Surface Translation

[autocast]

Can any tell me how to bring surfaces from SURFCAM into Solidworks and be able to make them a solid model?

 

[SWVB101]

export them from SURFCAM as iges, acis, etc...

then open in solid works...

if they come in as surfaces, use Surface Knit to join surfaces into a solid...

to add parametrics, if you do not have it, you may need to purchase FeatureWorks...

I believe SW2003 and up come with it (not sure)

Good Luck,
--Josh

 

[Rocko]

No, featureworks is still a add on in 2003. You also need to make sure that the surfaces exported out of Surfcam are valid connecting surfaces. Do you not have the acis or parasolid export module for Surcam?

 

[SWVB101]

Is there a SolidWorks Office 2003?
I think it comes with PhotoWorks, PDMWorks, FeatureWorks, & SW Animator...

That might be what I was thinking of...

I suppose that is just a package deal though, so it could be considered an add on...

 

[Rocko]

yes, you can buy solidworks, solidworks office, solidworks office professional

 

[SBaugh]

You can buy just Featureworks if that's all you want, but it is actually cheaper to pay the extra $1000 for the SW office because you get 6 add-ins with the package. I think just buying one is like $350 each.

Solidworks:
Solidworks

SW Office - includes above plus:
Photoworks
Featureworks
Solidworks Utilities
Animator
Toolbox
E-drawings Pro

SW Office Professional - includes above 2 options plus:
PDM Works

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[TheTick]

One product worth a look is FormatWorks. It does a great job of cleaning up import data for import into SW.

I've found FeatureWorks to be of limited value. It does not always recognize features the way you would like. Also, if the imported model is less than perfect (i.e. holes out of square w/ surface normal by .0000005 degree), FW will fail to recognize those features.

Good and evil: wrap them up and disguise it as people.

 

[autocast]

The problem is that when the surfaces are imported there are so many gaps that it is impossible to find all of them. Some times the surfaces overlap or do not match up. I tried iges, acis, and dxf with no luck. Is there a certain way or steps to follow to bring in surfaces?
We are unable to produce a solid in Surcam.

 

[TheTick]

In that case you most definitely could use FormatWorks. Contact your VAR.

web page:

http://www.capvidia.be/products/swadd/sw_formatworks.htm

Good and evil: wrap them up and disguise it as people.

 

[Rocko]

Let me make sure i understand what you are trying to do.
1) you want to bring surfaces (iges) created in surfcam into solidworks to convert to a solid
2) The reason for doing this is? (to modify via solidworks on a solid for ease)
3) Describe the part, does it have lots of nurb surfaces, planar surfaces, fillets draft, extrusions ect...
4) In the old days when we had only a surface modeler we would put very small fillets between surfaces so they could be made into a solid easier.
5) You may be better off bringing in the model broken or not and creating sketches from the boundry curves and recreating in SW.
6) check out RhinoCad or find somebody with it to possibly fix the surface model.

 

[JNR]

Echo Rocko, why do you need to bring surface models from a CAM package back ot a CAD package. I'm not being critical, but it's an unusual thing to do, so I assume there is a very specific reason. Maybe that could be addressed differently if we knew what you are trying to achieve (give us the 10,000ft view).

Also if the gaps and overlaps are that bad, it would appear to be an issue with differing database precision from source through translator to target system. I was one of SurCAM's first VAR's many years ago and I seem to recall their surfacing was pretty robust even then. Have you investigated the precision options (where available) in the export and import software? Getting them to match if you can might help some.

FeatureWorks will probably not fix these problems for you. It is great for certain types of models, and pretty good on others if you use it a lot and can learn to efficiently use the manual controls. Unfortunately it is poor on some type of models. As TheTick points out, it does rely on the accuracy of construction of the initial model to make assumptions about goemetry intent. It is not a good tool for healing surfaces in my opinion. so you would want to do this first.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[autocast]

Here is some background we are die-casting manufacture and we are designing a handle for GM. To save some time we had own tool shop create some of the parting line and we design the rest of the die, but they only use SurfCAM. This is a very complex part with allot of radius and curves. Plus the tool shop has more experience with parting line built-up.

I like the idea of reducing the number radius and some of the complexity of the part. I will give this a try.

I all ready tried RhinoCad but it still had problems with the translations.

Thanks for all the input.

 

[Rocko]

We also have a package called Cadmax that could handle surfcam surface models and do some solidfying that others could not. It is a hybrid Surface/Parametric modeler. They just did not add any features nor keep up with the industry so we went to Solidworks. Which overall is better. But what is funny they had multi solid body capability over 5 years ago. The surfacing was more powerfull than SW too.

 

[SWVB101]

Autocast,
What version of SurfCAM do you have?
I thought the last version I used, a couple of years ago, started to have built in support...?

(I think that was SurfCAM 2000 or 2001)

I could be mistaking though, it has been several years since I last Used It...

Or is it that you can import SolidWorks models, but not export them...

