Converter Wizard

[saranac]

With using the Converter Wizard I am finding out that I can only do one surface at a time. I have about 250 surfaces. My question is if a macro can be written and if so can you point me in the right direction. Thanks for all your help.


Thank

Saranac

 

[solid7]

I don't know if this is going to be possible. The API doesn't contain any of the FreeStyle functions. (which converter wizard is)

Are you able to record a macro using the converter wizard, with any sort of result?




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[saranac]

My programmer tried recording a macro. He said they were not showing everything that was being done. Thanks For your input.

Thanks

Saranac

 

[solid7]

What exactly is your goal in reducing the number of control points?




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[saranac]

To reduce the size of the file. I did an overcrown job and is now 211 meg in size. It started at about 20 mega. I overcrowned in Z direction first and then again in Y direction. The two different pullings just compound the problem. I would normally do this in ICEM surf but we would like to try to stay with just one software. In ICEM
surf I can convert these surfaces to bezier. By doing this my file size is generally smaller that what I import into ICEM.

 

[solid7]

I'm not familiar with the term, "overcrowning," but I also have to ask, are you working with surfaces with history?

And by the way, when you change order, segmentation, and control points, you are also changing surface definition. Maybe you can live with that, and maybe you can't, but I thought that I'd let you know.






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[saranac]

What overcrowning is bacically I am surfacing for spring back. I am over bending the the surface data to overcome the spring back of the sheet metal. We build stamping dies for the auto industry. WIth some of the the form tolerances I have I can accept some deformation in the Surfaces. Thanks for your time.

Thanks

Saranac

 

[solid7]

OK, but again, do you require surface history?

I guess that I would expect you to be doing this type of activity in FreeStyle - or one of its derivitive packages - so forgive me if I'm not understanding something.






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[saranac]

Up to the point where I start using the Converter Wizard
the surface do have history. But to help reduce the file size I am need to live with the lost of history when I am to the point of using the Converter Wizard. I don't think this will be an issue.

Thanks

Saranac

 

[saranac]

The overcrowning is the end product for what I do. So if I lose my history at the end with the Converter Wizard it will not hurt me. With engineering changes I can make my changes well before the overcrowning (overbending) where the history is most important for me.


Thanks

Saranac

 

[solid7]

OK, that's what I was expecting to hear.

My next question is this: Why do you have such a need to reduce file size? These type of complex surfaces are, by nature heavy. I don't know what your model looks like, but 200 MB with history is not a hard thing for me to imagine, although I would expect your final product to be around 50MB.

I have many surface files that run into that size range. My *average* part file runs between 12 and 20MB.

Just curious...




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[JuhaEdag]

If you just un-parametrize the surface with for an example dissassemble it should reduce file size.(How much? test.)

Morphing a surface in two directions is very compute intensive so I would expect that just deleting the history should reduce it a lot.

 

[saranac]

I Failed to tell this was the size of the iges file.
My company is slowly switching design software at this time. Cadds 5 was our main software. So I need to be able to make things work for both softwares. Thats another reason why I am not to worried about losing history after using the converter wizard. The CATIA file with history was 210 mega and the iges file was 211 mega.
Thanks for your help and Ideas.

Thanks

Saranac