Faces missing from STP files

[BrianE.Evans]

I am running into a little problem exporting files. The customer is using Solidworks 2010 and I have been sending him step 214 files, he complained about missing faces on parts, and asked that I send him files saved as SLDPRT files.
Before I did this, I exported the files to a folder on my machine, then re imported them back into Alibre 2012 . Lo and behold missing faces, the same file exported and re imported as a step 214 file comes back in with no errors and all the faces intact.
Things that will be missing, are no face on a corner radius, or a dome made by a solid of revolution( revolve boss) will not show up in the Solidworks file allowing you to look into the interior of the solid.
Is this just the two programs not playing well together Or am I missing something here like needing to do a boolean join after adding a feature to a part ? In this case adding a dome onto an existing curved solid part.
Brian Evans.

 

[BrianE.Evans]

Looking on another forum, I found the exact problem problem from another person. In my case it is a domed surface that is missing, as was the other persons, and it is apparently a case of the wrong side of the face being picked by the stp program.
I have tried adding a fillet to the joint between the two surfaces, with the result that the fillet shows up just fine, and the dome is still missing.
Brian.

 

[astroverted]

I have long observed the same problem in exporting from Alibre to Solidworks. Spherical surface profiles seem especially prone to generating weird entities when sucked into SW; sometimes turning off all automatically healing, stitching and bitching (uh I meant to type "checking") can help, but I have yet to find a universal cure for this problem.

Scott

 

[bigseb]

... I have long observed the same problem in exporting from Alibre to Solidworks. Spherical surface profiles seem especially prone to generating weird entities when sucked into SW; sometimes turning off all automatically healing, stitching and checking can help...

This has been my experience too. I initially thought that was a problem exclusive to Alibre but after doing some asking around I found that most design packages don't like opening/importing non-native files, including Solidworks. If you (Alibre) are giving your customer (Solidworks) files the favoured format generally is iges, or x_t. They also need to play around with their settings a bit.

 

[BrianE.Evans]

Well that's a relief, I thought it was something I was doing.
Brian Evans.

 

[BrianE.Evans]

I have been sending my customer STEP 214 and SLDPRT files They have now come back and asked for IGES files ,however I do not know how to export an Alibre file as an IGES file .
Does anybody have any clues?
Brian Evans.

 

[BrianE.Evans]

Never mind I found it.
However I find that I can only export a part as an IGES file. I guess assemblies are going to have to be STEP whether they like it or not.
Brian Evans.