Looking at those renders, there could be two reasons that the seam is visible. One is that the vertices are not being welded when they are exported by Alibre, resulting in duplicate edges along the seam, or, more unlikely, a deliberate Phong break is being applied to that edge. Either way, the Phong smoother is stopping at that seam. Somehow, you have to weld all the duplicate vertices so that there is no obvious break that the render engine can see.

Hi Steve - so ideally the export to the render engine would include vertex normals coming from the original NURBS surfaces.

Usually if vertex normals are supplied render engines will not do any kind of phong smoothing of their own with break angles where welding or not having welding is significant - those are all methods that render engines use to cook up vertex normals from plain polygons that did not have any vertex normals attached to them to start with (which could be the case in various situations like if you're creating polygons directly in a polygon modeling program or something like that).

That's what's so great about getting vertex normals to come through from the original CAD model - because when it does you don't have to worry about any of those kinds of phong smoothing / break angle / welding type issues... If the NURBS vertex normals come though it means the polygons will be shaded to look the same as the original NURBS surface even if they're completely unwelded with every single polygon unconnected to any other.

- Michael

I ended up just re-doing the sphere.


I did have a hell of a time getting the lettering booleaned to the sphere.

Is there an easy way to do that?

The steps I used:
(used keyshot logo eps for lettering template)
1)project letters to sphere surface
2)get center point of each letter and the sphere
3)extrude each letter by selecting direction from sphere center to letter center
[This is where the problem comes from. The projected letters only extrude as surfaces.]
4)create new sphere slightly larger then original
5)boolean merge both spheres and letters. (I now have solid letters that follow the sphere curve)
6)draw new sphere same as original size or slightly (1/64") larger
7)boolean union each individual letter with the sphere (if I try to do all of the letters at once it either fails or has voids and will not create a solid)

This process after the projection takes several tries to get good results.

Hi Nick,

Please make sure, you have the current version of
- Alibre Design V2011.0.0.60 (32 or 64 bit)
- KeyShot 2.2.45

Alibre settings:
- File -> Properties -> Display -> Minimal Circular Facets: min. 36 --- max. 64 -> F5 -> Save


KeyShot 2.2.45
- File -> Open -> ....KeyShot -> Scenes -> keyshot_bal.bip

Screenshot: keyshot_bal.bip

Hi Nick - re: booleaning letters on the sphere - from what you wrote it sounded like you were projecting curves, then extruding the projected curve? You'll end up with a non-planar curve that way and extruding a non-planar curve will not produce end caps because the curve extruder only knows how to put end caps on planar curves.

But if you use Trim to cut up the sphere surface by your curves, you can instead extrude those smaller surface pieces, and extruding a surface will always result in end caps even if it is non-planar because the extruder knows it can just make a copy of that surface on the other side to cap it off.

So if you do it that way (extrude surface pieces rather than curves) you'll have solids after the extrude and you won't have to do some of your other steps after that.

Another tip - you may want to use the Shell command on those surfaces to thicken them up rather than extrusion - the shell command can take a surface and then produce a thickened solid from it and you don't have to set any direction for it because the it's created by surface offsetting where it follows the surface normal of the starting surface.

See here for an example image for Shell:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference7.htm#shell

- Michael

It looks like Alibre is either not exporting the vertex normals properly or is not treating the sphere as a solid, closed surface. If the sphere was imported from MoI might there be another step in Alibre to close the surface? Join tolerances might be different?

- Moi3D
- Export -> STEP
- AD -> Import
- AD -> Export -> *.bip
- KS -> Open

In French I read MOL = Flabby :)

So it's better to write Moi = Me ;)

Ralf-
Are you suggesting MoI>STEP>Alibre works better than directly importing .3dm files into Alibre?

I might just have to hunker down and learn 3ds MAX (I won a license, but have never previously used it...), my limited MAX skills have shown better import results, especially with the direct .fbx out of MoI to MAX.

Well, I should learn MAX anyway...

Nick-

Alibre can not import *.3dm files.

Import/Export
- MoI3D <-> AD you can use: STEP, SAT, IGES

Yes it can (at least mine can). Alibre labels it as Rhino for some strange reason...

Nick,

Probably you have installed an Add-on?

3DM Import for Alibre Design - Rhinoceros 3DM file import add-on for Alibre Design
http://www.sycode.com/products/3dm_import_ad/index.htm

Not from there, although I do want the 3D DWG export... I tried the 3ds and it creates a mess(h) with large assemblies.

Back to the point, perhaps the official Alibre Rhino plugin. It's on my downloads page (I have AD Expert).

I just saw this as well. Do you have a Rhino surface tutorial?

Maybe that's your problem, because on the download page is the Rhino Plugin AD V11.

But anyway, I recommend STEP, IGES, SAT.

Actually, I never installed the rhino plugin. I think it's part of the Alibre core functionality.
http://www.alibre.com/products/exchange.asp

<Shrug>

Nick,
Have you read the tutorial: Using Rhino surfaces

This tutorial covers:

> Inserting provided Rhino files

> Sketching on the appropriate planes/faces

> Using the Trim Model function

....

> 1. In a new part workspace, from the Insert menu select Surfaces...


As far as I know, there is no *.3dm direct import option.
( I use Alibre Expert 64 bit)

Looks like you have installed a third-party plug-in, which caused the problem.

( Maybe it was a similar problem to -> http://forum.alibre.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12687)

Ralf,
I have not read through the tutorial as I am mainly dealing with (hopefully) solids. When I need to import a surface, yeah, I'll probably look it up.

I am telling you my Alibre (Alibre Expert 2011 x86 and x64) have *.3dm import. I did not install any add-on, the Alibre Rhino add-on will not install to AD 2011 and I have not installed Sycode for a 3dm plugin (I actually wasn't aware they had one.)

All Add-ons listed in my add-on library:
x86
Alibre Motion
Alibre Part Library
Alibre Translate
Keyshot
TraceParts Library
SYCODE DWG Export (trial)

x64
Alibre Translate
Keyshot
TraceParts Library

I think the wheel problem was sloppy work on my part combined with unfamiliarity of new programs.

If you lookup "About Importing Files" in the help file you will see *.3dm as one of the core file import filters.

Straight from the help file;

>Supported file types
>Part
>>Alibre Design files (*.stp)

>>SolidWorks part files (*.sldprt)

>>All STEP files (*.stp, *.step, *.ste)

>>SAT files (ACIS) (*.sat)

>>IGES files (*.igs)

>>Rhino files (*.3dm)

>>* AutoDesk Inventor (*.ipt)

>>* Pro/E (*.prt, *.xpr)

>>* SolidEdge (*.par, *.psm)

>>* Catia (*.CATPart)

>>* Parasolid

>* - Available with purchase of Alibre Translate add-on.

I don't know what to tell you... Maybe I got a special edition? Alibre is always adding/removing "bonus" features.

Alibre's file type is Step, although they also have a proprietary version of step created that handles their assembly stuff.. When you want to get your NURBS data out, and use step, you can also choose to "Export" step, but in the industry standard step format and not the alibre step format, which will most likely not work in other programs... FYI.