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STL "import"

beastro

Senior Member
Hi,

Has anybody discovered a working procedure to get an existing STL file into Alibre. For those of us who work with 3d printing and have to modify existing STL design files, it would be very important to have some way to import mesh files.

Regards

Berthold
 
For those of us who work with 3d printing and have to modify existing STL design files, it would be very important to have some way to import mesh files.
Hi Berrgold -- Not really, an ISO-10303 file imports as a "dumb solid." Either: (A) regenerate the Model from scratch; or (B) add Cuts and Extrusions (etc.) to make the needed changes. -- Lew
 

Hunter

Senior Member
Hi,

Has anybody discovered a working procedure to get an existing STL file into Alibre. For those of us who work with 3d printing and have to modify existing STL design files, it would be very important to have some way to import mesh files.

Regards

Berthold
Not directly in Alibre. If you're willing to work with history free geometry, then there is a way. Import the file into something that can read STL and export as STEP. Then import the STEP into Alibre. Software options:
  1. FreeCAD
  2. Fusion 360
  3. Gmsh
  4. https://github.com/slugdev/stltostp
Last option may be all you need...
input_output.jpg
 

beastro

Senior Member
Not directly in Alibre. If you're willing to work with history free geometry, then there is a way. Import the file into something that can read STL and export as STEP. Then import the STEP into Alibre. Software options:
  1. FreeCAD
  2. Fusion 360
  3. Gmsh
  4. https://github.com/slugdev/stltostp
Last option may be all you need...
input_output.jpg
Thank you Hunter,

That looks perfect. I'll try it out ASAP.

Kind regards
 

beastro

Senior Member
Hi Berrgold -- Not really, an ISO-10303 file imports as a "dumb solid." Either: (A) regenerate the Model from scratch; or (B) add Cuts and Extrusions (etc.) to make the needed changes. -- Lew

Hi Lew,

Thank you! I usually take the dumb solid as a starting point to project to sketch etc., so any option to get it into Alibre is valid. I'll try the command line utility from Hunter.

Kind regards
 

Max

Administrator
Staff member
For those of us who work with 3d printing and have to modify existing STL design files, it would be very important to have some way to import mesh files.

Beastro, can you give me a sense of the workflow you are trying to accomplish? When you say "modify", what do you mean? What tools would you want to use to modify it? What kind of modifications would you need to make? Closing holes in the mesh? Adding extrusions?

The answers to these questions helps us determine what level of mesh support we will offer in the future, and what technologies we will need to use.
 

beastro

Senior Member
Beastro, can you give me a sense of the workflow you are trying to accomplish? When you say "modify", what do you mean? What tools would you want to use to modify it? What kind of modifications would you need to make? Closing holes in the mesh? Adding extrusions?

The answers to these questions helps us determine what level of mesh support we will offer in the future, and what technologies we will need to use.

Hi Max,

Thanks for chiming in and first of all congrats for the new release of Alibre!
I'll give you a practical example:
Our support group for health services in Spain is designing a face mask to be printed by our members. There are a few things and requirements that this mask has to fulfil, but generally the basic shape can/should be taken from an anatomically proven design instead of reinventing the wheel.

Nevertheless, I would have to change things, starting with filter size and shape, face contact area and sealing of the mask etc.
What I would need at the very minimum, is the possibility to import a, as Lew put it earlier in this thread, "Dumb solid" to be able to project to sketch, trim, use it for booleans, etc.

Unfortunately, these days everybody publishes designes only as STL or other meshes and often these designs have to be adapted to become meaningful for one's own applications. As BigSeb put it in another thread not long ago, not having any way to deal constructively with those mesh files only leaves open the possibility to 3d scan or design everything from scratch.

I know of course that I can do the conversation via Freecad etc., but in this particular case FreeCad does not want to convert the STL to Step (why I don't know). I will try later with the command line utility from Hunter.

Thanks for the help!
Berthold

upload_2020-4-21_9-49-15.png
 

M00m137

Member
Wow you are going to have some fun with that model - lots of wavy shapes!

It's a shame that Alibre ditched their mesh support a few years back - it was one of the nice-to-haves which helped persuade us to make the switch - and then was almost immediately removed. It woudl be nice to see it back, even in a very basic form.
 

bigseb

Alibre Super User
Converting stl to stp... tricky...

I've had moderate success with FreeCAD. Its not perfect by any means but it certainly gives it a go. The biggest downfall here (in my opinion) is AD. AD isn't the greatest at importing faulty files so the slightest surface mismatch and you have an unusable file. Moi to the rescue. Also AD doesn't seem to handle organic shapes very well so you often up with really weird surfaces.

I have never tried Fusion 360. Because it's Autodesk. [rant]I refuse to use Autodesk products, for the same reasons I refuse to use Stratasys printers or play Gibson guitars. Bad business practices I won't tolerate. [/rant]

CAD Exchanger can convert stls too, I think. Never tried it. Costs $500. Check it out HERE

Where ever possible try to remodel from scratch. Way less hassles.
 

simonb65

Alibre Super User
The answers to these questions helps us determine what level of mesh support we will offer in the future, and what technologies we will need to use.
@Max, is this still on the radar?

Workflow example in my case is ... that I've just bought a 3D Printer and wanted to import the open source printer part files to do some mods and ran straight into the problem highlighted in this thread when wanting to use Alibre to do that task. In my case, just the ability to import the STL and measure or even treat the imported STL as a convert-to-solid at import (i.e. STEP files are treated) in order to then add boss/cut features ... again as you can if you imported a STEP file. Doesn't need to retain STL file format or the full mesh data.

STL example attached (in a zip file) ...
 

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dalbert

Member
Not directly in Alibre. If you're willing to work with history free geometry, then there is a way. Import the file into something that can read STL and export as STEP. Then import the STEP into Alibre. Software options:
  1. FreeCAD
  2. Fusion 360
  3. Gmsh
  4. https://github.com/slugdev/stltostp
Last option may be all you need...
input_output.jpg
Thank you @Hunter stltostp worked perfectly! For anyone uncomfortable installing the unsigned .msi (windows installer) file, it is trivial to rebuild from source using any gpp toolchain (just cmake, then make).
 

OliverM3

Member
@Max +1 for STL import functionality. As others have observed, makers often only publish designs as STL even when the design is open source.

Import STL and convert to STP would be of great benefit.
Yeah that would be great! I only use CAD for 3d Printing so having .stl import and some mesh options to convert it to a solid body would be nice. Also the ability to export to .3mf so that models can keep their separate body information.
 
If the shape is fairly simple. I had to get some files from thingiverse for my printer, went in to this software and in simple mode it found everything fine. Flat plate, cylinders, holes etc. More complex shapes you can still use this software in advanced mode and do like a retopology of the surface and export straight to stp.

It would be awesome to be able to load a Lightweight (graphics) type STL file in, especially if it's only being used as reference to model around
 

OliverM3

Member
It's definitely a nice to have. I just used another CAD package to remove the holes from this .stl. 3d printing has some unique workflows that other software vendors are adopting in to their software.

1694978998659.png
 

dlaery

Alibre Super User
this is my experience with importing stl. here is an example:
I can import an stl in Rhino, then convert to stp then import into Alibre. I just wanted the outline of the part so I did a project sketch, then extruded it, added to an assembly now when i try to open the file it locks alibre up. working with stl's is not always productive for me.
next i opened the file with the import converted stl/stp, did the project to sketch, copied the sketch, pasted into a new part, extruded it and now it works.
 

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