1 Reply Latest reply on Oct 27, 2013 9:26 AM by Robert Lansdale

    Import Cinema 4d projects to Solidworks, is it possible?

    Marcus Barnet
    Marcus Barnet Feb 9, 2012 5:31 AM

      Tipically, I use Solidworks 10 to design 3d mechanical structures but i'm not able to use it to draw organic shapes like character faces and bodies.

       

      On the contrary, one of my friends, is able to do this but he uses Cinema 4d, so i woud like to ask you if it is possible to import Cinema 4d projects into Solidworks in order to add inner mechanical structures within the cinema 4d organic shapes.

       

      For example, if my friend draws a character body, then can i import this 3d face in Solidworks and modify it to add mechanical structure inside?

       

      I tried to do it with a sample project, but solidworks imported only a part of the whole project.

       

      I hope you can help me, thanks!

        • Re: Import Cinema 4d projects to Solidworks, is it possible?
          Robert Lansdale
          Robert Lansdale Oct 27, 2013 9:26 AM (in response to Marcus Barnet)

          For the reference of others, this cannot be done. I am asked of this question many times per day. Almost all of my work revolves entirely around SolidWorks and Cinema-4D since 1997 so I know of this answer better than anyone.

           

          You can't do this because SolidWorks is a BREP solids modeler and Cinema-4D

          just uses simple polygon meshes. You can't turn meshes into a proper solids

          model as you expect. It is like turning water back into an ice sculpture.

           

          It's become an even more rampant problem since the SketchUp software became

          popular back in 2010, as there's 25 million people all trying to use SketchUp

          as a MCAD modeller (which it is not). Hence, even though your question relates

          to Cinema-4D, I do explain this problem in a slightly deeper manner online here:

           

          http://www.okino.com/conv/exp_sketchup.htm#reconstruction

           

          At most, you'll need one of these interactive surface approximation programs.

          They allow you to interactively re-surface a mesh model with NURBS

          equivalents, after which you can then attempt to stitch the NURBS back into a

          BREP solid. You do need a proper program to re-engineer the mesh data into

          proper NURBS, and then turn the NURBS into solids.

           

          Now, no one ends up doing this since the average costs are in the $5k range,

          and you still need to spend many hours doing the reverse engineering yourself.