Hi All
Can anybody give me any tips for speeding up Solidworks when working with imported iges files?
It seems to be very demanding on the cpu and takes a long time trying to process models, fill faces etc.
I am just tying to get the models repaired and to a solid body state so I can then scale and cut the models.
Computer is i7 4770 with 20 Gb of Ram.
Thanks
Is iges the best format to import or is stl better?
they are to completely different formats. igs is usually NURB's and stl is polygonal (will not get you surface/solids). Any hopes of getting to solid would be with IGES. What format is it in that you are trying to import to SW?
Mark
Sorry, I was thinking of step files not stl.
I believe the models are getting saved out of Geomgic or Maya or similar program.
We payed somebody else to convert the models to nurbs and I am wondering what the best format for them to save as is.
Hello Job,
For suggestion of Mark is true.
The surface is bigger, so the perfomance of SolidWorks become slow.
But you test using shaded mode. don't using shaded with edge.
And please reduce your level of detail.
Dony
It is possible to convert a polygonal model to nurbs that works well in SolidWorks, although it is common to fix intersecting surfaces or bad faces resulting from the poly to nurbs conversion in order to make it a solid in SolidWorks. If you have to spend a long time fixing the surfaces to get a solid, then there are some other things to consider.
Without seeing your original poly model and the nurbs conversion, its hard to say whether some of the issues you are experiencing could have been eliminated when the model was converted, or if the original poly model had some issues that could not be addressed in a straight conversion.
It would be helpful to post the original poly model and the nurbs version if that is possible.
I am afraid the original files are way over the file size limit so I may not be able to post them here.
File size is from about 120mb up to nearly 500mb which is big for Solidworks.
How would you recomend coverting a polygon model to nurbs as I am getting a lot of faulty faces and gaps with our current workflow?
Thanks
Job
There are several discontinuities in your converted model which I have circled. The black circles indicate a large change from one rectangular tile to another, and the grey ones where the patch structure does not match from one tile to the next.
I don't know where the rectangular tiles are coming from.
If you could open the original polygon model in another application and post a few sceenshots that show the edges of the polys, that would be helpful.
Job,
STEP is usually better than IGES, although you will run into models every once in a while where IGES will import better.
I suspect that SolidWorks is going to struggle with parts like that no matter what you do.
You may be able to work with the people doing the conversion to get files that are better suited to SolidWorks. They may know some tricks.
Jerry S.
The original stl is small so I have attached that for you to have a look at.
Job,
The STL you posted has too few polys to be the actual file that was used for the conversion. There is more surface detail in the screenshot of the nurbs model you posted. If anything, the conversion to nurbs would soften the detail a bit.
The reason I would need to see the specific file that was used to do the conversion is to determine whether it may be responsible for the issues with the nurbs version.
I have attached another file but cannot guarentee that this is the correct one as the person doing the job was sent a number of different versions. I have found out with this particular model that guy uses Solidworks to do the conversion to nurbs but I don't know how.
I am hoping I can get the original Solidworks file of him.
OK, I do not see anything in the scan that indicates where it would produce any of the problems you are seeing after its converted to a nurbs surface. Here couple of detail shots to compare to the areas I circled previously. It is one continuous mesh, without any breaks or gaps.
I suspect the problem is with the conversion. I don't know what is causing the tiling effect where the surfaces are split along a straight line, but its not the poly model.
If this were run through Geomagic to do the poly to nurbs conversion, it should have produced much better sufaces than what you received. I have worked with numerous files that have been converted though Geomagic, and have not seen anything that has had these significant issues.
Job,
You indicated that the person used SolidWorks to do the conversion.
I don't have any experience with Scan to 3D in SolidWorks, which is probably what the person used, since that is the only tool in SolidWorks that could convert the polys to nurbs.
There are others here who could comment on how Scan to 3D might handle this poly model.
Thanks Chris
I think I need to try and get more info from the guy thats converting the model.
Appreciate your time.
This is common with any PC when using a SW with large amount of surface bodies - .i.e doesn't matter how fast a computer
you have... Try getting them to solid or use them as reference only and then suppress them.
Mark