... and have to say I'm pleasantly surprised :) MoI is a very capable software and I hope to use it a lot in the future.

The item below I made for my wife as an anniversary gift. I hope to start the machining soon!







The second image shows some facetting on the 'bridge'. I believe this is due to some import/export bugs in Alibre.
The workflow here is MoI --> .igs --> Alibre --> .bip --> Keyshot

Hi bigseb, that's a great result and should make a nice gift, nice details on the frame!

I'm glad that you are liking MoI!


> The second image shows some facetting on the 'bridge'. I believe
> this is due to some import/export bugs in Alibre.
> The workflow here is MoI --> .igs --> Alibre --> .bip --> Keyshot

The part going from Alibre to .bip format will involve Alibre converting from NURBS surface data into triangle mesh polygon data instead, and you can get that kind of visible faceting in areas where not quite enough triangles were used for that conversion process.

Somewhere during the export from Alibre to .bip there may be an option for increasing the density of the generated mesh, if you bump that up that should help reduce the appearance of faceting.

- Michael

Michael,

Thanks. Strange thing about the facetting is that it is ONLY on the bridge! All other curved surfaces are fine. Hence I think it is a bug. Have had several issues regarding importing/exporting with Alibre.

Hi bigseb - well the bridge looks like it is a bit longer in proportion and shallowly curved - often times things that are shaped like that do not quite get enough triangles created for them when the metric being used is a maximum allowed angular measurement between the surface normals at the triangle vertices.

When MoI generates a mesh there are some other options available like putting in a distance value that can be used for refining down polygons that would be larger than a certain size - look for something kind of parameters similar to that.

- Michael

wow that are really great details on the frame. Nice work..

Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)

RE: FACETTED BRIDGES

The workflow for the above renders was MoI --> .igs --> Alibre --> .bip --> Keyshot. The facetting seen in the renders is, imo, the result of a bug in Alibre.

To confirm this I imported the iges into PowerMILL i.e. MoI --> .igs --> PowerMILL and the result... no facets.

Hi bigseb,

> The workflow for the above renders was MoI --> .igs --> Alibre --> .bip --> Keyshot.
> The facetting seen in the renders is, imo, the result of a bug in Alibre.

The thing is, when you convert into .bip format, the geometry in the .bip will actually contain 100% triangular facets in it.

You just won't be able to notice it as much in areas where a lot of facets were generated.

Many meshing engines have various parameters in them that control how the meshing engine will decide for whether to subdivide things into more facets in a particular area or not.

If there are any mesh generation settings like that available for you to tweak, you could possibly solve the bug by adjusting those parameters.

- Michael

Hi BigSeb>> Regarding triangulation in Alibre...

You probably already know this but have you tried increasing 'curve smoothness' display setting in Alibre before you export? Here are two identical files rendered in Keyshot 'wireframe' from Alibre. The first set at 'coarse', the second at 'Fine'.

Are you stuck with your keyshot only opening files from Alibre? Use MoI as the mesher. It is far superior!

Models going to Alibre? Send them as STEP or ACIS over IGES.

PowerMill is opening your NURBS surfaces. It's not meshiing them.

Al,

My settings are always at fine.

Burrman,

I will try step later today. Thanks.

> Are you stuck with your keyshot only opening files
> from Alibre? Use MoI as the mesher. It is far superior!

Unfortunately I think I remember hearing that the Keyshot version that comes bundled with Alibre does not have all the same regular import file support as the regular version does, like it doesn't support OBJ import.

So basically with those importers stripped out you're forced to go through Alibre for generating the mesh into Keyshot's own .bip format and can't use MoI's mesh exporter instead...

At least I think that may be the case.

- Michael

Its true. My Keyshot only imports/opens bip files.