Export facet body as-is?

[TheTick]

Anyone know how to export a facet body as-it from NX for use elsewhere?

I've been doing some work with facet bodies in NX. Sometimes I need to transfer to other programs like SOlidWorks or Geomagic.

The problem I am facing is there seems to be no way to save a facet body to another format in its original state. I can export to STL or VRML, but NX will go throguh a remesh, altering the existing mesh. Sometimes I can get the same mesh if I export VRML with a high tiangle tolerance. But there seems to be no way to export a facet body as-is with no risk of modification.

 

[Toost]

What NX version are we talking about ?

It seems there are a few formats that exports facets in NX 1980. We have design token licenses. No special translator licenses.
I only tried the OBJ and Parasolid, both kept the faceting.

3MF probably , unknown if it keeps the faceting
OBJ exports facets.
JT without precise bodies if the input is faceted it probably keeps the facets.
Parasolid will export facets.
Step 242 should export facets, ( 203 and 214 does not)

Regards,
Tomas



Never try to teach a pig to sing. I wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

 

[TheTick]

I get that there are multiple formats available. But they all seem to go through the process of re-meshing what is already a mesh body. I want to export mesh that I have, the way it is, without further remeshing or refinement.

 

[cowski]

Are you working with a convergent body? That is a type of hybrid facet body unique to NX. I wouldn't be surprised if they get remeshed when exporting to a standard format. How much does the exported body differ from the original? If it is significant, I'd suggest opening an incident report (IR) with Siemens.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[Toost]

The tests that I did above did not seem to do that.
The confusing part here is that all cad systems have one "facet set" which is what's displayed on the screen and depending on the geometry type it can be a traditional solid body / surface , or a faceted body or some other data form.
I.e. if you create say a cylinder in NX, the faces and edges are defined with precise equations in parasolid. But this form cannot be displayed on the screen, so this geometry is "tessellated" into facets which is handled by the graphics adapter and what we actually get to see of the solid we created.
This display tessellation is regularly regenerated depending on display settings and also might happen when one uses actions such as fit view etc.
There is a option to display the facet edges, (button : "Facet edges") this shows the "display facets" on solids / Sheets but I think it maps 1:1 when working w facet data.
The test I did was load a freeform model toggle on the "Facet Edges", create a faceted representation of that using "polygon modeling" in NX.
The resulting facets are different to what's visible on the model.
I then exported using the mentioned formats.
The OBJ loads into Windows Paint 3D and seemed same as what I looked at when exporting.
The Parasolid I re-imported to NX and compared side by side.

Regards,
Tomas



Never try to teach a pig to sing. I wastes your time and it annoys the pig.