solid and BOBCAD un-stitches the solid to surfaces to import them. On the occasion when the form is too screwed up to stitch back together (make water tight) the program will crash if I attempt this. With it's CAD tools I can usually erase a bad pocket form and copy a good one then stitch the surfaces back together or recreate a missing surface if needed.
BTW: Bobcad is not parametric so I will not just make the solid models there as I am usually having to make changes often to the models.