What's new
By:

New Add-On for conversion of .stl to .stp and open in Alibre. Complete C# rewrite.

albie0803 said:
What settings do you use for the stp import?
I have an import that seems stuck at 21%
The CPU usage for Alibre is fluctuating in the Task Manager window so I don't think its locked up.
Click to expand...
I just go with the Alibre defaults but usually have to modify the units to mm or inches to match the original stl. Unfortunately there is no way to predict loading times other than to guess - a large step files will probably take a long time to load! I have step files so large I doubt they would ever load.
The issue is that the step file format really sucks. It is a text based format where each line (entity) can refer to any other line forward or backward in the file. This means that the whole files has to be loaded into memory before it can be tokenised - yuk.
The only real benefit of step seems to be that it's well supported by the 3D modelling industry.
 
ady said:
Yup. Worked great for me too. Very impressive indeed.

893k became 20MB became 49MB

(If you can make that final file 5MB you can charge $200 a pop and retire an internet hero)
Click to expand...
I've already got the retired badge but I quite like the idea of Internet hero! Not going to happen anytime soon though... See my reply to @albie0803 above.
 
bolsover said:
I've already got the retired badge but I quite like the idea of Internet hero! Not going to happen anytime soon though... See my reply to @albie0803 above.
Click to expand...
Hi @bolsover , unfortunately I can still test the revised add-on but I have one thing to say and correct me if it is impossible... since you are rewriting the code why not take into consideration the conversion to SAT that Alibre imports more easily? It is also compatible with all versions of Alibre but I don't know if the matter is too complex or impossible.
 
Cator said:
Hi @bolsover , unfortunately I can still test the revised add-on but I have one thing to say and correct me if it is impossible... since you are rewriting the code why not take into consideration the conversion to SAT that Alibre imports more easily? It is also compatible with all versions of Alibre but I don't know if the matter is too complex or impossible.
Click to expand...
I don't think it is possible. SAT is is exported by several vendors but is tied to the ACIS kernel and even if it were possible to generate a valid SAT file, it would look just like the source STL file. It might be more realistic to generate an IGES file but the same problem applies.
 
Thanks for the explanation, you were simple and exhaustive! Does version 1.3 already have the stltostp converted by you to C# or are you still testing it?
 
I can't make up my mind - should I make this into an Add-on or leave as is? I now have prepared an executable (it's in the .zip) that runs quite independently of Alibre. It allows selection of a stl file and conversion to stp. You can optionally check the box to have the converted file opened by whatever program you have registered to open .stp files - that will probably be Alibre if you have it installed with all the defaults. The executable is not integrated with Alibre in any way nor does it have any special external dependencies.

Executable and a quick screen grab of it in action attached..
 

Attachments

Hi @bolsover I would leave the addon integrated so as not to have conflicts with the exportopen stp previously integrated by you... if you want I can provide a new set of icons for the new add-on to highlight the difference :) I tried it and it works well!
 
Cator said:
Hi @bolsover I would leave the addon integrated so as not to have conflicts with the exportopen stp previously integrated by you... if you want I can provide a new set of icons for the new add-on to highlight the difference :) I tried it and it works well!
Click to expand...
Hi Francesco
Some icons would be awesome - graphics is not really my strength!
I'm actually thinking of a couple of updates. I'm well aware that Alibre struggles with opening 'larger' step files. I'm not sure what the size limit is or even if there is a limit but I do know that on my system anything over about 50Mb is quite slow and over about 100Mb I usually have to give up waiting.
I could check the file size after conversion and if over say 75Mb warn the user that attempts to open may take a very long time to complete.
David
 
Standalone version looks pretty good. I'd probably personally prefer to have standalone version. This would bring more people to the table as well.

I generally use OpenCascade's CAD Assistant for opening huge step files first, just to be able to examine the file contents quickly. It works quicker than Alibre most of the time. In some cases, I extract only the bodies/parts of an assembly that are in my interest, to reduce the time importing Alibre.

