Hi Michael,

Did you need to make any changes in MoI to be able to work with Alibre? Exporting to Step and opening in Alibre seems very good from I have seen so far. Although acceptable when the same file is opened in TurboCAD it I think that Alibre's option to stitch to solid is allowing for a better result. All surfaces come in as separate components in TC but do come in as ACIS Solids. I know other formats will come into TC as stitched, but they are mesh-like in appearance and so are not so good for hidden line renders. I prefer the Stp export format because one can get a good hidden line render when opened in TC.

I am mostly curious if you made any changes to MoI to specifically work well with Alibre, or if they were compatible right from the start.

Also, are you bound solely to Alibre with your working arrangement, or are you able to partner with other CAD companies as well, in the same manner? I have zero influence with the TurboCAD people, but one can always hope that something could be arranged.

Hi Don,

> I am mostly curious if you made any changes to MoI
> to specifically work well with Alibre, or if they were
> compatible right from the start.

Nope, there were no changes needed in MoI to make the STEP transfer work, Alibre was already fully compatible with the existing MoI 2.0 version.


> All surfaces come in as separate components in TC

Does this happen when your object was originally a joined solid in MoI as well?

If your object is made up of individual surfaces in MoI, try using the Edit > Join command to glue them together into a joined solid in MoI first before exporting to STEP format.


> I know other formats will come into TC as stitched, but
> they are mesh-like in appearance and so are not so good
> for hidden line renders.

There are basically 2 different categories of formats - the CAD formats that maintain the NURBS surface information in them, and polygon formats that have faceted information in them.

The CAD formats are: 3DM, STEP, IGES, and SAT. The transfer of any of these formats should give you a similar result as STEP format.

The mesh formats are: OBJ, LWO, STL, and 3DS - if you use these formats you will get faceted data instead of the original surface data.


> Also, are you bound solely to Alibre with your working
> arrangement, or are you able to partner with other CAD
> companies as well, in the same manner?

The deal with Alibre is non-exclusive, so it is possible for me to partner with other CAD companies as well if they are interested.

- Michael

Thanks for all the info, Michael.

You asked: Does this happen when your object was originally a joined solid in MoI as well?

Yes, always separate pieces, even if they were all joined in MoI.

One long way around which seems to produce good results is importing the Stp file into Alibre and then exporting that same file from Alibre in SAT format to open in TurboCAD.

At any rate, there is still a lot of learning and experimenting to do, so maybe I will eventually work it out.

Hi Don, hmm well that's kind of unusual - normally a joined object saved to STEP should be imported into the other application as a joined up solid as well instead of as individual surfaces.

What happens if you save a joined object in MoI out to SAT format directly from MoI and then import the SAT into TurboCAD, does that stay joined up?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

The SAT format worked good this time with the squeeze bottle I had made. I was trying with a different model that seems to have had some errors caused by this new user.

The STP is always in pieces. I have attached the stp (zipped) and the original MoI file (zipped) if you want to have a look at them.

Hi Don, your squeeze bottle seems to be fine.

One thing I noticed though is that it is not completely closed solid, the very top part of it has an opening:




It could be possible that TurboCAD doesn't like that it is not a closed solid and decides to break it apart based on that.

Because that's a planar opening at the top, it's easy to close it - in MoI select the bottle body there and then run the Construct > Planar command, it will build a planar end cap through the opening to seal it off and make it a fully closed solid. That could then make TurboCAD like to keep it in one piece better.

Another potential issue that you may be running into is that some programs don't like to read curves out of a STEP file. So you might try just selecting that body piece after it is solidified, and then use the File > Export command in MoI to write the STEP file. The "Export" command will only write out the selected objects to the file instead of writing all objects, and you might see a difference if you don't put any separate curve objects into the STEP file.

I tested doing those 2 things (use Planar to cap the end off, and only export just the main body part to the file) to generate a STEP file and tested it with a few different programs (Rhino, Alibre, ViaCAD) and they kept it all connected together...

- Michael

You were right Michael,

Closing that top allowed the file to be exported in stp format and opened in TC as one unit. This will be an important bit of info to remember.

Don

Hi Don, so that would seem to explain it - if TurboCAD encounters a STEP file that contains a set of joined surfaces that do not form a fully closed solid, it seems to explode them into individual surfaces.

So some of the tips in this other recent thread on generating STLs may be useful - there is an indicator in the object properties panel that will tell you whether a selected object is a fully closed solid or not:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3897.8


Does TurboCAD not really have the concept in it of joined surfaces that do not form a solid? Does it have anything like a "Join" or "Stitch" or "Sew" type command that lets you glue together surfaces at their shared edges into connected pieces?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

You asked: Does TurboCAD not really have the concept in it of joined surfaces that do not form a solid? Does it have anything like a "Join" or "Stitch" or "Sew" type command that lets you glue together surfaces at their shared edges into connected pieces?

I must confess that I am not well versed on the technicalities of how TurboCAD does what it does. I know that it uses the ACIS engine and creates solids, but I have never really understood all of that. TurboCAD can use surfaces, but that term used in TC may mean something different than what others mean when they talk about surface modeling. The lower version of TurboCAD (that is Deluxe) is limited to what are called TC Surfaces and in this case that is a very limiting factor when it comes to modeling.

