How do you convert a surfaced iges file into solid - Solidworks 09

[Mark7397]

I'm dealing with a complex curved Iges file. When I import the file it comes in as a surface. How do I convert this file to a solid?

 

[TheTick]

Usually SW will try to knit closed surface bodies into a solid. SW will not make a solid if the body is not fully enclosed or has gross defects.

Have you tried Import Diagnostics?. Right-click on the imported feature in the feature tree to run diagnostics.

 

[Eltron]

Have you tried Insert/Boss/Thicken?

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[ArtemTat]

You can also use "Knit Surface" feature with "Try to form solid" option.

Artem Taturevich, CSWP
Software and Design Engineer
AMCBridge LLC

http://www.amcbridge.com

 

[rollupswx]

When I import the file it comes in as a surface.

Can you zip and attach or provide a url to the original IGES file here?

 

[Gupta65]

There might be a chance that you are getting a single enclosed surface. You can try using thicken and convert into solid or delete any of the one and recreate that face. Now use Knit surface and convert to solid.

Deepak Gupta
SW2009 SP3.0
SW2007 SP5.0
MathCAD 14.0

 

[kellnerp]

IGES can be troublesome. Where did it come from? You can find that in the header. To make a solid a surface has to be closed, i.e., watertight. This means you have to inspect what you get after running diagnostics. First use TOOLS/CHECK to find gaps, short edges and bad surfaces. If there is a general fault you are toast many times. Then use knit to help you get the surfaces watertight. It because will complain when two surfaces are not right.

Fixing things is a subject to itself. We can help once you have specific problems.

TOP
CSWP, BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

"Node news is good news."

 

[AnnaWood]

What kellnerp is telling you is that you can open up the IGES file in Windows Notepad and read the first few lines of the file.

The header will tell you what system the IGES was created in.

An IGES and STEP file are plain ASCII test files which can be opened in Notepad.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
Anna Built Workstation, Core i7 EE965, FirePro V8700, 12 gigs of RAM, OCZ Vertex 120 Gig SSD
SW2009 SP3.0, Windows 7 RC1

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[kellnerp]

You can actually use any text editor. If you are curious about what is in an IGES file check wikipedia.

IGES5.3 contains the full description of the header (global section) on page 18.

NIST also has something on this.





TOP
CSWP, BSSE

http://www.engtran.com

http://www.niswug.org

"Node news is good news."