Without dragging out the whole story - let's just say we have a large number of Imported Solids that are faceted, and that the sheer number of faces involved is burdensome to SolidWorks even on a fairly well equipped machine. It's also impossible to view the assembly with solid edges, which is highly desirable at times.

We recieve this geometry from our customers in .STEP files, and we've ran the issue by them however the source data is also faceted so we're not going to have any luck changing what we get.

I've tried using ScanTo3d in various ways to simplify the surface geometry. This has worked to a small extent however it will take significant effort to apply to all the parts as the geometry is not... normal (airframe cockpit - lots of unusually curved surfaces with varying thickness).

I've tried inserting a curve around the periphery of some of the simpler geometry, for example the windshield, however inserting a filled surface to this curve results in a concave surface, differing from the original by up to .38" in some places, which is huge in our world.

My question is... Is there any way to create relatively smooth surfaces from faceted geometry. I've found very little out there to suggest there's a relatively quick and easy solution.