Solidworks export into SketchUp?

sketch3d.de

Yes, that plug-in does work, but the triangulation of stl is a real pain in the...
I modeled a simple airfoil in Solidworks and stl converted it into hundreds of triangles which is not very user friendly. I guess I will seach for a 'cleaner' solution to import curved surfaces.

sure, STL means triangulation of facettes, simply needed because SU - as a mesh based surface modeler - cannot handle exact NURB spline based surfaces (and volumes neither).

give ViaCAD 3D (OSX/Win) and it's ACIS .SAT filter a try: dynamic, feature-based NURBS surface and volume modeling with histroy tree and many vector-based CAD filters as IGES, STEP, DXF/DWG (which often need to be purchased w/ other products) for 99 U$ only... and does have a SU as well a Rhino import too

Norbert

cdubea

If you have a copy of SolidWorks, you should have a copy of DWGEditor, their AutoCAD clone (it's a repackaged version of Intellicad). In SolidWorks export your file to an ACIS file. Open DWGEditor. Import the ACIS dile and save as a DWG. Open SketchUP and import the DWG. I find this works more reliably than Didier's STL importer.

Let me know if you need further info.

chris

dangre

Had a chance to look at this again. I am able to open with DWGeditor. Let me have a look at the file and see if I can edit it as I would like. Thanks for the tip!!!!!

dangre

Well, the SW to ACIS to DWGeditor to DWG to SketchUp worked but the geometry has a few 'holes' as it imports to SketchUp. The DWG file seems to be correct. I would attach the DWG file but I guess I can not attach DWG files here... I will play with the original geometry to see what is happening between SW and SU.

pilou

Of course transform nurbs in polygons is a little task
Moi is perfect for that! as Remus said above (one of the best converter nurbs / OBJ)
Import : 3dm, igs, iges, Sat, stp, step, ai, eps, pdf
Export : 3dm, igs, iges, Sat, stp, step, stl, obj,3ds,lwo,fbx, SKP

watkins

Dear Dangre,

Try the following:

Export from SolidWorks as a .sat file
Import into your AutoCAD clone and scale x100
Export as a .dwg file and import into SU
Scale the imported model x0.01

SU doesn't like small features and so the scaling is important. Use Soften Edges to make the model more visually pleasing. I find that the above works well with Inventor. I do not know what the industry standard is but Inventor exports .sat models with 40 sided circles, giving holes a smooth appearance.

Hope this helps.
Bob

Jean Lemire

Hi folks.

To correct the problem with triangulation after importing a STL file into SU, I tried this procedure:

1 - Export the SU model as a DWG file.

2 - In a new instance of SU, Import the DWG file with the option to merge coplanar faces set to on. This should eliminate unnecessary triangulation.

Just ideas.

xrok1

@unknownuser said:

Of course transform nurbs in polygons is a little task
Moi is perfect for that! as Remus said above (one of the best converter nurbs / OBJ)
Import : 3dm, igs, iges, Sat, stp, step, ai, eps, pdf
Export : 3dm, igs, iges, Sat, stp, step, stl, obj,3ds,lwo,fbx, SKP

is this still a current list of i/o formats or has it changed for ver2? i couldn't find a list on the moi3d site. also do you know whether or not if you buy 1 now you get ver.2 retail when its released?

remus

i know MoI v2 can export .skp, not sure about other formats though.

And i last time i checked, it was $100 for v1 then $100 to upgrade to v2 or $200 to just buy v2, so no price difference. From that id extrapolate that you wont get a free upgrade to v2 if you buy v1 now.

xrok1

i thought ver1 was $195?

remus

sorry, thatll be $195 for v1 and $295 for v2 then, and $100 to upgrade from v1 to v2.