With regards to your last question. Yes, TurboCAD has all kinds of tools when it comes to Boolean Operations and Solid /Surface translations. Of course, all these tools work best on objects that were created right in TurboCAD.

I still think that MoI and TurboCAD will work well together, I just need to learn MoI a whole lot better - but that will take time. Even in the last couple days of our discussions I have learned so much. I will need to come to grips with how things are modeled in MoI as it appears to be quite different than how one models in TurboCAD.

Thanks for all your time.

I know I will have additional questions, but I will, of course, start new threads when needed.

Don

Wow, do I ever feel foolish. I just noticed that TurboCAD can open 3dm files directly. This will prove to be a real bonus.

Hi Don,

> TurboCAD can use surfaces, but that term used in TC
> may mean something different than what others mean
> when they talk about surface modeling.

The reason I was asking about that, was that it used to be pretty common for CAD programs to be oriented primarily on working with solids and individual surfaces were only used as a way to slice off a piece of a solid.

It could be possible that TurboCAD is set up along those lines - if so then that means that you'd want to make your object in MoI to be a fully closed solid before exporting it into TurboCAD if you wanted it to stay connected together over there.

MoI is what is sometimes called a "hybrid" modeler where you can work on surfaces that can then be glued together at their edges to form a solid (in MoI the Edit > Join command does this) , and also a solid can be broken down into individual separate surfaces (in MoI with Edit > Separate). In a hybrid modeler you can have an object that has several surfaces joined together into a connected piece but without it necessarily being a solid if it has some open edges on it.

A lot of programs that used to be focused just on handling solids (SolidWorks, etc..) have over time become hybrid systems.

- Michael

Hi all,

I showed previously the results in PDF format of bringing a MoI file into TurboCAD Pro by importing a SAT file from MoI to do a 2D drawing of the "Spider" in TurboCAD Pro. Here attached are PDF files of the same SAT model brought into ViaCAD 2D/3D and Alibre Pro trial. To me the SAT format file transfer from MoI to TurboCAD Pro, ViaCAD 2D/3D and Alibre seems to be the most flawless for performing other operations within the receiving CAD programs from MoI. Dimensions are not to the same features, but you should get the jist of it. File sizes are considerably different as well. Everyone can judge for themselves.

Michael T

I have to admit, despite my past encounter with the decisions made by Alibre with respect to how the company handled the ending of the Xpress package of the software, I truly think the combination of MoI and Alibre Expert will be something like Salvador Dali and Leonardo da Vinci living in the same time period and hanging out together (that's a good thing, for those who don't understand this :-)

I hope that Michael G. and Alibre continue with good fortune into the future.

Michael T.

Hi Michael G. and Max,

When I export a STEP 203 (not an Alibre .stp) or SAT file from Alibre and import into MoI, the model is scaled down 10 times from its original size. Is there a setting I am missing? I have both MoI and Alibre units set at millimeters.

Michael T.

Hi Michael T,

> Is there a setting I am missing?

Not that I know of, I think what you are trying is supposed to work.

Could you please post a simple example model like a box in both STEP and SAT formats that has this problem so I can take a look at what is happening when it is opened in MoI?

Also are you using the File / Open command to bring it into MoI or the File / Import command?

The difference between those 2 commands is that "opening" a file brings in all the settings from the file as well such as its unit settings. If you do an "import" of a file into MoI on the other hand, that merges the file with the current model instead of just replacing the current model.

- Michael

Hi Michael T,

Please try this settings. :)

Hi Michael G.

I am attaching a zip file that contains both STEP and SAT files. I did try Import and Open. The results were the same.

Michael T.

Hi Ralf-S,

I do have set to that.

Thanks,

Michael T.

Hi Michael T - the problem seems to be that the files written from Alibre are stored as centimeter units in the file. Maybe there is some export option in Alibre that controls what units are used to export the file separate from the units currently used in modeling?

When I open your SAT file in MoI, you can see that it is read in centimeters, the units are displayed in the coordinate controls in the bottom toolbar here:



So if you want to use millimeters as your units instead of centimeters, after loading the SAT file go to Options > General > Unit system, and change the Unit system option there to say "Unit system: Millimeters". You'll also want the checkbox for "Scale on unit system change" under the Unit options (the button right next to the units dropdown, the dialog that Ralf was showing above) to be enabled so that your model scales to the same proportions in mm when you switch the units. Also you'll probably want that second option "Scale when importing different units" to also be enabled, that will make the Import command scale imported geometry to maintain its physical unit size.

For the STEP format import, MoI did not seem to be able to read the units setting from the file at all in that case, I'll need to examine that to see why. So after reading in the STEP file the units in MoI are set to "No unit system". To fix this up you will need to set the units twice in a row - first change it from "No unit system" to centimeters. This will not scale the model but it will get your unit system to centimeters to match what was in the file. Then set the units a second time to mm and then the switch from cm to mm will scale your object up and you'll have what you need.

So for either case, you just need to go to the Unit system option in MoI and set it (twice for the STEP file first to cm and then to mm) and that should solve the problem. Please let me know if that does not solve the issue for you.


You may want to check in the Alibre export options though to see if there is some option that is set that is making it export files using centimeters as the units in the exported file.


- Michael

Thanks Michael G. I'll check it out and let you know.

Michael T.