Rocko,
The original intent of SolidWorks was to be a 100% Solid Modeler, where you are always working with solids...
If you wanted to use surfaces, there were other programs (like AutoCAD) that were more geared towards that area...
As SolidWorks grew and started gaining more ex-AutoCAD (and other CADs) users, they began to get more and more request and demands for feature that were in the other CAD packages, this is where supply and demand kicks in, next thing you know SolidWorks is released with a hand full of NON-Solid tools (such as surfaces...)
And the reason for parts NOT having the ability for Multi-Body was that, in reality, if a part has 2 parts, it is 2 parts... if you put 2 parts together, it is called an assembly (or sub-assembly), which is exactly what Solid Works had the abilility to create and support(until SW2003) because this goes along with the Solid Modeling Theory...
But as more and more people moved from their legacy CAD packages to Solid works, just like any other successful company, you have to offer support for the features of the previous CAD packages of other companies...

I agree that SolidWorks does not have as powerful Surface capabilities as other Packages... but if it was designed for Surfaces, it would be called SurfaceWorks and not SolidWorks...

And since SurfCam deals more with surfaces, it is called Surf(ace)CAM and not SolidCAM...

All,
In my opinion, SurfCAM is about where AutoCAD is in the industry...

It is not ready to die... But there are better options, depending on what you are working with...

Basically, SurfCAM is good for 2D Based CAD programs (with 3D capabilities) such as AutoCAD...

But if you Use true 3D based programs, such as SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Inventor... You would be better off with a package DESIGNED FOR 3D based CAD packages, such as...

ESPRIT:

http://www.dptechnology.com/

-Or-

GibbsCAM:

http://www.GibbsCAM.com

I no longer do NC programming, myself, but our programmers here use ESPRIT w/ SolidWorks, And love it...
It might be worth checking into...

Thanks,
--Josh--

 

[Rocko]

Dear SWV ,
what you left out that there are some products that cannot be created without being able to do multi-solidbodies and surfacing creating tools. This is another reason why solidworks has started and continues to improve these abilities. They know that growth will not continue with just machine design software, but need product/industrial design capabilities. We all know that industrial design is pushing the cad systems where only highend systems use to go.

 

[SWVB101]

The original intent for a Solid Part (SldPrt) was to be a single solid body...

If you need multiple bodies, you can create an assembly (SldAsm) of multiple parts, which you can then take and continue to model on the assembly, adding bosses, and cuts...

This way, the design can be done the way you would manufacture it, In Most Cases, helping you to be able to know if the design will work BEFORE you manufacture it...

when you manufacture a product, if you take a piece of bar stock and cut it into 2 pieces it becomes 2 parts...
If you put them back together it becomes an assembly...

As far as what I left out...
The changes are request driven...
Which is why I made this Statement:
As SolidWorks grew and started gaining more ex-AutoCAD (and other CADs) users, they began to get more and more request and demands for feature that were in the other CAD packages, this is where supply and demand kicks in, next thing you know SolidWorks is released with a hand full of NON-Solid tools (such as surfaces...)

The reason to work with SolidWorks is to Work with Solids...
There are many other programs out there that are designed to work with surfaces...
One of the main reasons for the Surfacing tools is to Work with Legacy CAD files to maintain an option for backwards support...

When begining a design in SolidWorks, what is an example of a product that could not be designed with Single-Body Parts & Assemblies...?
And/Or would require Surfaces that could not be created with solids...?

Aircraft companies tend to prefer to work with surfaces...
Which is why they usually use Catia, which is one of the more advanced Surface Modeling packages...

BUT... when working with Surfaces, you leave yourself much room for error due to edges not joining perfectly and corrupted surfaces...

AutoCAD (as well as many other CAD packages) began to offer Solid Modeling, but this was for the main part, all manual boolean operations, and changing models was not an easy task...

SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Inventor, As well as several other packages are known as Parametric Solid Modeling packages...
Where design is done using parametrics and features to Define solid parts, eliminating the pain of working with individual surfaces surfaces... and making design changes a relatively simple task by simply changing the definition of the part, as opposed to actually redrawing each surface or starting from scratch.

Thanks,
-Josh

 

[TheTick]

Ja, right. But what is a solid, if not a region bounded by surfaces? poor surfacing = poor solids

Good and evil: wrap them up and disguise it as people.

 

[Rocko]

Tick is correct.

SW has limitations on features that can be added or subtracted in assemblies. SW and I both talked about these before they rolled out with multiple solid body capability.

 

[SWVB101]

Solid is the way the Surfaces are defined and grouped together as one object with 'mass', as opposed to creating the individual surfaces...
As you continue to model the mass is recalculated...
Giving the object the sense of being 'Solid'.
A solid generates it's surfaces at build/rebuild from the defined geometry.

To draw a cube with surfaces, you draw 6 faces...
To resize this cube you have to translate the surfaces into different positions and then trim them to recreate the cube.
SolidWorks does make this a little easier but it is not the same as Solids...

To draw a cube as a solid you define the Height, Width, & Length and the Surfaces are created and joined for you...
To resize, you just change the definition.

Use SurfCAM for a while and you will understand what I am talking about as far as surfaces go...
Especially when you try to change a model developed with surfaces...

-------------------

In most cases, an assembly can also be joined to creat a single part from an assembly...
Anything that could not be done in the assembly can then be done in the joined part.