[Plugin] Import STL files

casey344 · 19 Jan 2009, 12:25

First, thank you for posting the utility - getting this to work will save us so much time.

My STL file is not importing properly. I get the prompt to specify scale then a jumbled version of what I am importing. See image below.

I am using Sketchup 7.0. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thank you.

Didier Bur · 19 Jan 2009, 21:02

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

I am using Sketchup 7.0. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Not at all. It can be aproblem with SU7, or a problem with the STL file. Post it here so I can check it.
Regards,

casey344 · 19 Jan 2009, 21:44

Thanks for offering to help.

You should be able to pick it up here ...

Link to file:
https://download.yousendit.com/bVlCSXR3Mm1wTVYzZUE9PQ

Didier Bur · 19 Jan 2009, 22:27

AAARGGHHHH 71 Mb !
Downloading it now, but I guess the file is too big for SU...

casey344 · 19 Jan 2009, 22:39

Sorry, not my doing.

Manufacturer sent it that way.

jwelin · 20 Jan 2009, 06:01

Thanks for the work on this plugin. I have a three questions:

Is there a limit to the level of nested groups/components it exports?

The exported STL seems to be incompatible with some applications. Rhino sees the geometry, for instance, while Magics does not. Also an SU2stl generated stl, opened in Rhino and resaved as an STL is much smaller in file size. Would you like to see examples?

Is there a way to call this plugin from another? I have a need to batch export.

Didier Bur · 20 Jan 2009, 08:00

Hi,

@unknownuser said:

The exported STL seems to be incompatible with some applications

There are several STL formats which slightly differ in their syntax. The one I have choosen to export is the most standard one, as defined here for instance:
http://www.gom.com/CONTAINER/files/sp_stl_en.pdf
or here:
http://mech.fsv.cvut.cz/~dr/papers/Lisbon04/node2.html
Maybe some applications do not support every kind of STL ?

@unknownuser said:

an SU2stl generated stl, opened in Rhino and resaved as an STL is much smaller in file size

I don't have Rhino, but I suppose that it saves an STL in the binary format, while my script saves it in ASCII (text), which is 8 times bigger (average). You can see the same differences between an ascii dxf and a binary dxf (dxb) for instance.

@unknownuser said:

Is there a limit to the level of nested groups

No. Not tested here but as a recursive method is involved, there should be no limits.
Components are NOT supported, groups are.

@unknownuser said:

Is there a way to call this plugin from another?

Unfortunately no.

Regards,

thomthom · 20 Jan 2009, 08:44

@didier bur said:

@unknownuser said:

Is there a limit to the level of nested groups

No. Not tested here but as a recursive method is involved, there should be no limits.
Components are NOT supported, groups are.

I found that recursive methods might cause SU to bugsplat. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=15585&p=120726 I had a method that looped over entities to find connected entities which used a recursive method. Had to change it to an iterative method.

Didier Bur · 20 Jan 2009, 10:10

@unknownuser said:

I found that recursive methods might cause SU to bugsplat.

Bad news

thomthom · 20 Jan 2009, 11:13

Mind you, it happens when you do many recursions. When crawling geometry you quickly end up with hundreds iterations. So if the script never goes that deep you're ok. But it's something to be aware of.

NewOne · 21 Jul 2009, 13:29

When exporting STL from SolidWorks, here is an option to put all geometry in same file or to create separate file for each part. Mr. Didier Bur, could this script to be modified in a manner that allows multiple file selection and each geometry to be made group (or component if there are more identical parts) ? Or to specify a folder where stl part files are located?

Thank you.

Didier Bur · 22 Jul 2009, 17:21

Dropped into the to-do list

Gaieus · 6 Jan 2010, 10:19

bump
(sorry Dider - no practical reason just testing some moderation stuff)

stefkeB · 16 Dec 2010, 12:47

Minor improvement:

On line 54 you call the "openpanel" method when exporting. This should be "savepanel", so the user gets the correct dialog displayed. Still works on Windows but not on OSX, where you need to point to an already existing file.

Also, the default "." file location could be replaced with ENV['USER'] or ENV['HOME'] or preferably the current file folder, as to make it more convenient. With 'USER' it works much better for me on OSX.

(I refer to the unscrambled file, obviously, not the compacted one -- maybe the reason why people think it is a binary file)

Didier Bur · 19 Dec 2010, 11:20

Hi,
@stefkeB: I'm using openpanel when importing, and savepanel when exporting. So I don't understand what you're talking about, propably you have an old version, because the latest one is v1.3. (Nov 2009) and is scrambled in a RBS file (so unreadable).

thomthom · 22 Aug 2011, 09:18

I've been looking around at the various ruby based importers for SketchUp and I see that no one uses the Importer class. If this class is used the importer can be found in the native import list which would be very nice.
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/importer.html

charly2008 · 22 Aug 2011, 21:56

Hi Didier,

I have tried the tool in Sketchup 8. The Unit support appears and I can choose my unit but then nothing happens. I've attached the stl files which I downloaded from Internet.

Charly

knot.zip

brain-gear.zip

Didier Bur · 23 Aug 2011, 08:36

Hi Charly,
Your files are binary STL files. The script cannot read such files, but only ASCII STL format.
You can convert binary STL's to ASCII with Meshlab (free) for instance.
Regards,

charly2008 · 23 Aug 2011, 11:54

Hi Didier,

Thank you for the explanation. I learned something more to it.

Charly

davidheim1 · 20 May 2013, 20:07

Didier,
I just downloaded the STL Export/Import plug-in on my Mac, but I can't make it work. It asks me for the name of a file to export, but won't ever let me export anything. What am I missing? Can you provide a brief explanation of how to make the export function work?
Many thanks,
David Heim