NX4: export STEP files maintaining assembly structure - HOW? 1

[tooldeziner]

Greetings All,

I just re-read a post from last fall (thread561-186833)discussing the problem of exporting stp files while maintaining the assembly structure (using NX4). It still doesn't work for me. Does anyone out there know how to do this?

Thanks in advance,

'ziner

Peace Through Superior Fire Power!

 

[tooldeziner]

BTW, I should have mentioned that I am working in Team Center.

'ziner

Peace Through Superior Fire Power!

 

[hudson888]

There are two versions of STEP. 203 and 214, and it is the latter that supports assemblies. You will struggle as far as I'm aware to work with getting step in to teamcenter, getting it out should not be as great a problem, but I haven't tried recently, so give it a try and get back if you have problems. I'm willing to try for you as a test but it may be a while before I'm able to perform that test.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[tooldeziner]

Thanks for responding, Hudson. I have tried both versions of step with the same result: all the components become solid bodies in one file. Again, the aim is to export an assembly while maintaining the assembly structure. I know it can be done because I have received step files from other people that maintained the assembly structure when opened in UG.

Thanks again for your reply.

'ziner

Peace Through Superior Fire Power!

 

[uwam2ie]

hey tooldesigner,
I've done this a lot of times. the easiest way is the external step interface. Look that you have all components in one folder, control the settings on load options. Works fine for me retaining the assy structure. Another option to export option out of the nx session is to use form existing part -> without having a selection option ( most of the time went wrong).
i hp it hlps

 

[tooldeziner]

Thanks uwam2ie, you may have helped my to understand why it doesn't work: you said I need to have all components in one folder. Working in TeamCenter, there are no "folders" in the traditional sense. You have folders in your home page, but they only contain links, i.e.shortcuts, to the actual files. The real data exists somewhere, but not in a linear file structure that can be identified. My guess is that this is the problem. Maybe someone who is more familiar with TeamCenter will chime in. Hello John Baker?!

Thanks again,
'ziner

Peace Through Superior Fire Power!

 

[uwam2ie]

"you said I need to have all components in one folder."
... that makes it easier when you are woking native, because you have to organize the load options working native. On Teamcenter I don't know what to do maybe a flat asm. setting in export option out of TC.

 

[hudson888]

I hate to burst your bubble but what do you mean by all in one folder? This is probably a reference to native file system. But you may have stroked my memory a little with that so I'll point you a little further in what will hopefully turn out to be the right direction.

In native it isn't so much that they have to be in one folder although this may work under the right circumstances. It actually depends on the load options. What you need to do in the STEP dialogs is to find the settings menu and look for the load options changing those settings to those which you would ordinarily use to load the assembly that you want to convert. What STEP214 does is to load the assembly from disk before converting the files. So you see if they were all in one folder and the load options are set to "from folder", (or "from directory" in NX-4 and earlier), then of course it will find them.

Now in NX-4 when you launch the step exporter from an NX session the settings can be found under File>Export>STEP214>Modify Settings>Assembly load options. The likely setting will be that it uses the load options defaults file. That is the load_options.def file but not just any old one that you have saved it has to be the system default one. You also have to save the settings file for step, of which there is also a default one, but you can save others to reload on demand via the dialogs.

In NX-5 for those who will ask it seems that the settings aren't available via the session launched menus but you can create a settings file for yourself and still load it on demand. Via the command version of STEP, that you'll find under the start menus in Windows, you can edit and save settings files if you're looking to do something non-standard. The default usually goes to the load options file and this is where it usually sits in NX-4 also, so the emphasis should really be on getting your load_options.def file to work correctly.

It may be fair to assume for testing purposes that if by using the load options that NX addresses when you open a file in a session, (which is to say without altering the load options in any way), then if your assembly opens correctly the same it is likely to work in STEP. If it still does not work in step then you should by now have guessed that your settings file may need to be altered to address the load options directly or differently.

Now in teamcenter the load options work differently and as I mentioned I won't be able to comment more precisely until I have time to check. But as this kind of thing is far and away the most common problem with step I would back it as a fair chance that it will be the culprit.

If out of teamcenter you are desperate to create STEP but can't then take the additional measure of exporting the files to native and running the process correctly from that data. Hopefully when I find out more I may be able come back to you with a more elegant solution.

Best Regards

Hudson