Editing STEP Files

[VN1981]

Primarily a Catia user here...kinda have to work on Solidworks as well...probably will work on both CAD packages as needed.

So we receive a lot of assemblies in STEP format and after importing in to SW, if I need to edit individual parts within assembly, how do I go about it? In Catia, I just double click on the desired part and the workbench switches to Part module from Assembly. Currently, in SW, I understand one needs to right click and select Edit Part (is also accessible from Ribbon bar?) but in this instance, I just don't see Edit Part icon.

Secondly, one of the routine operations I do is extract intersects between my geometry & a bunch of planes. Once I get the intersects, I need to split the intersect in to two segments (my intersects are aerofoils and I want to split it in to top & bottom ones). In SW, I am getting intersects as 3D sketch but I am not able to figure out how to split the 3D Sketch in to two curves.

In Catia, I usually create a surface that goes from leading edge to trailing edge and use that to split the intersects. I am hoping to follow similar procedure in SW but not sure if its possible.

Hoping to get some pointers here. I am sure I have other questions as days go by...
Thanks in advance...

 

[TheTick]

Unfortunately for all of us, no one posted screen shots of the assembly tree or feature tree for us.

Is the part an assembly or a mulit-body part?

 

[SBaugh]

First, you need to save the file and all the associated parts. Then you should be able to see the Edit parts icon.

2nd:

Could try using either another plane to intersect the sketch possibly. Or you can create the 3D sketch as one surface and use a plane to split or "cut with surface" feature. Another solution that I have used several times is: create the 3dsketch as one surface, offset the surface at 0.0 then using the plane or another surface to cut the original surface in one direction, then using the same surface or plane cut the offset surface the opposite way. That way you have two surface sections that should be tangent to each other.


Hope that helps,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
CAD Systems Manager
Dapco, INC

http://www.dapcoinc.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[ctopher]

Open the STEP part file, Right click on Imported in feature tree, FeatureWorks, Recognize Features. This is one way.

ctopher, CSWP
SolidWorks '17
ctophers home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[VN1981]

Firstly, thank ya'll for the replies and sorry for responding back late. I haven't had a chance to try out what ya'll suggested (hoping to do it tomorrow).

SBaugh, I think you are splitting entities in Sketcher mode. I was hoping for a way to split curves outside the sketch environment i.e. using entities like another line, surface, point or planes. I will look around to net to see if it can be done.

 

[hendersdc]

You don't need to split the original sketch, you can create 2 additional sketches that use the 1st one and your intersect planes as reference geometry.

 

[SBaugh]

Just use another surface to split the surface body into two bodies if that's what you need.

Scott Baugh, CSWP
CAD Systems Manager
Dapco, INC

http://www.dapcoinc.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376