Hi--I want to understand why Solidworks cannot open SMG (Composer) files even though it can export in this proprietary format. When I try to open an SMG file after generating one from a SW assembly, I get a message saying SMG is an unrecognized format. What the heck?
My reason for asking is that I'm trying to find a way to convert SMG files to 3D DWGs. Our company's top-level assemblies are heavy on internal details, and not all Solidworks configurations are available to me. I do have several existing Composer versions (most showing just external features) at my disposal. I hoped to simply reopen these in Solidworks, save out as ACIS (.sat) files, and import those into DraftSight for easy conversion to 3D DWGs.
Does anyone know if there's a process or workaround? Any thoughts, tips, or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Unfortunately, there is no way to transform the data back. As a rule, this does not make sense either.
The CAD data is tessellated and does not contain any of the CAD logic afterwards.
There is the possibility to output the model as U3D later.
But this is not possible with the processed views and animations.
Why should SMG files be converted into 3D DWG? This would only be possible with the native CAD data before they are converted to SMG. And even if you would convert the geometry from SMG into CAD format, no system could understand and process the content from the composer.
I strongly recommend reviewing and revising the process, whatever it is.