If Alibre could improve the progression bar for imports, as it generally stucks at 21% and it is hard to know if the process is ongoing or locked, that would be great addition to the software.
Best part of your stl stp converter is that it shows a proper real-time progress with an option to cancel at any time.
 
bolsover said:
I could check the file size after conversion and if over say 75Mb warn the user that attempts to open may take a very long time to complete.
Click to expand...
Regarding this, Inventor has a plugin to convert meshes into solids. It warns user when there are more than 5000 faces like so.

1762817173177.png
 
tyc said:
Regarding this, Inventor has a plugin to convert meshes into solids. It warns user when there are more than 5000 faces like so.

View attachment 45877
Click to expand...
I like that suggestion. A count the triangles seems like a good measure to use and quite easy to do. Maybe I should report the actual number found - I'll do a few tests.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tyc
Does the Alibre import time scale exponentially (or whatever) by number of triangles per solid? If so then perhaps breaking large stl files into separate solid chunks is a possible means of reducing import time?
 
Mr. Bolsover. I tried a simple STL and it works great. I'm currently trying a larger file which has been trying to open in Alibre for a couple of hours. I need to go out now so I'll have to stop it. I'm not leaving my computer on while I'm out.
I think it WILL work but I've run out of time.
Thank you very much this is a VERY useful tool and I'm sure I'll use it a lot.

Jim ;)
 
W
NateLiquidGravity said:
Does the Alibre import time scale exponentially (or whatever) by number of triangles per solid? If so then perhaps breaking large stl files into separate solid chunks is a possible means of reducing import time?
Click to expand...
TBH, I don't know but it seems likely exponential (or whatever). I've done quite a lot of testing over the past few days and so far, there is just one model that Alibre failed to import (look for knitted giraffe on printable). The killer issue is a model with any surface texture.
I've not thought about breaking up a model. It might be possible but I don't know how.
 
JimCad said:
Mr. Bolsover. I tried a simple STL and it works great. I'm currently trying a larger file which has been trying to open in Alibre for a couple of hours. I need to go out now so I'll have to stop it. I'm not leaving my computer on while I'm out.
I think it WILL work but I've run out of time.
Thank you very much this is a VERY useful tool and I'm sure I'll use it a lot.

Jim ;)
Click to expand...
Let me guess... Alibre gets to about 21% and seems to stall. I'm not sure I can do anything about it. The step file format sucks. I've been doing some tests of a routine that parses the raw stl and extracts any individual bodies. Currently, this routine is very slow but I hope to improve. Interestingly, I've found an executable distributed with Alibre 'verifyMain'. This seems to be a tool for analysis of stp files but I can't see it actually being used by Alibre - curious.
 
21% yes. That's not a problem. I had to take my dog out and there's no way I'm going out and leaving my computer switched on. Far too risky as I go out at the same (ish) time every day. Don't want to make it easy for anyone. ;)
Back to your superb program. It seems to be single threaded. Is it doable to make it multi threaded? Bear in mind that I have no idea about such things.
I just converted an stl very quickly by changing the tolerance to 1.0 but the file is still 99MB and now trying to open in Alibre.
No I can't share as it's copyrighted. :)
This is all just testing for me but seems to be fantastic.

Jim
 
JimCad said:
21% yes. That's not a problem. I had to take my dog out and there's no way I'm going out and leaving my computer switched on. Far too risky as I go out at the same (ish) time every day. Don't want to make it easy for anyone. ;)
Back to your superb program. It seems to be single threaded. Is it doable to make it multi threaded? Bear in mind that I have no idea about such things.
I just converted an stl very quickly by changing the tolerance to 1.0 but the file is still 99MB and now trying to open in Alibre.
No I can't share as it's copyrighted. :)
This is all just testing for me but seems to be fantastic.

Jim
Click to expand...
The performance issue is beyond my control. Once the stl is converted to stp, it is all down to Alibre. You 'may' see some benefit from setting to tolerance to 1 but probably marginal and the results in Alibre could be unacceptable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top